FL9

After lunch on October 15th we left the WalMart at Kalispell, MT with a freshly patched tire and headed back out of civilization.  We had paralled a branch line from Columbia Falls down to Kalispell on our way in, and having done no advance research, I assumed it was operated by the BNSF.  The error of this assumption came suddenly to our attention when we overtook an SW-1500 and a GP35 lugging a string of cars north towards Columbia Falls.

Later Internet research quickly discovered the branch line was turned over by the BNSF in 2004 to WATCO, who now operates it as the Mission Mountain Railroad in reference to a mountain range south of Kalispell.  We paused in Columbia Falls and caught them one more time as they headed on to the BNSF interchange.

It was raining again as we passed through Belton, but I really wanted a shot of a westbound train at the location known as “Ken’s Curve” just east of town.  Judy let me out with camera, radio and umbrella on the shoulder of Highway 2 at the opening in the trees created by a Forest Service employee/railfan who tragically perished in a plane crash several years ago.  Judy parked well off the road at a pullout about fifty yards away, and I took up my vigil as the rain beat down on my umbrella.  I had told her I would give this about half an hour in the hopes a westbound would put in an appearance, and now the dice were rolling across the table.  When they stopped rolling in a few minutes as the radio suddenly came alive with a detector going off to the east, the dice showed a lucky seven.  I thanked the digital camera’s inventors as I cranked the ASA on up to 1600 to compensate for the low light, and before long the BNSF 4995 West showed up with three other Heritage units and an intermodal train in tow.

I shot him again a few seconds later as the headlight glinted off of the wet rails.

One more shot as the head end was about to exit the scene with the train stretched back through the tunnel and out of sight along the river gave me the desired closure on this spot for this trip.  Sunshine and a westbound here will have to wait for next time.

We pulled over at boat launching spot called Moccasin where what I think is Harrison Creek passes under the BNSF.  The BNSF 4995 West met the BNSF 5143 East at Belton, and it was only a few minutes before the fast-moving eastbound caught up with us.

I took one more shot looking upstream at the seasonally low water before we followed the eastbound towards Essex.

The train’s speed gradually dropped off as the grade increased, and we had no problem beating it to the Dickey Creek road crossing on the way to our caboose.  Here we see the head end passing by the helper set that will soon couple onto the rear of this auto rack train to give it a shove over Marias Pass.

After the rear end of the eastbound passed by,  for my last shot of the day I zoomed in on BNSF SD40-2 #8050 to get a closer look at the special hardware that allows the helper sets to uncouple from a train while moving. so as to expidite operations over the pass.

I remember reading an explanation of how this works somewhere, so maybe one of you loyal readers will help me find the link again.