Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

Thanks Cy as that was one of my "ground-zero's" of 1970-80"
in Bellingham WA. The Bham MILW yard had to exit south over
the GN diamond at the "Foot of Cornwall Street" and then enter
the BN mainline via a siding just out of sight. Also was known as
the "AMFAB" area/tracks. Its gone now but GP had a huge
warehouse that loaded either the MILW or BN with a dozen
carloads of paper products a day. The photo of MILW 550
is definately 1979-80 as rebuild SD9's now called SD10's
started showing up more than the MILW GEunk lash-ups.
I drove by the old by the old Bham MILW yard on Xmas day
and the BNSF had some MOW equipment stored there of
which dint merrit a picture.

The current configuration of this very historic railroad jct
is now just a switch on the BNSF mainline going through
Bellingham. I can tell you a lot of history happened here
but you could never tell by that current photo of the place.
I tell you Bham is a ghost town today..for RR business.

Thanks for the chime-in Mr Iron-Chink as you dont talk to much
but when you do its always appreciated. BNSF Bham now is just
the mainline through town where all the "thru-traffic" can get ..
"thru" without any worries of the Bham Switcher out there
delaying trains. Its really for the good of Bellingham that any
passing train get through Bellingham going at the maximum
authorized speed which is 25mph until the power clears F St
going north and then they crank it up for a run up Bham Hill.
For sure you want to keep the oil trains moving right along
through your town.

I took a few minutes out my day to find some of the pictures
I've taken at what would be MP 96.2 of the GN/BN Bham Subdiv
where the MILW made the 1st of 4 crossovers over the GN/BN
in less than a mile..all supported by the "slap-boards" and
the 5-minute rule. Not a 100 yards north of this MILW/GN
diamond was another diamond with slapboard protection
which "used to be" the MILW track from the yard that went
to the ferry dock that went defunct in the mid-60's. Then
maybe a couple thousand yards further are more slapboards
with a MILW track from their yard that crossed Cornwall Ave
and right into GP. Then maybe another 1500 yards and another
GN/BN/MILW diamond with slapboards and the staging area
for all northbound MILW trains heading for Sumas. Pretty
unique situations with all the MILW X-overs. As a teen going
to sleep with my bedroom window open and the wind blowing
just right..I could hear every whistle for every crossing for
a train coming northbound into Bham as well as the "louder
noise" of a passing train going over multiple railroad diamonds.
Some of my first railroad pictures were taken here with a
Brownie Box camera using 620 film. Most likely I rode my
bicycle to this location as I dint have a drivers license yet
in the B&W days.

-- Edited by The Krink on Thursday 22nd of January 2015 02:46:19 AM

Buckethead wrote:

---

BD is still angry I ran the original Great Northern "Hustle Muscle" as the leader on a mixed freight. It was being shipped North for the museum in Duluth. They figured...huh! Free horsepower!

---

 Attitude, attitude, attitude . . .

Just for fun I looked-up the MILW Omaha to Chicago mainline..
cities and towns today on RRpicturearchives.net. The MILW was
a real trailblazer but seemed to avoid any big city that could
add some revenue across Iowa. The MILW usually hit the big
cities with a branch-line. Interesting if you work west from
Savanna Illinois west, the MILW doesnt hit a single population
center all the way to Council Bluffs..just a branchline to Des
Moines. This was the line the MILW and UP teamed up to run
a fast passenger train schedule for many years. Today if
you check-out every town on the timetable for this trackage
today and you wouldnt believe all the changes to things.

Of course as a teenager with his first 35mm camera you
wanted to shoot way more pictures than you had film and
to get a pack of pictures back you had to anti-up some
lawn-mowing money. So the times were very different
then but lets say I wasted film that would prove historical
somehow. Simple track pictures of the early 1970s.
You wonder why I would take a picture of a rail-joint
with an anglebar and 4-bolts with nuts...well it was the only
one I could find in my location..with all the nuts. The
"Rolley-Polley" high iron of the MILW Sumas Branch
through Bellingham.

-- Edited by The Krink on Sunday 1st of February 2015 02:22:17 AM

I got a "MILW Bellingham Vol 2" in the hopper ready to post
on rrpicturesarchives.net in the next day or so. Its all the
ones that dint make Vol 1. Wish I could redo Vol 1 with better
scans of every picture but if I did I'd lose all the "views" and
I dont want that. Got plenty of views in their current presentation
so why mess with it. So "MILW Bellingham Vol 2" you will want to
check out. Its been a nightmare trying to "make-up" actual dates of my pictures as I never wrote stuff like that down. I know when
I bought my first 35mm camera and I can tell the seasons by
the leaves on the trees and I know I went nuts with my new
camera and hitting the Bellingham MILW facilities nearly
daily on my bike after school let loose. 1971-1972..the B&W
years for me in photography. After high school I did my own
dark-room work in the bathroom. Developed my own negatives
and used an enlager to do prints. All that equipment is still with
me..only now its in the rafters of my garage. These MILW pictures
are historical as its been 35 years since the MILW ended operations
in Bellingham. You either have MILW pictures in Bham or you dont.