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This the longest tunnel on American network. It's not even close to Swiss tunnels in length, but at almost 8 miles still very long. You can stand at the West Portal right on the track and see the headlight of a train for 20 minutes before it will get close. All you will hear is just a distant deep rumble. This tunnel was also electrified long time ago. Worlds largest in size, single unit electrics used to run through here; Great Northern W1 class. Too bad they went backwards and de electrified this line. Now it's sort of a bottle neck because it takes sometimes half hour to blow out the diesel smoke out if it. The infrastructure that you see on the picture is actually the fan system for blowing out the fumes.
Ya, used to be the longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere. Mt McDonald (sp?) tunnel at Rogers Pass came in something like 300 ft longer.
The thing about the Cascade Tunnel is if you stand just at the right spot at the West Portal, you can see the other end. Well, if the door is open. It is uphill all the way to about 200ft before the East Portal then the alignment heads down toward Berne ( and points east). When a train comes in Westbound from Berne, it is like the sun rising.
I happened to be at the West Portal for the 1st train West after the 2nd fan was installed. You could see it come in, then after about 10 minutes, the headlight disappeared. Apparently that 2nd fan blew all the smoke past the whole train. Scanner had the train crew really bitching. They did have O2 masks onboard. So when the ventilation was turned on was changed and ran at half power while a West bound was in the bore. So there still is about a 20 minute wait Eastbound for the tunnel to clear. Westbound can pretty much run one train after another, block signals depending.

I y'all are going through Cascade Pass, both East and West portals are worth planning for. Google map it to find those access roads.

Later
 
Portola, California, and the Western Pacific RR museum:
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First a comparison between styling of early EMD diesels. Next two, Baldwin AS616 diesel, ex Southern Pacific.
 
When I first moved to western Oregon, there was one of those red and orange Baldwins parked in Beaverton. I think from a logging railroad near Klamath Falls. The second time I went by all the cables had been taken. The last time, it was a pile of scrap metal.

Edit: so it was actually in Tigard (the ‘I’ in Tigard is long I sound) and was the Oregon Northwestern, which in spite of its name was in south east Oregon.
 
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A huge Sierra Pacific wood mill in a town of Quincy, CA has their own little railroad with classic switchers:
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Right outside their gate, stands an interesting modified Southern Pacific hopper:
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I have no clue what was the purpose for that modification and it was the only one such car I've seen. Pictures taken this past August.
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I'm posting all four shots I took, just in case someone is crazy enough to model the thing😃
 
That’s a railroad and a car just begging to be modelled, isn’t it?
Going by the last picture no one’s going to steal it at least!
 
That’s a railroad and a car just begging to be modelled, isn’t it?
Going by the last picture no one’s going to steal it at least!
It's definitely a good modeling project for a limited amount of space. And a bonus is the interchange with an major railroad (Union Pacific), opportunity for hidden staging yards. The regular UP power for those short lumber trains is this:
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Assigned to Portola yard, this diesel has brought a lumber train earlier in the day. Another thing of interest is the older ALCo in the near by Western Pacific museum, which obviously has worked at the mill in the past:
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Quincy Railroad #4.
When I was there first time two years ago, I caught such a train at the Williams Loop. Definitely a lucky day:
 
A huge Sierra Pacific wood mill in a town of Quincy, CA has their own little railroad with classic switchers:View attachment 199370View attachment 199369
Right outside their gate, stands an interesting modified Southern Pacific hopper:View attachment 199372View attachment 199371
I have no clue what was the purpose for that modification and it was the only one such car I've seen. Pictures taken this past August.View attachment 199374View attachment 199373
I'm posting all four shots I took, just in case someone is crazy enough to model the thing😃
Startin to get some ideas
 
A few more from the Western Pacific museum in Portola, Ca:
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Western Pacific MP15(?), and a Geep from its subsidiary Sacramento Northern. Next a Fairbanks Morse diesel switcher:
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Something for the juice fans:
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Electric with a side pantograph for top loading from a mine in Utah.
Last a different view of the famous Keddie Wye and yes i walked the whole thing this time, including the tunnel which is hidden from view when standing on the road.
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It's August 27, 2019 and we're on the Durango and Silverton train deep in the Rockies. Still several miles away from our destination in Silverton, train comes to a stop. After investigating it turns out the steam locomotive broke a combination link on right side. So we backed up into a nearby wye where the crew disconnected from our train and moved engine forward to wait for a maintenance crew to bring welding equipment. So rare shots of former Rio Grande narrow gauge steam were possible smack in the middle of Rocky Mountains:
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You can just see the platform of the welding crew under the right side of tender. After butt welding the combination link the crew backed up to our train, hooked up and got us moving again...only to break the welding few miles later. It was decided to keep going on one cylinder up to Silverton (try that in a diesel😉), the beast of the locomotive made it and it was interesting hearing the thing working on single cylinder through the canyõn. In Silverton the welding crew was back on the job and after filing both sides diagonally, they made an excellent job welding the link back up. We made back to Durango very late in the dark and some passengers decided to go back on the bus while some stayed on the train, but it was an experience not to forget. Oh and i don't want to hear any nonsense about diesels superiority here😁, they would all fall short.
 
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