After seeing an eastbound leaving Kanaskat yesterday morning (Saturday 5-19-12) on ATCS I quickly headed over Snoqualmie Pass to Easton. I was waiting there for the crew to call out the approach signal to Easton but first thing I heard was the detector up on the hill. I barely got up to Monahan Road at the old location near Cabin Creek in time for grain empty X-KALEDU that was led by the 5127/6019/5715.

After photographing it there at 08:37 the chase was on with the list in hand of my rarely photographed locations. I planned to check some of them off with this train.  First stop was at the East switch at East Easton.

I had wanted to shoot the train at the east switch of Bristol and checked out angles off the highway from up on the hill but nothing worked. I settled for this shot just west of the east switch though I had shot here before.

In BN years the east end of Bristol siding ended right here but during the rebuild it was extended to its present location.

Also on my list was Milepost 12 which is a bit more elevated then than the shot a bit further west into the curve itself.

While I like the shot, the guardrail is pretty much an eyesore. To try and crop it out would have made the shot even tighter though.

Kind of hard to not want to chose the curves at the east end of MP 12 for photographs.

I thought about this shot for the current RR Forums contest going on of which the subject is “curves” but had a better shot in mind on the Lakeside Sub where I was planning on going after leaving the 5127 behind.

Then it was on to Thorp as it was on my list to photograph today. I was a bit surprised to find the sun on the north side of the tracks here.  Here is the BNSF 5127 at the east switch of Thorp, WA.

I liked how the train curved around from the right in the background.

Leaving Thorp I noticed that the old NP depot was not blocked in today so decided I had better get a few photos of it before heading on to central Washington.

The BNSF 5127 tied up at Ellensburg and I waited over 30 minutes to see if another crew was going to show up and take it on east but none came so I left. At least if BNSF goes ahead with the “Iron Triangle” that isn’t going to happen anymore. No more trains stopping at Ellensburg for hours and many chases will be able to continue into the Yakima Canyon or west towards Easton instead of ending at Ellensburg.