Hello,
Spending a few weeks in April in Boise. Wondering if anybody lives either in or close to the city that has a good grasp of where to do some trainwatching. I looked at the system map for BNSF as well as UP. Didn’t see much there. I know zilch about the area other than that Boise State plays football on that ridiculous blue field.
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There is MotivePower Industries.
http://www.motivepower-wabtec.com/about/facilities.php
You might want to check out http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/, Bing Maps, and Google Maps to see what is in the area.
Not much happens there any more but the UP yard is in Nampa, just down the road from Boise. I don’t think the BN runs there; but there is a good chance I’m wrong.
I have held off answering in hope that someone more familiar than I would. First IIRC Boise itself was on an old main or passenger line separate from the freight main which I suspect was built later. I think one end is intact and the other is abandoned.
UP freight yard in the area is at Nampa, 15-20 miles west of Boise. BNSF is nowhere close. Southern Idaho is strictly a UP show and most of the branch lines have been shortlined. The line from Pocatello area to Butte Montana was still UP last I knew but traffic is no more than one train a day.
Between Huntington and La Grande, both in Oregon, the main climbs from the Snake River toward the Blue Mountains on grades of up to 2.2% much of which is very near the freeway, and the rest reasonably near secondary roads. That segment, or the Blues themselves, are more interesting to me than the Boise area.
Mac
When the Oregon Short Line was built, Boise was bypassed, and a connection was built between Boise and Nampa. I do not know just when the connection from Orchard to Boise was built, but it was abandoned south of Shafer after the Pioneer was discontinued in 1997. The Boise-Nampa track is still there. Idaho Northern & Pacific operates the track east of Nampa.