I am planning a trip to the Seattle area, are there any railfan friendly hotspots?
Seattle can be difficult to railfan as most of the tracks are not the easiest to sit by and watch for a few hours, as most of tracks run through built up industrial areas. The only park that sits next the track as a damn fence that fowls photography. The few good places that I once railfanned at are no longer availible. Thats why I head out the city to do my railfanning. To places like Kent and Auburn. Also if you have time if you should head over to Renton and watch the Dinner train deprat at about 6:30 and also head up to Snoqualmie to the Northwest railway museum it has a small collection of rusting steam locomotives which they are slowly cosmetically restoring and the there is a short train ride as well behind an RSD4 or RS4TC. Thier steam engine is not operable at this time but will next year maybe it is 2-6-6-2
Well, it is hard to find good railfanning area in downtown Seattle. Especially that one of my favorite trolley station, which was destroyed because of the Seattle Art Center Park. So that was elimated from my railfan location list. You could railfan at King Street Station at Seattle, as long you can get a good area.
Outside north of town there are 2 good railfan area I heard. Car Keek Park and beach and Richmond Beach. It is north of Seattle and along the BNSF Scenic Subdivision and the Puget sound. Infact, this friday, I’m thinking to railfan at either one of those beaches.
If that is not enough, there are Sounder Commuter Stations you can railfan. Here is the link to all the stations: http://soundtransit.org/x1218.xml Hopfully this information will help you.
Andrew
Thanks for the info. I also found a website(www.railfanswelcome.com) that has some interesting locations.
This sounds like the area around Pier 67? If this is the same are then that was the perfect place to do a little train watching. The wife and I stayed at the Edgewater and there probably wasn’t an hour that went by that a train didn’t come through. I saw a lot of new GEs and older EMDs (FURX sd40-2s, gp38 and rebuilt 30s). My question is where does that section of double track go to/come from. They trains roll through pretty slow maybe 15-20 mph or so, even saw a unit grain with a 2-1 DPU. I even saw a string of empty stacks being pulled by a switcher couldn’t tell what type though.
The double track mainline that passes the Edgewater Inn is the old GN mainline. If you go north it takes you to Everett where it becomes single track and splits with the eastbound track becoming the BNSF mainline across the country. The northbound BNSF track continues to Vancouver BC.
Southbound the track takes a tunnel under Seattle to King Street Station and continues south to Portland OR. The track that continues along the waterfront just goes into a yard.
When the Beattles and Elvis Presley visited Seattle they stayed at the Edgewater Inn and several fans tried to reach the Inn from boats. Security was really beefed up around the hotel and in the case of the Beattles they even turned fire hoses on the fans to prevent them overpowering the Police outside. It has been a few years since I stayed at the Edgewater but it was a fine Hotel then and the view from the Dining room was excellent.