Hi,
Can someone tell me what kind of cars / traffic you encounter most in the northwest of the USA (Washington / Oregon / …). What kind of business / factories are well represented there. Also, what companies are most active currently in that area. Thanks in advance for your replies.
Hello!
Well, I live in Tacoma and lots of industry here. Much of the NW is around water, so a lot of rail traffic has to do with shipping (containers). Also, a fair bit of paper products/rolls and lumber cars. Also, since it is a shipping area, lot of grain hoppers to fill some of the elevators/fillers for the ships (these installations are HUGE…) they fill a ship in like 8 hours with grain. I see CN, BNSF, UP hoppers here all the time… hope this helps…
Brian
What era are you modeling? Present day [#ditto] on BNSF, UP, and CN. If you are looking at earlier times, NP, SP & S, and GN were common.
Sue
Don’t forget the ol’ Milwaukee Road (The Olympian Hiawatha)… Sure was a beaut’, not that I ever got to see her…
Brian
Brian, How could I forget. The Milwaukee Road bordered our small farm when we were kids. We would race the trains on our horses. The engineers got a kick out of that.
Sue
Don’t forget all the military installations around the Puget Sound shipping stuff by rail. Not to mention all the shipyards, so there’s plenty of scrapyards around too.
Jason
Hey guys, let’s not forget the biggest and reason most RRs were built into the area…LUMBER!
Irrespective of era, currently 50’ box cars for plywood, particle board & such, center beam, bulkhead and standard flats for non-weather sensitive forest products and wood chip cars for local (usually) service between mills and chip loaders on one end and paper and chipboard plants on the other. Transition era, box cars and flats w/ the early chip cars, tending to be stnd gons w/ sideboards added. And let’s not forget that most of these commodties started out as trees, transitioning to logs and frequently traveling to the processors via special log car.
We are using mainly Weyerhauser for our logging.
Sue
Does Boeing still ship anything by rail?
In Western Canada, it would be grain, containers, coal, forest products, sulphur, automobiles, that’s about all I can think of right now.
I saw a couple of aircraft parts cars a few days ago. I believe they are loaded going to Boeing, so technically Boeing would not be shipping them since it seems like they come from another company.
There’s a couple of oil refineries near where I live (the refineries are in Anacortes, WA), so there’s a unit train of tank cars parked on the tracks next to the highway every day.
Other than that, I’ve mainly seen two types of trains headed up and down the coast across the border. The first are unit trains of double-stack container cars. The second are made up of mostly centerbeam flat cars with some 50-ft boxcars in the mix (not sure what’s in them, though - I haven’t really done the research). There’s also a lot of covered hopper traffic near where I live - there’s several small grain elevators along Hwy 20 west of I-5.
Ok folks, thanks for the answers and comprehensive information, this is what I was looking for. It is rather slow and difficult to find that information here in Europe, you guys have it ready in a couple of seconds.
Just a few additional questions for my knowledge: pathfinder, you talk about a sulfur traffic in your area. Are you talking about the molten sulfur that can be carried with the 40’ tank cars from Walthers. Is that traffic only in BC, or does it link some factory in the US/Canada with a US / Canadian port ?
Another general question I would like to ask is about the presence of Canadian engines and cars in the US: do Canadian engines from CN and CP enter the US territory ? The same applies to Canadian cars. Can Canadian cars be found deep in the south of the US, or do they usually remain in the north of the US (if they do enter your country). Especially, I have a specific question: Milwaukee Road was taken over by Soo Line that later merged with CP US (or something like that if I am not mistaken). So apparently there are two "branches"of CP: one in the Canada and one in the US. What does that mean in practice. I mean: are there differences between the CP stock from both branches, do they both enter the Canadian and US territory, etc…
We see CN and CP and engines here in east-central Illinois on CSX trackage and over in Effingham on the IC tracks. Since CN bought the IC, I’m figurin they go all the way to the gulf coast.
inch
Glad to help.
The sulphur is moved like coal, from the ground it looks like a coal train. The stuf is piled at the North Vancouver port like wood chips, in an open area. Its a big, greeny yellow pile.
Canadian cars that are loaded in Canada for delivery in the US will cross the border and travel to the final destination. And as we ship large amounts of lumber, pulp, paper, plywood, OSB etc to the US you can see a fair number (compared to our total loadings) of Canadian cars all over the US.
Depending on the agreement between railways, there can be run throughs of US/CDN locomotives on each others lines. Happens with UP and CP but more to
Thanks again !
Just a few additions/comments to the above:
Last summer I spent several days trackside on the BNSF along the Columbia River at Lyle.
There were lots of stack and grain trains. A few of the grain cars were Canadian. Quite a bit of wood products, of course. Auto-racks. Gondolas and hoppers with scrap metal. Hoppers with “dirt-like substances” and once, I would swear, one with coal. No stock cars anymore. Not many “regular” flats. Some tank cars of various usages. There were also a couple of loaded and a couple of empty garbage trains. Yes, real (as in trash) garbage.
I saw one grain train headed by two Canadian Pacific AC4400’s. I also saw a Canadian National locomotive on another train.
Ed
Great website about NW railroads, not so much current operations, but historical.
“Another general question I would like to ask is about the presence of Canadian engines and cars in the US: do Canadian engines from CN and CP enter the US territory?”
I live in the Twin Cities and I pass under a CP overpass every day. Yesterday I saw CP locomotives pulling grain cars across the bridge. Also, (and this was years ago) the GN used to run a line up to Winnipeg from the Dakotas. Don’t know if BNSF still runs that line.
the goat