This Space for Rent

Lagniappe

I was planning on catching the #19 bus home when I left work today, but I just missed one, so I hopped on a #17 instead, figuring that I'd go across the river and transfer to a #70 at Milwaukie and Powell. But about halfway across the bridge, I realized that it was almost 18:00 and that it would be a shame to not even see if there was something interesting sitting at the north end of Brooklyn Yard.


Why, yes, there was.

I took a couple of quick pictures of 5251, then walked back down to wait for my #70 connection. I'd missed the 17:49 one, of course, but the 16:02 would be along any minute. But instead of the 16:02 bus, I heard a passenger Eng! going toot toot toooot toot TOOT TOOT TOOOOOT TOOT, scampered a block north on 17th, and saw Amtrak train 507 pop out between a couple of factory buildings.

(The second picture is a somewhat better picture of the F69, but there's this rather blatantly yellow car right below the engine. I could photoshop it out (the first of the pictures doesn't have a car sitting there) but it's kind of amusing to see the Eng! and the little yellow car stacked up like that.

If the bus had come by at this point, I would have been screwed, but no, the southbound cascade went by without any mass transit incidents and I was able to get a picture of the cab control car on the other end of the train before it vanished out of sight.

As I started to walk back to the bus stop, the UP Eng! from scene 1 blew its horn and started running north (presumably on the way back to Albina yard in North Portland), and as I reached the stop the #70 bus popped around the corner and picked me up right on time.

I'll have to start using the #17/#70 every evening (or at least until I get bored of C44Ws and F69s)