One good railroad picture deserves another
When I was going out for errands this afternoon, I found myself at the north end of Union Station at the exact time that the northbound Coast Starlight was departing for Seattle. I was waiting at the stoplight at 9th & Naito when the train departed, but the stupid lights there (there’s a turn signal light which, surprise, doesn’t activate for bicycles) didn’t let me through until the train was well underway, so I dumped my bicycle by the side of the road, yanked out the camera, and bolted up to get a few pictures as it came across 9th.
I didn’t realize until I reached the tracks that the 4449 was sitting in the station getting ready to depart for the midwest with the millionaire boys club tour train, so all you get to see of that eng! is a little bit of the pilot and snoot in the background. (Since I live in Portland twinkies are more exotic engines than GS-4s; when the ORHF builds their new enginehouse down by OMSI, I’ll be seeing the 4449 almost every day, but I need to carefully time my rambles to catch a twinkie in action. The amusing thing is that if it wasn’t for the longterm lease to the P&W/ W&P, the last operational SDP40 would be less exotic than the GE units. In any case, the 4449 will no doubt still exist when the last of the twinkies have been converted to razor blades or tucked away in museums.)