Guest post by Blair Kooistra.
Milwaukee Road train #200 is still working power as it closes in on the final two miles to the west yard limit board at Othello, Washington, just minutes from sunrise on August 26, 1978. Three SD40-2's and a single SD45 led by the #17 are up front at 6:20am, rounding the one-mile long one-degree right hand curve and climbing the dip out of old Anson siding, engineer leaning on the horn for the Thacker Road crossing at milepost 1991. That's some pretty "bouncy" track and of course all still stick rail laid atop pit run "ballast"--consistency of gravel--from the pit at Cohasset, on the Saddle Mountain grade above Beverly.
Chris Haaland and I grabbed another shot of the train entering the yard off the Highway 17 overpass. The crew stopped in front of the depot to change crews before making a six-car pickup of mechanical reefers of frozen potatoes out of the "east yard." Meanwhile a Dead Freight West with a helper cut in out of the yard was ready to depart on 200's arrival, and Chris and I re positioned west of Taunton for a shot of it before heading back into Othello right about the time #200 was ready to pull east. We chased this train to Pizaarro, on the scablands east of Lind.
