The forecast for Sunday, January 4, 2004, was partly cloudy and cold and for once the weatherman was partly right.  It was COLD (high of 8F and low of -15F) but it was not partly cloudy, it was totally sunny!!  My dad drove me into Spokane where we met up with Ted Curphey (Funnelfan) at Yardley.   Just before Ted arrived we drove around the yard to find out that there were lots units in the engine service area.  There were about 10-13 geeps for the Kettle Falls power and a NS and UP engine as well.  Back at the east end the westbound Z-SPOSSE was ready his train for departure (BNSF 5342, CSX 254, 8117).  Soon Ted arrived and I transferred my stuff all over to Ted's car and said goodbye to my dad and we were off.   Ted had heard that there were about 5 northbound UPs coming up the line today as well as 2 southbounds so UP it seemed would be busy.

     We drove over the crossing only to see a headlight far down the tracks by Erie St.  Ted decided that we should try to shoot it at an old wooden bridge in town so we were off.  We got there just as the train blew its horn for a crossing on the UP's SI line.  Gr...wrong company, it is UP not BNSF!   We quickly set off to shoot it at a crossing a little bit further up the line.   It came finally rumbling down through town with a northbound manifest (CEFX 132, 102, UP 8509, 8530).  Next we thought it would be nice to grab a photo of it at the under/over crossing a little bit east.  On the way though we found a westbound BNSF hopper train which we stopped to shoot (BNSF 5415, 809, 5388).  After taking or pic of him we continued east to get our photo of the northbound UP train.  But it was not to be because it was moving too fast and beat us to the place by a good 30 seconds.   Oh well time to turn around and go back to Yardley.

     At the yard the Z-SPOSSE was just starting to pull west with his train being made up of mostly stack cars and just a few TOFCs (BNSF 5342, CSX 254, 8117).  At the time we didn't know his symbol and so were trying to guess whether it would go to Seattle or Portland.  We decided on a shot of him crossing I-90 if he went to Portland and if to Seattle then we would drive on up to Lyons.   But as we crossed the tracks heading for the freeway we noticed that he had stopped at Napa St. Jct.  Quickly changing our plans we drove back to him and grabbed a couple of shots before he pulled through(I think the reason he stopped was to hang a FRED on the end).  Continuing on we found that he had taken the diverging leg of Latah Jct. and so we headed up to West Lyons to catch him.  We got there in plenty of time to get out of the car and listen to him rumble upgrade out of the siding.  After he roared by kicking up snow we headed down to Marshall Canyon hoping to catch the southbound UP train with a CP AC4400CW leading.  But he had already cleared Overlook and things looked like we wouldn't catch him tell Cheney or beyond.

     After gassing up we continued towards Cheney, WA hoping to overtake him.  All of the signals on the Low Side were dark so at Scribner we were surprised to find the M-PASSPO heading east.  He had 5 geeps in his consist so we decided to turn around and chase him back towards Spokane.  We grabbed a side shot a couple of miles east of Marshall as he rumbled by (BN 3123(patched), 3013(patched), 2967(patched), 2742(patched) and BNSF 2265).  By this time we gave up hope in catching the southbound UP but decided to keep heading west along the BNSF to Fishtrap.   We heard that there was the Z-PTLCHC leaving Sprague and a empty hopper train behind him and we knew that the loaded grain we had seen earlier in Spokane was on its way too.  So we set up for the Z train at west Fishtrap(BNSF 703, 765, 4790, 4035) and as soon as he passed we continued a couple miles farther west to a little grade crossing for the empty hopper train(4550, 4688, 4429).

     Next we drove over to Wells siding on the UP in hopes that a northbound would be there but it was empty.  The westbound grain train went into the siding at Fishtrap for the eastbound hoppers but once he was in the dispatcher couldn't get the switch thrown so we could get back out.  So he gave the engineer permission to proceed past the red signal and operate the switch by hand.  A signal maintainer soon showed up and after a little while they could the switch aligned and the train left heading towards us.  We had stationed ourselves on a little hill just east of Missile Base which is about 3 miles west of Fishtrap.  In a little while the train came and we got back into the car and decided to head up towards Edwall on the Seattle line since we thought that would be all the Pasco line had for a while.  But as we were heading east on I-90 we met a westbound BNSF hopper train with a CSX leading (CSX 9032, BNSF 6319, 6925, BN 8023(patched) and CR 8847(patched for CSX)).  Ted decided that this was too good a consist to pass up so we turned around at the next offramp and got back on I-90 heading west.

     We caught up to the head up by Sprague and continued on to Tokio where we got off and found a road crossing over the tracks at a curve.  The train soon rumbled by and we climbed back into the car and headed into Ritzville, WA where we popped another set of shots off with the new grain elevators in the background.  Next it was back to the roads as we headed for Lind and Providence hill.   It was by now 3:30pm and we knew that we would have less than 1 hour of sunlight left.  We barely beat it to Lind with just enough time to turn on the camera and shoot the photo.  Next we chased him up to the top of Providence Hill.  We were hoping that it would still have sunlight but alas by the time we got there and the train arrived the sun was gone behind the hill.  So after getting a less than good shot we raced on to a grade crossing just past the crest of Providence hill which was in its last 5 minutes of sun.  Soon the train rounded the corner and we shoot him as he barreled through.  After he had cleared the crossing we got back into the car and headed back towards Spokane, WA.  At Paha we met a westbound grain train with 2x2 configuration and at Essig it was a westbound grain train with 2x1.  After that we didn't see anything else until we arrived at Yardley where my dad was waiting to pick me up.  In the yard there were 3 or 4 westbounds waiting to leave including one with another CSX (8133) in the consist.  It was a great day enough though traffic wasn't the best but the sun definitely made up for that!!  Enjoy and see you guys trackside.