On Saturday morning April 24, 2004 my dad and I rolled out of bed at the unearthly hour of 4:15am.  Our purpose was to chase the M-KFAPAS (known as the Kettle Falls local or just the Kettle Turn).  And so after loading our gear into the car we were on the road by 4:30am and heading towards Kettle Falls, WA which is located about 90 miles north of Spokane, WA.  We had decided to chase this local today because on Saturdays, BNSF normally hauls down all of the extra locomotives for servicing in Yardley making for some awesome consists of up to 18 engines.   Also there is a rumor going around that BNSF would like to sell the line and so with that in mind we were anxious to catch the train.

     We found out that the train was running late that day but we were unprepared for what we found just north of Chewelah, WA.   On the scanner we started hearing the EOT frequency and just over the next hill we found the tail end of the northbound Kettle Turn!  It still hadn't even got to Kettle Falls much less gotten ready to head back south.  Well there wasn't much we could do about it so we just kept on going and started looking for places to photograph it.   When we caught up to the head end we found that there were only three engines but the leader was a GP39M (BN 2807, 3001(both patched), BNSF 2094).  Our first shot was at Addy, WA just after 6am.  We continued to follow it north and scout out good shots.  Finally we reached Kettle Falls just before 7am.

     We drove up to the north end of the yard were we waited for the local.  It finally crept by and dropped off his cars.  We headed several streets north were we found the southbound all made up and pretty much ready to go with seven engines.  The northbound Kettle turn started doing some switching and we brought out the breakfast.  After finishing his switching he brought his units back and put them on the front of the southbound making for 10 units in all (BN 3001, 2807, 2886, 2710, 2745, 2883, 3125, 2967(all patched), BNSF 2094, 2293).  They spent quite a bit of time getting the 3001 as the new leader and checking out all of the power.   Finally they started to pull their 84 cars south through town.  We quickly grabbed a couple pics and then headed south to catch up to them.  This proved to be very easy since they stopped again at the south end of the yard.

     After taking a couple more pics we just sat and waited to see what was up.  In a little while a white crew van arrived and we found that the answer was they were waiting for a new crew.  Next after the new crew went over the power and talked a little while they were off heading for Spokane at 9am.   We drove south and found a good curve where we waited for the train.  This same process continued 3 more times before we reached Colville, WA.  Continuing on we found another good spot next to the road.  Since the track speed was around 25mph it was easy to find lots of good photos spots.  Because it was so late (about 5 hours later than the normal) the sun was up giving us some really good lighting as well.   Further down south we paced it for awhile getting some good pace shots and video.

     Finding another spot to set up we were soon joined by another photographer, nomosantafe from TO.  On the way up we had seen a nice S-curve for southbound trains and so proceeded there next.  Nomosantafe found his spots and we found different ones and so didn't get a chance to talk until we met up at Valley, WA while the Kettle Turn was making a pickup.  But I am now getting ahead of myself so back to the train just north of Chewelah, WA.  We missed a road and took several wrong turns in town and so missed a good shot of it coming through town.  But we caught up to it in time to grab a shot of him as he poured on the smoke, throttling up out of town past an abandoned grain elevator.  On down the road we stopped to get a wider angle shot showing all of the engines with Chewelah in the background.  Finally at 10:15am we arrived at Valley, WA.

     Here the Kettle Turn had to make a pickup of 5 sand hopper cars full of sand as well as spot some empty ones to be loaded.  After catching all of this action we headed south out of town a bit to an S-curve where we set up and waited.  Finally at 11:30am he started rolling and soon rumbled past us.   As he passed we noticed there was a lot of extra hissing noise coming from the rear truck of the 3rd unit (BN 2807(patched)).  We didn't think too much of it and headed down the road to find another spot.  After shooting the train there we quickly raced into Springdale to make sure that we would be able to get across the grade crossing before the train.  We had lots of time and set up on the other side for a photo.

     From here on for about 6 or 7 miles the tracks do not follow the road but start winding around trying to gain as much elevation as possible.   We found another spot where it came back to the road and set up for him.   After this we headed on down to Loon Lake were we found a spot right along the shore.  As this was a resort area and the track had lots of curves the train was only doing about 10mph.  Farther down the road we found an elevated curve and so I decided to climb a tree to get a better angle for a photograph.  After taking my photo I quickly climbed down and we were off again only to stop just a couple miles farther down to get another shot.  Next we headed south of Deer Park, WA to a crossing that had an S-curve there.  The train had to slow down quite a bit and so we waited a while before it finally came.  Then we had to wait for him to clear the crossing before we could set off on the chase again.  It was here that we finally confirmed what the extra hissing was on the 3rd unit.  At first we had thought it was an air leak but soon we realized that it was a sander that was stuck on for some reason.

     Taking a side road we drove down to a little grade crossing where we hiked up on a hill to get a better angle for a photo.  After that we raced back to the car and on south to the Little Spokane River.  Here the sun was on the wrong side of the tracks and so I had to climb a tree on the other side to get a descent shot as it crossed the bridge and fill.  On down to Dean we grabbed another shot as it crossed the highway.  Next it was down to Mead to get a shot and then on down into Spokane.  We shot it at Hillyard where there used to be a good sized yard now reduced to the single main track.  He finally got stopped to wait for permission to enter Yardley but was soon back going again.  We tried to get a shot of it as it went over the Spokane River but there were too many fences and we couldn't get the access we needed so we had to settle for a shot of it through Spokane instead.  It finally pulled into Yardley just after 2:30pm.  We drove around the yard and then headed for home to get a late lunch.  It was a great trip would definitely recommend shooting the line before it isn't here anymore.  And besides where else on the BNSF system can you find a train with ten 4 axle Geeps for power!!

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