Saturday dawned with a few clouds in the sky but the promise of sun was good so I headed out to spend the day railfanning the Lakeside Sub.  After getting out of the house around 8:30am I arrived in Cheney just before 9am.  Over the radio I had heard of a westbound calling out the approach to Lakeside Jct. but it was gone by the time I arrived in Cheney.  I had heard also of a westbound going into the hole at Fishtrap for a meet.  So I headed out to Tyler to catch the eastbound.  It arrived in a few minutes with 78 hopper cars (BNSF 4192, 4979).  I decided to head west following the westbound and see if I could catch up to it or at least use it for an advanced warning of train meets.  I finally caught up to the train at the top of Providence Hill.   It was a manifest train with 3 engines for power (BNSF 4735, 4802, ATSF 8723(patched)).

     I drove down south of Hatton to set up for the westbound and ended up missing an eastbound hopper train with 2 BNSFs and an LRCX.  The westbound had stopped at Cunningham for the meet.  Pretty soon it glided down through Hatton.  Next I headed back to see if I could catch the eastbound I missed.  I heard it go in the hole at Paha so I stopped at Lind to wait for the westbound.  At 11:30am a hopper train rolled down with 2 engines on the front and back (BNSF 4593, 4699, 4735, 4625).  I wanted to get a shot at Essig but the only way for a shot is by pulling off the freeway and I didn’t want to just sit there for hours.  I wanted in Ritzville until it came into town then just raced down to get the shot.  It was a manifest train with a colorful consist (BNSF 4782, BN 6916(patched), NS 9700).  Next I chased it down to Paha to get another picture.  It had a red light at east Paha for no reason so after stopping it got the ok to proceed.

     Next I headed back up to Ritzville area.  I found a hopper train at the elevators at Templin, WA waiting for a new crew (BNSF 4197, 905, ATSF 869(patched)).  I sat here for a while waiting for a train and watching all the grain trucks line up and dump their trailers into the elevator.  At 1:30pm a westbound Z-CHCPTL glided down into Ritzville (BNSF 5508, 5233, ATSF 829(patched)).  It went into the hole at Essig for its counterpart the Z-PTLCHC.  That train rumbled through with a brand new ES44DC sporting a new logo (BNSF 7608, 7654, 4330).  I wanted to chase this train because of the new logo but I only got as far as Tokio before I found out that it was headed into the hole at Keystone.  So I turned around and headed for a crossing at the east end of Tokio.  Before they let the westbound out of the siding though another eastbound stack train rolled through (BNSF 4443, 5123).

     Then after it got through the siding the westbound headed out.  It was a westbound loaded coal train heading to Centralia with BNSF 5837 sporting new paint and BNSF’s new logo (BNSF 5837, 5482, ATSF 8243(patched)).  The sun was getting very low in the sky so the light was awesome.  I couldn’t let that kind of train get away from me so I chased it down shooting another picture at Ritzville.  My next shot was at the west end of Paha siding.  After that the sun was into the low cloud bank so I decided to just head for home.  On the way back I ran into a westbound hopper train at Sprague with 2x2 configuration (BNSF 4911, 5366, 4487, 5134).  That was the last of the trains for the day though.  It was a beautiful day with lots of trains too.