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- Amtrak Coast Starlight -

Amtrak Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles, Feb. 18,2023

- Burlington Northern Santa Fe -

BNSF 193, a GP-60 Electro-Motive Diesel built in 1989 by General Motors that regularly makes the Centralia to Tacoma run, stopped at a rail signal in front of Centennial Station March 28, 2024.. It’s sporting a fresh pumpkin paint pose..


- The Actual "Polar Express" -
Pierre Marquette, 2019 Roundhouse, 2010
The Pierre Marquette Berkshire
This locomotive was the prototype and sound for the "Polar Express" movie and the model for the original children's book by Chris Van Allsburg. Apty and originally numbered 1225, it was destined to celebrate Christmas with the Tom Hanks film. Pere Marquette's 2-8-4 Lima locomotive operated between Chicago and Detroit and still runs on excursions today. It was owned and displayed for years by Michigan State University in East Lansing. It is a 400-ton, 5,000-horse Berkshire-type loco built in 1941. The movie's "Know-It-All" kid identified it as a 1931 Baldwin. The entire wheels and running gear was removed in 2022, taken to a shop to be restored, and put back together with a crane August, 2023 in Owosso, Michigan.
 
 Larry took this picture at the Owosso turntable near Durand for the beginning of the rebuild of the 2-8-4 1225 in May 2010.
Union Pacific "Big Boy" in Cheyenne, Wyoming
This is the world’s largest steam engine, the Union Pacific “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 Alco on static display at Holliday Park in Cheyenne. Built in 1941, retired in 1958. Weight: 1.2 million pounds. Length: 132+ feet. Holds 28 tons of oil fuel and 25,000 gallons of water. Built for service between Cheyenne and Ogden, Utah. Cheyenne is also home to an operating Big Boy, 4014, stored in a UP steam shop.
Daylight in Vancouver Daylight at Centennial Station, Olympia-Lacey
Southern Pacific Daylight 4449
Left, the mighty 4449 rumbles into Vancouver, WA,  Amtrak Station on May 22, 2007. Right, it chugs by Olympia's Centennial Station.  The 1941 Lima 4-8-4 engine is owned by the City of Portland and displayed at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center. It was one of the "Freedom Train" engines for the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.
Empire Builder at Minot, 2019 Chicago from the sleeper end car of the Empire Builder, 2019
The Amtrak Empire Builder
Larry and Robin rode the Empire Builder from Chicago to White Fish, Montana, to Seattle during the summer of 2019. Right, is the view from the Empire Builders end sleeper car (for Portland, Ore.-bound passengers.)
Chessy at The Henry Ford
The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan
Larry and Robin visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, during 2019. Left is the Edison steam engine operating on the grounds followed by a photo and video of the huge Chessy engine.
Pacific Parlour Theater
The Coast Starlight Parlour Car
Larry and Robin visited the historic Coast Starlight Pacific Parlour car at The Steam Railroading Institute of Owosso, Michigan.Built in 1956, the Institute offers rides on two former Pacific Parlour Cars during the Christmas season as part of its North Pole Express Train 2019. These cars, discontinued by Amtrak in 2018 on the Coast Starlight route including Olympia-Lacey, offered an additional level of comfort and services for passengers. This car was built with a movie theater.
 
Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad
Larry took this photo of a 1929 Alco Saddle Tank Engine (2-8-2T) pulling into the Mount Rainier Scenic Railway station in Elbe, WA.  The engine was formerly owned by the Hammond Lumber Co. in California. It currently pulls excursion trains over a 7-mile track to Mineral, WA, that was originally built by The Milwaukee Road to serve the lumber industry in the Cascade Mountains. Right, our photo of a former U.S. Army SW-1 diesel switch engine from Fort Lewis that is now owned and operated by Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad in Elbe, WA.  It was built in 1942 by Alco. Photo was taken in May, 2017.
Amtrak 468 pulls Cascades train into Olympia-Lacey Siemens Charger at Centennial Station   
Amtrak Cascades and Sounder
Amtrak 468 F59PHI in Northwest colors pulls into Olympia (Larry's O-Gauge is Amtrak 469.). Next, the modern Siemens Charger locomotive at Centennial Station. Larry took this photo of a Sounder commuter train pulling into Lakewood Station between Tacoma and Olympia, WA.  The photo was taken Jan. 19, 2014 as the Sounder FP59PHI 904 (the same as Larry's model train) prepared for a special run between Lakewood and King Street Station in Seattle that took football fans to the NFC Championship Game pitting the San Francisco 49ers against the Seattle Seahawks.
Mater Amtrak Engine Mater in Galena, Kansas
Talgo 8 Talgo 8 Rear Cab Car at Centennial Station
"Mater" and Amtrak Cascades "Talgo 8" Trainset
The control car on an Amtrak Cascades Talgo 8 trainset is sometimes referred to as "Mater" because of its pickup-truck front likened to the Pixar tow truck cartoon character voiced by "Larry The Cable Guy." It was named after tomato or "Tow-Mater." Photo of "Mater" was taken by Larry along Route 66 in Galena, Kansas. This is one of just two "pendular" aluminum Talgo trainsets remaining on the Amtrak Cascades circuit.  It is named "The Mount Bachelor." The Talgo 8 was built in Wisconsin and purchased by the state of Oregon. It is seen May 1, 2024 on the Amtrak 506 run between Portland and Seattle pulled by a Washington-state owned Siemens locomotive #1401. Talgo, a Spanish company that built some trainsets in Seattle, donated the platform clock at the 1993 opening of Centennial Station. The remaining Talgo trainset, "The Mount Jefferson" stopped late May 1 as Amtrak 508.
UP 844
UP's FEF Northern 844
The Union Pacific 4-8-4  FEF-3 Alco was the last steam engine built for the Union Pacific in 1944 and led passenger service like the Portland Rose until 1960. It is shown here in Vancouver, WA
Alaskan Oil Train
Alaskan Oil Train
Larry photographed this Alaskan Railroad oil train in Anchorage, Alaska. (April, 2016)
 
BNSF at Centennial Station, 2020
Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Larry took this photo of a BNSF freighter headed east on the north bank of the Columbia River at East Maryhill in Klickitat County.  The photo was taken in early August, 2013 near Maryhill State Park.  The park is the perfect camping spot to watch trains with the BNSF on the Washington State side and a view of the Union Pacific on the Oregon side. Right BNSF locomotives at Olympia-Lacey Centennial Station.
GN F-7 Locomotive, Garibaldi Ore  
Great Northern Electro-Motive Diesel F-7 and NP F-9
Here is Larry with an EMD F-7 Great Northern, one of his favorites with the bulldog nose, that is operating as a dinner train in Garibaldi, Ore., just north of Tillamook. Taken November, Right,
 A Northern Pacific General Motors Eletro-Motive Diesel F-9 engine at Mt. Rainier Scenic Railway in 2013.
Kingman Steam Engine
Two Baldwin locos: Astoria 1925 2-8-2 and 1928 Santa Fe Northern Steam Engines
Right, Martin Adams is secretary of the Astoria Railroad Preservation Association that painstakingly is restoring this 1925 Baldwin 2-8-2 locomotive at a quonset shop near the Columbia River waterfront in Astoria, Ore. They are working on the former Santa Maria Valley Engine No. 21. They intend to paint it up in a historic Astoria roadname and operate it on about 30 miles of track. He gave Larry a tour. The Kingman engine was on the Santa Fe's passenger route betweeen Los Angeles and Kansas City, making the final steam run in  between LA and Barstow in 1953. It has been a monument in Kingman, Ariz. since 1957.
Hawaiian Training and Olympia Underpass
 Left, Larry inspects a General Electric diesel engine at a former sugar plantation near Lihue on the Hawaiian isalnd of Kauai. The engine purchased from an Arizona owner is displayed and operated for tourists. It is a locmotive that was similar to those used in the peak of sugar production. Larry visited the island in September, 2009, just as C&H Sugar was closing down sugar cane production forever. Right, a Cascades passenger train and a BNSF freighter move on parallel tracks near Centennial Station. \
Shelton Shay Locomotive  Willamette Shay Drivers; Mt. Hood Railway, 2017
Shay Engines
Above and center is  "Tollie," the Simpson Lumber Co. Shay locomotive in Shelton, WA.; Larry has a model of Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. No. 5 which Robin gave him for Christmas, 2006. Far right, drivers of a Willamette-class engine (similar drivers to a shay) at Mount Hood Railway, 2017. More information on shay by clicking Larry's New Engines.
UP AC44CW General Electric Locomotive UP shift change at Centennial Station
Modern Union Pacific
Larry is pictured with a Union Pacific AC44CW General Electric engine No. 6388 in Northern Idaho. Right, UP crew change at Olympia-Lacey on an EMD SD70ACE locomotive No. 8419.
 
Built in 1917, Mikado 2-8-2 Northern Pacific No. 1762 BNSF at Fallbridge, the Celilo Rail Bridge, Wishram  
Port of Kalama Steam Display
Great to see the 105-year-old Alco 2-8-2 Northern Pacific Mikado No. 1762 on static display inside the interpretive transportation center building at the Port of Kalama in 2022. Renumbered 539 and converted to oil burning in 1944, it operated as an SP&S locomotive on the Fallbridge and Oregon Trunk tracks until 1957. Once slated for restoration as an operating Grand Canyon tourist engine, she will now be a silent icon for Kalama, the birthplace of rail service in 1870 to major Puget Sound locations especially Tacoma. Kalama was the northern terminus for a Northern Pacific railroad ferry across the Columbia from Goble, Ore., adopting the slogan "Rail Meets Sail."

Right,"Fallbridge" or "Celilo Bridge" is in the backgound on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe 229-mile "Fallbridge Subdivision" between Vancouver, WA and Portland. The Columbia River bridge, originally built in 1912 near what is now Wishram, crossed Celilo Falls (and the early steamboat canal around the falls) before John Day Dam flooded the historic Columbia Gorge natives' fishing grounds in 1971. The bridge originally handled rail traffic for the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway and connected its Oregon Trunk Line to Bend. Today, the Celilo, Ore.-Bend route is jointly operated by BNSF and Union Pacific. Wishram was called "Fallbridge" but was renamed in 1926 to honor Wishram and Wasco Chinook tribes of the Yakama Nation and Warm Springs.

Updated May 4, 2024