the International passing the Sky Local at Carkeek Park in 1973

Here's a couple of shots along the Carkeek Park area of the coast mainline on the Burrlington Northern in 1973. The southbound "International" from Vancouver BC to Seattle is passing the northbound "Sky Local", heading up to work the gravel mine at Grotto, near Skykomish. See if you can find the "scenery plug" that I inserted in the (totally unprototypical) tunnel that normally leads into the staging track that represents the Boeing plant at Paine Field.

  

 

 

quick loads for SP Gunderson woodchip cars

The ExactRail Gunderson woodchip hopper cars are a unique car that one definitely saw around the NW in the '70's. But they have a different length and width from the cars I already had sawdust loads for, so I ran them empty for a couple of op sessions. Today the bug hit me - how hard could it be to make a couple of loads for these cars? Quarter-inch thick sheet balsa was on hand, so I quickly cut two pieces to size, shaped them on the belt sander, sprayed glue on the top, and sprinkled with sawdust leftover from benchwork construction 20 (30?) years ago, that I had saved because "someday this could be useful for a sawdust load." The results are a little coarse (only because I didn't take the time to sift the sawdust) but will definitely do "for now". Fortunately, the support brackets on the inside of the car are at just the right height to support to load without any fuss. Total time for two loads - 30 minutes. The moral of the story - never throw away perfectly good sawdust, especially if it's the right color.