visiting photographer, part 3 - the Empire Builder in action

Hajime Hosokawa visited the layout recently with his camera in hand, and I enjoyed the different perspectives he gave me of the layout, as seen through his eyes and his camera. The following set of photos show the Empire Builder making its way from Seattle towards Chicago:

Having departed King St. Station in Seattle, the Builder is progressing northbound through Interbay/Balmer yard, despite the fender-bender taking place on the Dravus St. bridge above. I also don't know why the train is on the "A track" and not the main - seems like a dispatcher error on my part.

Leaving the city lights behind, the Builder approaches a trestle along Highway 2 in the north cascades. The narrow gage passenger coach on the right side is waiting to take miners home at the end of the work day from the Cascade Copper Company mine on the narrow gage branch.

Here the Builder is rounding the "Index Loop" near Mt. Index and the town of Index, WA. The bridge above it was build years ago by Paul Scoles and came here after he replaced it with a low trestle to improve the view. Now it improves this view, and carries trains on a secret cut-off between Skykomish and Bellingham staging yards only used for staging purposes. The backdrop was painted from photos of Mt. Index by our son Robin back in about 2004.

There used to be a large sawmill in Skykomish, which I have (so far) modeled as a pile of logs and a water tank. Here the Builder passes by on the "Rainbow loop" which allows trains to turn around at Skykomish.

Having turned around, GN #510 and its Empire Builder takes its rightful place alongside the other steeds in the Skykomish staging yard, ready to race forward on another day. Many thanks to Hajime Hosokawa for the wonderful set of photos in these last three blog posts.