Montana trip - 2

Hi, Steve and I began our morning in Wenatchee by driving to Rock Island; location of a bridge across the Columbia River I had wanted to photograph for a number of years.

After much driving around we finally decided we had to walk in to photograph the bridge.  First up was an eastbound local with BN green power, a GP40 and a GP50 (above and below).  The photo above was taken with a full frame camera at 120 mm and cropped to get this view.

Shortly a westbound auto rack train came by.

Finally another eastbound showed up (above and below).  Again, the photo above was taken using a full frame camera and a zoom lens at 120 mm and then cropped.

Next we returned to Lynch Coulee.  As we were driving in we spotted a westbound descending to the Columbia River.  We drove right up to this location and barely had time to grab our cameras before the power came into view (above and two below).

The westbound met the eastbound we had photographed crossing the Columbia at Rock Island giving us enough time to re position for a second shot.  We gave chase but never go close.

In Ephrata, WA we encountered the local that had been our first subject of the day heading home to Wenatchee.  We got ahead of the train at Naylor (above and below).  At this point we headed east to Couer d'Alene, ID where we would spend the night.

On Friday, in spite of a forecast for cloudy weather, we decided to head east as we were running out of time and the long range forecast called for better weather beginning on Saturday.  West of Noxon, MT we spotted a bridge and decided to explore.  Although we did not find a shot of that bridge Steve suggested we explore a little more which led to the photo above.

Continuing east we stopped for lunch at Trout Creek and then explored that area.  The Clark Fork River is just to the left of this westbound grain train on a long fill.

Continuing west we came to a bridge and fill where we photographed the DPUs (above and below).

After shooting the grain train in the three photos above this one we found our way to the east end of the long fill where we photographed another westbound grain train (above and below) and

an eastbound empty grain train (above and below).

On our way out to the main road we stopped to shoot this eastbound auto rack train.

The auto rack train must have run around the empty grain train because we got the empty grain train again at Eddy, MT east of Thompson Falls (above and below). We spent the night in Thompson falls.

Thanks for looking.