Railfanning Wyoming and Montana - 2A

Hi, Our plan for Wednesday, May 8th was to head southeast to Gillette, WY where we would spend two days in the Powder River Basin. But first we decided to go west to Livingston, MT and Bozeman Pass as that was a good place to find MRL SD70ACes in helper service. Also, it would give me an opportunity to look more closely at the MRL between Laurel and Livingston, MT, a part of the railroad I had seen once before but never photographed. As the day was very productive this post will cover only the morning, west of Laurel, MT.

While driving west on I90 we spotted a westbound coal train in a siding for a meet. A few miles further on we passed an eastbound tank train. Doubling back toward Laurel we caught the tank train at Reed Point, MT.

After photographing the tank train we resumed our trip west and were able to photograph the DPU of the coal train just east of Livingston.

After refueling we headed over to the depot where the coal train was indeed waiting for its helper. When the coal train left Livingston we followed. Out first and second photos were taken at the bottom of Bozeman Pass just west of Livingston (above and below).

Part way up the hill we caught the helpers at Orea Road.

At East Muir an eastbound (empty?) grain train was waiting

for a meet with the coal train.

There was plenty of time to get into position to photograph the helpers shoving past the sitting grain train (above and below).

A quick move to the west end of the siding, at Muir, resulted in these shots of the train pulling into the tunnel around the corner (above and below).

After the helpers cut off the coal train they came back around the corner and began their descent to Livingston.

Just west of Livingston, off highway 10W, a westbound MRL train waited for a meet with the returning helper set ( above and two below).

Thanks for looking.