Freight Operations - Trained Eye Northwest
Main menu:
Freight Operations
Railroads > Washington Central Railroad
Washington Central Railroad Corp.
The WCRC was formed in October 1986 when BN sold about 300-miles of track in Central and Eastern Washington; the main chunk was the former NP main line from Cle Elum to Kennewick. Ten short years later in December 1996, BNSF would by the WCRC and re-open the main line over Stampede Pass.
During that ten years I only made four trips to Yakima to photograph the Washington Central. The first was in 1990 for SteamFest. The second was in late summer 1991, not much train activity on that trip. The third trip was in the spring 1995; I stayed the weekend in Toppenish hoping to photograph trains in the lower valley. I drove down to Prosser where I waited, then headed back to Toppenish only to get sunburned. Not a single train all day.
My last trip was in July 1996. This time I knew if I wanted to see any WCRC train I needed to head to their center of operations in Yakima. What made this trip so important is that it was well known that the WCRC would be gone by years end. BNSF was working hard on Stampede Pass to get it re-opened and the WCRC would be gone forever.
