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| Two classic EMD SD-40-2 locomotives pull an average-size Byron Turn into North Richland in late winter 2016. |
Not too long ago, I remarked on the Pacific Northwest
Railfans Facebook page that between my efforts and those of friend Richard
Olson, BNSF’s “Byron Turn” may be the most over-railfanned train in the Pacific
Northwest. Determining whether this
assertion is true would not only be impossible, but also a complete waste of
time. So just accept it as fact while I
explain what I mean, then judge for yourself.
For this statement to make any sense to the uninitiated
requires a couple definitions:
A railfan is an individual who is interested in railroads as
a hobby, and pursues that interest by going out and watching, photographing, or
video recording trains at work. This is
a slang term usually only used between the railfans themselves. When describing myself to non-railfans, I
prefer the term “railroad enthusiast”.
Meanwhile, professional railroaders may derisively refer to railfans as
“foamers” because we can get very agitated, almost to the point of foaming at
the mouth, if we happen to see something unusual, to us at least, about a
particular locomotive or freight car.
Within railfan slang, the term itself can be used as a verb
to describe the activity of watching and photographing trains, as in, “Let’s go
railfanning” or “I ‘fanned that steam special a couple years ago” and so forth.
The Byron Turn (or Byron Local) is the daily train that BNSF
Railway dispatches out of its Pasco, Washington yard to serve industries in
nearby Kennewick and Richland. It gets
its name from a siding located just west of Prosser on BNSF’s former Northern
Pacific mainline, which the railroad named Byron, probably for one of its
long-forgotten shareholders or officers.
In theory, that siding is the westernmost extent of the territory served by the
Byron Turn, but I don’t believe the train ever runs on that line beyond
Kennewick today.
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| An eastbound Byron Turn traverses several miles of Union Pacific-owned tracks as it heads back to Pasco Yard. This line through a mostly residential neighborhood provides a connection between the BNSF Yakima Valley Subdivision at Kennewick and the Port of Benton tracks at Richland Junction. Here, GP-28M 1508 leads two cars. The GP-28M is a BNSF-only model; the product of an extensive program in the BN days to convert old GP-9s to more modern standards. May 2015 |
Instead, it exits the mainline a half mile west of the old
Kennewick depot and enters Union Pacific’s old Yakima branch. Using running rights on that route, the train
continues west as far as Richland Junction, right next to the Columbia Center
mall in far western Kennewick. At this
point, the train moves onto rails currently owned by the Port of Benton.
The US Government originally constructed the PoB line to
serve the Hanford Nuclear Reservation several miles north of Richland. As the Hanford Site’s mission shifted from
plutonium production to environmental cleanup after the Cold War ended,
the Department of Energy had no use for its railroad. Local interests, however, were eager to
restructure the local economy and infrastructure so they no longer focused so
heavily on a single industry. To this
end, the Port of Benton acquired the DOE’s railroad.
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| GP-38-2 2334 hauls an average sized Byron Turn into North Richland, just passing the spur to the Lamb-Weston potato plant. April 2013 |
In addition, PoB, the City of Richland, and private
interests have teamed up over time to develop additional business facilities in
North Richland, several of which depend heavily on rail access. The most obvious rail user is the Lamb-Weston
potato processing plant. It receives its
spuds by truck, fries them in vegetable oil received by rail, flash freezes
them, and ships them out as frozen French fries in refrigerated boxcars that
keep it extremely cold while in transit.
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| Port of Benton's two tenant railroads, BNSF and the Tri-Cities RR, often work in close proximity in the N. Richland industrial area. The newly constructed Preferred Freezer Services warehouse is, for now, the world's largest refrigerated storage facility, and a customer of both railroads. BNSF 2630 is a rebuilt former GP-35 and TCRY 15 is a MP-15AC. November 2015 |
Additional rail customers in North Richland include two
grain transfer facilities and the world’s largest (for now) cold storage
warehouse. This warehouse both receives
and ships loaded cars of French fries and other refrigerated foods as its many
different customers require. The grain
facilities, meanwhile, receive grain cars, and often entire “unit trains”, loaded
with cattle feed. They unload the cars
and send them on their way, and then load the feed onto trucks for delivery to
many cattle feed lots in the surrounding region.
When PoB first obtained the rail link to Richland, they
sought a contract operator to run the trains.
Tri-Cities Railroad (TCRY) was organized by private interests, and by
purchasing DOE’s two surplus locomotives (both EMD model MP-15AC) and hiring
crews, the TCRY went right to work serving customers – primarily the
Lamb-Weston plant at first.
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| A well-matched pair of former Union Pacific SD-40-2s pulls the TCRY's daily train out of their N. Richland yard, headed for the UP interchange at Kennewick. March 2016. |
When I arrived in Richland 14 years ago, the TCRY was the
only operator on the PoB line. At first,
the two MP-15s pulling strings of white look-alike refrigerator and black
look-alike tank cars did not seem very inspiring. It still isn’t, but when the TCRY also
acquired and rebuilt a small fleet of SD-40-2s for use on its route, things got
a little better.
But about 2009, I started seeing occasional splashes of
green on the rails. It appears BNSF
suddenly remembered it had inherited rights from its Northern Pacific
progenitor to run on the former DOE tracks.
BNSF already received some of the traffic that TCRY was hauling to
Richland Jct. But, by cutting out the middle
man, BNSF expected to earn a greater share of the shipping tariffs – enough to
offset the cost of running its own train out to Richland and still make a
profit.
TCRY balked at this notion, believing their contract with
PoB gave them an exclusive right to operate the line. They took the issue to court, but lost, and
BNSF trains have been sharing the use of the PoB line ever since. TCRY still dispatches the line, and
communicates with both crews using cell phones (I believe) to ensure neither
train encroaches on the other while running.
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The Kennewick Irrigation District's main canal provides a very scenic element for trains that cross it near Steptoe St. Admittedly, it's less scenic during the 3-4 months of each year that the canal is empty. BNSF 3186 is a GP-50.
October 2014 |
The reason I made my original statement was to jokingly
imply that between Richard and myself, we have probably taken photos of that
particular train from every imaginable angle, in all sorts of weather, and
probably have photos of every locomotive that has ever been used to power that
train. And we have probably posted all
of those photos somewhere on the internet as we have shot them.
What makes the Byron Turn so interesting to us? Proximity, for starters. I live in Richland, only a couple blocks from
the PoB line. Richard lives elsewhere in
the Tri-Cities, but commutes out to the Hanford site daily along a route
parallel to much of the PoB line. Most
weekdays, we both are at our respective work locations during the day. But, we both work on 9-hour-per-day schedules
that permit us to take every other Friday off.
So, Fridays are my big day for chasing trains (and lots of other
domestic tasks), and I believe the same goes for Richard. In addition, if I have doctor’s appointments,
I will sometimes schedule them in the mid-morning, so I can hopefully see a
train moving on my way to or from the appointment.
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| Totally by accident, I managed a nice pan shot of this former ATSF GP-39-2 heading toward North Richland. I must have moved the camera while shooting, leaving the backgound and foreground "speed blurred" while maintaining focus on the forward facing end of the engine (acutally the rear end). October 2011 |
Variety is another interesting aspect of the Byron. You never know for sure what locomotive (or
locomotives) will show up at the head end.
Most often, it’s a single 4-axle EMD GP-series model, but 6-axle
SD-40-2s have been known to appear.
Also, with two possible BNSF paint schemes on the “geeps”, with the
round or the “swoosh” logos, plus a few still wearing ratty former BN Cascade
Green schemes, you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve even seen blue and yellow Santa Fe locos
on the Byron. Depending on how the
engines are used between assignments to the Byron, and whether they need to use
the wye track at N. Richland, it’s anybody’s guess whether they’ll be running
long hood or short hood forward on either leg of the run.
It's not that we have a problem with the daily TCRY trains. Their red, white and blue paint scheme looks
pretty snappy and there’s an ongoing hope that they’ll rebuild and roll out
their former SP “Tunnel Motor”. Also,
although BNSF may have an inside track (pun intended) with certain customers,
the overall traffic balance between BNSF and TRCY appears to favor the little
guy, for now. TCRY trains seem to be
considerably longer than BNSF’s Byron Local trains. Even when you factor in BNSF unit trains once
or twice a month, I would still wager TCRY hands more total carloads off to UP
in Kennewick than BNSF gathers from North Richland.
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| Ignoring the railfan safely standing on the opposite side of the street, two BNSF crewmen handle a switching move near the Kennewick depot. BNSF 2185 is a former Penn Central GP-38, while the GP-39-2 2772 is an ex-Santa Fe unit. March 2010 |
So how does the Byron crew feel about their two “groupies”? Richard seems more comfortable conversing
with them when the opportunity arises, and he has had fairly positive contacts
with them. My policy is generally to
stay out of their way and let them do their job. I have one BNSF-employed friend who sometimes
has worked the Byron, and he doesn’t seem to mind a couple responsible
railfans. Either way, I know the
occasional waves I get from the passing BNSF crews appear more friendly than
those from the TCRY guys, but that’s an entirely subjective assessment.
There’s an unwritten rule among railroad historians that the
smaller and more obscure a certain historic railroad actually was, the larger
and more enthusiastic will be its fan base.
The Rio Grande Southern and New York, Ontario & Western are two
examples of long-disappeared railroads that still have large followings
today, far out of proportion to their actual importance.
Does this same line of thinking
apply to modern railroads? I think the
Byron Turn and its two dedicated “foamers” prove the point – the amount of
attention paid to, and the total number of photographs taken of, BNSF’s daily train
to N. Richland far surpasses its significance in the grand scheme of American
railroading.
So, here are more images of the Byron Turn in action:
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| Once named "Pacific Pride", GP-38 2075 has been demoted to service on the Byron Turn. One of the first diesels delivered to the then-new Burlington Norther Railroad in 1970 (it had been ordered by predecessor Spokane, Portland & Seattle RR just prior to the merger), 2075 was later re-decorated in a special scheme that carried the emblems of all BN ancestor roads. BNSF is satisfied with placing those emblems on grain hoppers these days to "honor" its heritage, leaving 2075 to keep gathering dirt and grime, while the weather does its best to obliterate the logos of long-gone railroads. December 2010 |
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| The Port of Benton-owned rail line crosses the mouth of the Yakima River on its route leaving Richland Jct. The wetlands alongside the river and the rails are part of the Chamna Wildlife Refuge, and even in easy to access locations, they provide lots of interesting photo angles for passing trains, this one behind GP-38-2 2094. March 2013 |
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| GP-39E 2628 pulls its train eastbound across the large steel bridge that crosses Interstate 182 on the south end of Richland. March 2015 |
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GP-39E 2910 rolls through Richland Junction on its eastbound run. This is the point where the original US Government Railroad diverged from the Union Pacific Yakima branch. For some time this was the interchange point between the TCRY and Union Pacific, but arrangements have since been made allowing TCRY trains to run farther east for interchange at Kennewick. Now, the tracks in the foreground have been removed (the Yakima Branch beyond this point has been gone since the early '90s). With rights all the way through to N. Richland, however, BNSF trains don't give that situation much thought.
February 2011 |
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| Perhaps not the most compelling image I've ever taken, but notice the World War II-era fighter plane taxiing for takeoff at Richalnd's airport as GP-39-3 2866 passes. September 2015 |
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| Here's that large bridge across the Interstate again, seen from a parking area for the Chamna Wildlife Refuge. 2866 again has charge of the train, with a long string of refer cars on the drawbar. There is a significant grade in both directions to reach the elevation of this bridge, and heavy trains struggling over this hump can often be heard from quite a distance. December 2015 |
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| A Yellowstone Ave. resident holds his son up to wave at the train crew as SD-40-2 1836 hauls its train past. April 2014 |
