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Day 13 - Cut Bank MT to Livingston MT

Set off after a bit of a delay thanks to work, to find the viaduct here and the Amtrak. Found both, although wish I'd driven down to the bottom of the canyon for a more impressive shot.

I also found a giant penguin.

(Note, quite a few places claim to be the coldest place in the nation. It was pretty mild here today)

I drove on down the highway and saw just how big and open it is down here on the plains of Montana. The hills were wide and undulating.

I saw a big windfarm off on a hill, but no trains. Then just before Shelby I saw a headlight waiting at the signals. There was a lot of radio chatter, sounded like a hi-railer was making life difficult for everyone.

Then a no-grainer arrived on the scene and the two passed. I roared back up the road t...

Day 12 - Plains MT to Cut Bank MT

Woke up late, that bed was just so comfortable!! Went on a quick hunt for trains down to Paradise but all was quiet, so hit the road north. A fair bit of snow was still on the trees, but only in places. In some places it looked like no snow at all had fallen, and then just minutes there would be heaps of it. Very odd.

After a while I came to a nice lookout. Unfortunately the places was littered with NO TRESSPASSING signs; I guess they had bought a 10 pack of them or something. Anyway it was a bit over the top, and they'd put the signs right in the middle of the gap in the trees. Clever.

I continued on through Kalispell and so on. I went to find a Walmart to get some stuff, only to find it abandoned with no suggestion on where to find the new one. Surprisingly often I'll come across a relocated Walmart; it's quite frustrating.

Soon I was approacing Glacier National Park and the Ma...

Day 11 - Missoula MT to Plains MT

Woke up at 8am and peeped outside. What then!? Snow??? Yep, Missoula was blanketed in a thin later of snow, about an inch of the stuff, and it was still coming down. Well that was unexpected! The forecast had said rain, possibly, but apparently changed its mind during the night.

So I wriggled back into bed and got up an hour later. Packed the car, brushed off some of the snow and set off for Paradise. Paradise, Montana that is.

First stop was at a familiar spot of mine along the river, in fact I still have the location saved on my GPS it seems. I've discovered my car is a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I think I've nearly doubled the miles on it.

I looked around but no trains. Never mind I did have an idea where I could find some. Then just as I was driving off I heard BNSF 5051 east being issued a track warrant from Paradise to MP33 on the 10th sub. That meant he was coming my way! I scooted up to Paradise just to check an...

Day 10 - Helena MT to Missoula MT

My lucky run of sunny weather has come to an end it seems. I woke up to gray overcast skies. I debated heading back to the east side of Mullan but after yesterday decided not to and hit the hightway for Missoula. I remembered the "MT Marijuana" building on the way out of town from last year, but was surprised to see it is now just a discount clothing store. Searching online, there has been a bit of a law change recently which has made things a bit more stringent, although I don't know what exactly happened to the place I'd seen.

I got to the bottom of the vehicular Mullan Pass and turned onto the Austin Mullan Pass Rd to see if there was any rail activity on the western side of the Blossburg tunnel. I'd only got halfway down the road when an SD70MAC came roaring round a curve towards me. Spun around and chased back down the road to get some shots.

The lighting was very uncooperative, and it was tough work keeping up with him o...

Day 9 - Mullan Pass

After seeing the Austin Trestle yesterday I decided that I wanted to go back and see it again, this time from some more impressive angles. So I packed up all my gear and headed for Birdseye Road. Threaded my way down the icy snowy road and parked where I wouldn't be in any of my photos. Noticed fresh tracks up the hillside… and not human tracks either. Could've been a deer. Or something more carniverous!

I made my way up to the top of the hillside and scoped out a few positions. I was annoyed to find that it was very very windy up here and not nearly as peacceful as it had been yesterday. It also meant I couldn't hear the trains coming.

Around 12 I had my first visitor:

I went and explored a few more positions and ended up high on a bluff looking over the trestle. Without knowing if I was shooting east or west bound trains it was hard to choose a location.

The next...

Day 8 - Livingston MT to Helena MT

Off to Helena today, the state capital. I really wanted to chase a train there, but had a feeling we would be following the usual quiet-morning, busy-afternoon routine and there wouldn't be much to chase. On the off chance I drove east a wee bit to see if anything was coming, but it was all quiet. I pulled over and read my book for a while and watched the ice flow down the river.

Decided nothing was happening and went back to the road. After Bozeman things opened up and there were some big flat plains. At Townsend I fuelled up and watched a truck getting filled from a grain elevator. I was surprised at how fast the grain came out, it was like a firehose, but for grain.

I soon arrived in Helena and had a look around. All quiet at the station and MRL yard. Not quite as nice a setup as at Livingston, bit harder to get to. The helpers lay basking in the brief patch of sun.

Day 7 - Bozeman Pass

Woke up to find it snowing! Not heavily mind you, just a very light dusting that fluttered around in the breeze.

I lay in bed keeping an eye on the yards seeing if anything was happening. A couple of downhill trains came through, including a "no grainer" (empty BNSF grain train). A while later I heard some noise and saw a pair of MRL GP35s heading off, and a few minutes later they started tugging a string of wagons out of the yard. I figured this might be a manifest heading up the hill so went out to watch it. Turns out it was just shuttling around the yard, so I sat and watched for a while. They radioed in and headed off up the wye and then didn't come back. Went off to investigate and found them nearly at the end of the wye "spotting" an industry siding.

I went and watched and got a friendly wave as the snow flakes fell.

The GP35s are quite handsome locos and look good in the M...

Day 6 - West Yellowstone to Livingston, MT

Nothing like starting the day at –19°C! I had a little sleep in and since the heater was working tonight, it was much easier to get up in the morning. Packed and drove off slowly to give the car time to warm up. Drove out to the north, passing through a nice river valley.

Things then opened up as I approached Four Corners. Soon I was passing through Bozeman and then onto familiar teritory as I zoomed along I90 over Bozemand Pass. I was shocked at how little snow there was here; last year it had been well and truely blanketed in the stuff. This year there were just little patches of surface snow in the shadows.

I arrived in Livingston and did the rounds. Montana Rail Link workshops were looking pretty bare, however I was pleased to see that there were still helper units sitting around.

It seems the 5 packs of SD40s have been replaced with SD70ACe-SD40-SD70ACe combos. A...

Day 5 - Yellowstone National Park

3:30am NZ time my alarm goes off, and it's well well well below freezing here in West Yellowstone National Park. I showered, shaved, got rugged up real warm, had a bite to eat and was almost done when I heard a big rumbling outside and mere seconds later a knock on my door. The snow coach had arrived!

I climbed in and we set off. Since I was first to be collected I got the front seat which was extra fun cos I was always first off and had the best view. We collected the rest of the group and set off at a blazing crawl for Yellowstone National Park. There was a thick fog out and it was somewhere in the region of –15 to -20°C!

Yellowstone is the world's first national park, and covers a large chunk of northwestern Wyoming (and a little bit of Montana and Idaho). It's geologically very active with numerous springs, geysers, warm patches and so forth. For some reason, despite not being near any plate boundaries, it is a...

Day 4 - Wells, NV to West Yellowstone, MT

Pewwww smelly motels. There used to be a time where I could tolerate them, but my patience has worn thin and now I die a little inside each time I spend a night in a smelly motel. This one was ok, however the bedding smelled musty and the pillows were positively gruesome, all limp and floppy and musty. Yum yum. So that coupled with the local that decided to warm up his pickup at 6am by revving it repeatedly for 5 minutes, meant I was up pretty early and on the road unfashionably early.

I had a quick snoop around some of my previous hunting spots but no trains were to be seen, which is a shame as the scenery was looking stunning!

I hopped on the road and was soon driving along an endless road towards the Idaho border. I passed some weird rocks there were big and round and just piled up all over the land scape. Looking back there were some stunning views of the ranges.

I stopped at...