Trackside for an amazing train

First time ever! Yes … ever … as of May 2007

For the first time in history, two famous steam locomotives—844 and 4449—double-headed on the same train! Double-heading is a railroad term for operating two locomotives in tandem. These two, the Union Pacific Railroad's 844, a 4-8-4 "Northern," and 4449, the former Southern Pacific 4-8-4 owned by the City of Portland, Ore., have sat on adjacent tracks in such places as LA, Sacramento, New Orleans (and others) … but never run on the same train before.

It was awesome! A big black anachronism from the golden age of railroading, followed by the orange-and-red epitome of streamlined luxury passenger trains.

How strange, considering how long they've been operating—844 as a roving, much beloved, promotional agent for Union Pacific and 4449 as an ambassador of goodwill from Portland and the Oregon Rail Historical Foundation. The special excursion was operated as a fund raiser for ORHF, which is trying to purchase a suitable new location for 4449 to be housed and maintained.

[Ed.: I moved my online portfolio temporarily so I can share the latest thrill of my life. My portfolio is here for awhile.]

New! Extra frames added! The wind was blowing to the east about 20 mph and the sun was behind a thin layer of clouds (otherwise it would have cast the locomotives in a massive shadow). The train was coming north at about 35 mph, which I understand is 844's restricted top speed. Two other men stopped at my vantage point, armed with a railroad frequency radio scanner, but I spotted the train coming even before their radio squawked.

The look is south from the Auburn, Wash., yard (ex-Northern Pacific) just north of the White River bridge. I scouted for an hour before deciding this was the best location among many possibilities. Just as I was getting set up, Amtrak #11 (the Coast Starlight) came silently dashing south—I turned around and it was "in my face." This was once a busy yard, but the only use the Auburn yard gets these days is storing grain hoppers.

There on the northbound trip was 844 operating as the "helper" with 4449 in back pulling the trainload of passengers who paid up to $399 for the four hour Tacoma-to-Everett (Wash.) trip. Both were running hard—under overcast sky so there were NO pesky shadows … but the exhausts were almost imperceptible.

NOTE: When I indicate "in back" here, I mean behind the helper, not pushing from behind the passenger cars; the photos show what I mean but I've had feedback that the text is unclear. Another way to say it is that the locomotives were coupled together, then coupled as a unit to the front of the train.

The train used all of Union Pacific's historic, bright yellow, streamlined passenger cars (including three domeliners, when one was promised), so I worried it would be too heavy, or worse—BNSF or the City of Seattle wouldn't let steam locomotives into the tunnel under Seattle's downtown metroplex.

I shot some beautiful action below the Seattle Art Institute as the train swiveled into the north portal of the tunnel under Seattle. Even in the most urbane of settings, these locomotives reminded onlookers and passengers alike that history is always as alive as we choose to make it.

I turned around just in time to crank off four frames of the train sliding through the reverses between the Art Institute's parking garage and the Seattle Trade Center toward the tunnel's north portal. Later, in Photoshop, I wished I'd held on for two or three more frames. Oh well. The excursion was traveling between 10 and 15 mph, although I've seen BNSF freights moving at upwards of 35 mph through here. Public access to the portal has been blocked by a massive Marriott across from the Seattle cruise ship terminal, which is probably good for safety, all things considered.

Railfan's tip: A helper is another locomotive (sometimes two) added for extra power to "help" a train up a steep grade and then removed at the top. The route through Seattle is water-level with no hills, so the excursion's history-making road/helper concept was visual only.

Since 4449 was the "road" engine northbound, the crew used its whistle. I love that low-chimed "steamboat" whistle (which once rattled windows all along the California coast). I got some great shots at the south end of the Auburn yard.

Then 4449 was the helper going south, so they used 844's whistle. Absolutely heavenly. What it means is that somewhere in Everett—Delta Yard perhaps (I wasn't there and haven't yet questioned anyone who was)—the train was turned around, broken apart, and the order of the locomotives reversed. I guess I could have asked the crew during the static exhibition on Sunday but I forgot.

Location in a train dictates which locomotive's whistle is used. The road engine (which stays with the train when the helper is removed) uses its whistle. Going north, 4449's whistle was the train's voice; going south it was 844's. Occasionally, both locomotives would whistle as needed for warnings but not often, and not on this excursion.

For railroad operations, it's a horrible place. The track is convoluted here—in 2/3rds mile trains navigate two pairs of dual-directionally signalled curves/reverses, a double crossover, cross three heavily-traveled streets, and enter a tunnel portal.

There's no crown in the tunnel and it has good ventilation, so the locomotives didn't need to work much steam inside … there was very little smoke when the train treaded past my mark in the middle of the double reverse curves along Seattle's Alaskan Way waterfront arterial.

Railfan's tip: Steam locomotives function by converting the energy in their fuel (bunker #5 oil) by burning it in a huge firebox attached to the cab. A boiler filled with water straddles the firebox and the water is converted to steam which push the pistons. The fire creates smoke, sometimes a lot of smoke, which is exhausted up the smokestack.

For a few moments, though, I thought I'd staked out the wrong place, wanting an urban backdrop. A southbound merchandiser with an SD45 and two SD40s came charging down the southbound main track—and I suddenly feared the ORHF special would pass behind on the northbound main. Double "whew" when the freight cleared through the tunnel mouth with no sign of the special yet … and I guessed correctly which main the excursion train would use.

My son chased the train south from Golden Gardens park to King Street (Amtrak's station in Seattle), just outside the tunnel's south portal (you've probably heard train whistles blow there during televised Seattle Mariners baseball games). There was a problem and he heard it all on someone's radio scanner:

"Where the switch key?"
"You have it."
"No. You had it. The 4449 is waiting."
"Well, who's got the key?"

Troy said the train was there at least eight minutes before they found the key. "Who's 'bridge'?" he wondered. "They kept asking 'bridge' where the key was." The only bridge I know is the bascule bridge over Salmon Bay, though it's beyond me why they'd have the King Street puzzle switch key six miles away on the other side of a major railroad sorting yard.

I heard the excursion actually DID a photo runby at Elliot Bay (the ORHF.org web site did not exactly promise it). We saw steam plumes behind the Seattle Art Museum's new sculpture parks overpass, and then they were gone. And then they were back about 10 minutes later, like the train backed up so the passengers could unload and get photos (and then reboard).

As I dashed north from Auburn trying to match the train's speed—impossible in traffic—I saw at least 75 of others like me capturing their visions of the excursion. I've heard from others that overpasses were lined 12 deep for the train's southbound trip … hundreds more. I expected thousands, based on anecdotal evidence from other places they've run for other special occassions. After all, this was an historic first.

And no diesel pusher. Whew! The cab of 4449 is equipped with a diesel multiple unit (MU) controller so the engineer can operate freight units when extra power is needed.

I wanted an urban setting to contrast/accentuate the historical appearance of the locomotives. My daughter and I scouted this location looking north a week earlier and I rejected it. But when I realized I could never chase the train in the maze of freeways, streets, and stoplights, I decided here was as good as anywhere else. The overpass in the background is actually a piece of conceptual art on glass panels in Seattle Art Museum's new sculpture park (I wondered how it fared in the steam plume). The sun came out from the west, giving the train a wonderful glow.

These photo sequences show the difference in positions of the two locomotives between the northbound and southbound trips. I'm not sure how excited the 4449's crew was to be the helper; the engineer had a serious frown when they passed me—it was working most of the steam and I suspect the crew was worried about pulling the larger 844 (at 545 tons, as opposed to 4449's 285 tons).

Railfan's tip: Working steam is a railroad fan term for having the throttle open so the pistons are actually moving the connecting rods instead of merely "coasting." See glossary for component descriptions.

When the smokestack shows smoke, the locomotive is "working steam." I'm not sure if it's a term Class 1 railroaders use but, at least in the '60s, the D&RGW's Durango to Silverton crews said it all the time.

What it means for railfans (us "nuts" at trackside) is that 4449 was making the distinctive "chuff chuff" sound as steam exhausted from the pistons up the blast pipe into the smoke box and out the smokestack. Oh, the times I've wished I had a professional-quality portable tape deck of my own—but there are many commercial audio and video recordings available of 4449 in action.

The "action shots" on this page are not video. They are actually STILL photographs** shot manually, the old fashioned way. I started shooting when the first steam plume became visible until the train passed—click, wind, click, wind, click… no motor drive, just me.

It wasn't until the film was processed and digitized to CD, that I realized how the progressions looked. Five or six hours later, after extensive work in Photoshop—voila! The shakiness is actually my excitement, dodging around to get the most shots in the shortest time. Because there were in some cases as few as four frames, I had to speed them up to reduce the jerkiness to a minimum.

How I made these "movies"

To make these "animations" work, I keyed into one particular item that could be stabilized in every frame—the White River bridge, the signal upright, the little sign. Once I picked the common element, I nudged and rotated each frame in its own Photoshop layer until those elements matched; or were at least very close.

Then I cropped the photo to the smallest edge common to all frames … this didn't always work, as the northbound animation demonstrates by following along with the train (I hope it isn't too distracting — I recently added four more frames). Overall, this technique enabled me to ensure the train itself was the focus, that its trajectory was smooth and flowed evenly.

When I had all the frames lined up, I opened the series of layers in ImageReady and adjusted each frame's duration. Because of the click-wind-click of my shooting process, there was no common duration, each frame is custom-adjusted to present even motion. It's a preview-and-try-again process but I'm happy with the final effect.

From there, it was a simple step to save each as an optimized GIF. When I reviewed them in my browser though, I realized the download time for the aggregate was too large, so I looped back and cut the sizes by half.

** Photographer's note: Hand-held at 1/500^th at f 5.6 (morning) and f 11 (afternoon) on Fujicolor 200, using a 1965 Pentax Spotmatic with an 85mm Asahi lens and a 1977 Pentax MX with a 200mm Asahi lens (and a thread mount adapter in the bayonet lens coupler).

I shot six rolls of 24-exposure Fujicolor. In the next few weeks as time permits, I'll post representative samples of the frames in these sequences on separate pages. I'll finish up several more sequences that languish because I ran out of time. I'm also putting together composites and montages to enlarge for wall mounting. If you would like to see them or order one, email me at .

Trivia: While I waited across the street from the cruise line terminal, I was "treated" to a steady pageant of railroading in action. The section hosts at least 40 mainline trains every day and a wide variety of other yard-related activity. About 10 minutes before the steam locomotives dashed past, a single GP25 (#3027) still wearing BN "white face" cruised south on the same track with no train (an equipment transfer "move"). Later on, I "googled" the engine's number out of curiosity, and learned it had been wrecked and scrapped in 1972 … remember this is 2007 … hmmm ???