We set off just after 9:15am, heading south, again on Highway 2, but this time to Fort MacLeod, and further on the border at Carway (Ca)/Port Piegan (USA).
The destination was the third rail location I had on my wish list for the trip, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad’s Two Medicines River bridge at Glacier Park (East Glacier), and the famous barn seen in the foreground of many photos from this location. This bridge was also the topic of a Dave Smithey (model railroad mate) quiz question a few months ago, when he emailed a photo of the bridge (without barn) to Brendon Groufsky and myself. I immediately replied to both Dave and Brendon “I can’t see the barn”, which Dave knew was my way of advising I knew where it was, but was not letting Brendon know. It took Brendon a few more days of research to work out where the bridge was! The bridge, at the boundary between the plains and the mountains, was built by the Great Northern Railway, but since 1995 is under Burlington Northern Santa Fe ownership.
Half way between Calgary and the USA border, Rozi said “we have food we can’t take into USA”, so a kilometre short of the border we stopped and ate our lunch. It was exactly 12 noon anyway! We crossed into the USA quickly and with no problems; it was a quiet border crossing compared to the one at Blaine, south of Vancouver.
The landscape had changed a few miles north of the border to rolling hill country with cattle grazing and no wheat nor canola of further north. In Montana, and we only saw a very small portion of Montana, there were a few tepees to be seen, some alongside a lake and others used as rooms in a motel/camp complex. We stopped at St. Mary, an entrance to Glacier National Park (for photos), but continued on, using Route 89 and then 49, the shortest route distance to East Glacier, also known by its railroad name of Glacier Park. This turned out to be a winding, steep and narrow road, that is only open in the summer months, of about 12 miles (20km), with a 25mph (40kmh) speed limit, but it was very scenic. At one point we crossed the south branch of the Milk River, a creek about a metre wide. This river starts in the Montana, flows north east into Alberta, before turning back south into Montana, to enter the Missouri River, and ultimately the Mississippi, entering the sea at New Orleans. All of Alberta’s other river systems either flow north to the Arctic Sea or east to Hudson Bay.
We had passed the Two Medicine Lake west of Route 49, and crossed over the Two Medicine River a couple of miles short of Glacier Park, so I knew that the rail bridge was east of the town, so at the East Glacier junction of Highway 2 and 49 we turned left and within a minute we were on the road crossing of the Two Medicine River, with the rail crossing a few hundred metres north, but viewable from the road. Naushad stopped the car and I got out armed with camera and scanner.
Within minutes an eastbound empty grain train behind three locomotives, two BNSF pumpkins (orange) and a war bonnet (silver and red Santa Fe), came over the bridge, and once that had got back onto double track, a westbound grain came, this one with two locos at front and two pushing on the rear. The train was still climbing towards the continental divide at Marias Pass (about 15 miles west), so helper power was needed. This was followed within minutes by two SD40-2 locomotives, consecutively numbered (6818 and 6819), with 6818 still in BN green. These were for a work train working between East Glacier and Summit. I had fulfilled Tim’s requirement of a picture of a Burlington Northern green SD40-2. I could return home now!
Amtrak #8, the eastbound Empire Builder (passenger train), was heard on the scanner, stopped and waiting for traffic to clear after track work. I had hoped it was west of Glacier Park and I would get my first Amtrak picture, but it must have crossed the bridge just prior to us getting to Glacier Park, as there were still people at the station when we passed it. However, it was way behind schedule as it should go through Glacier Park about 10:00am.
It went quiet for about 30-40 minutes, with no trains, and we were just about to leave when we heard a locomotive horn east of us, so stayed a bit longer. The scanner was active with the work train crew (they wanted more track time but the dispatcher had trains queued up ready to go west), and then one of the three talking hot box detectors in the area (MP 1145.5) activated with its radio message of “no defects”. Soon the MP 1142.5 and MP 1138.8 detectors also reported no defects, so I knew another eastbound would be on the bridge within a minute or two. Sure enough a general freight with two EMDs (one in war bonnet scheme) and two GEs, passed over the bridge heading to Browning and points east.
I returned to the car and we went back to Glacier Park to fill up with gas (US$38), and then went west about a mile. The work train, a continuous welded rail train with Herzog equipment (road/rail) on the end, was being pushed back slowly to Glacier Park, where the work sidings are. The power was the two SD40-2s seen crossing the bridge earlier. We returned to Glacier Park and I photographed it crossing the bridge right in Glacier Park (not the Two Medicine Bridge), and then we left, heading east toward Browning (17 miles away).
The landscape changed immediately to rolling hill country, and again to the plains, and sure enough there were two westbound freights stationary just east of the Two Medicine Bridge, waiting for the work train to clear the mainline. We should have stayed at the bridge another few minutes as we would have seen another two trains head over it westbound. The railway line is just north of the road, until just short of Browning where it crosses under the road and enters the Browning yard on a large elevated curve, protected with huge snow fences.
It is 14 years since the merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, but there is still a lot of early paint scheme equipment. We had seen locomotives in BN green (1970-1995), Santa Fe war bonnet (1985 -1995) and two versions of BNSF orange, not to forget about the older yellow and blue Santa Fe unit seen at Everett on 4th July. The general freight trains contained a lot of BN green equipment too, but the two grain trains seen, had no BN lettered hoppers, just BNSF or other non BN/BNSF lettered hoppers.
We stopped in Browning for about 30 minutes and went to a large gift shop. Prices seemed reasonable, even when converting US$ to NZ$, but I only bought a pictorial book on Glacier National Park, while Shamina bought a few little pieces. Naushad checked out motel prices, before he decided to head home to Calgary. Instead of returning via Route 89 (St. Mary), we used Route 474 north out of Browning, straight through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. For a minor road it was good, and it joined the highway a few miles short of the border crossing at Babb. We stopped at a little café for a coffee ($1 a large Styrofoam cup) and continued north, crossing back into Canada with just a couple of questions from the Canadian Immigration officer (how long had the Canadians been out of Canada, and how long were the New Zealanders going to stay in Canada).
At Cardston, another historic town with a museum devoted to horse drawn vehicles (stage coaches etc) the ladies spotted The Bargain! Shop and decided to investigate. As they walked in one of the staff turned the “open” sign off (it was 5:30pm), but it turned out the shop didn’t close till 6:00pm. They purchased a few things and then we continued north towards Calgary, stopping at Claresholm for a coffee and washroom stop. Another full day with 740km put on the Lincoln Navigator.
I loaded the photos onto the computer, checked the emails, and then was going to show Naushad a few pictures from the internet (Fraser and Thompson rivers), so went to Railpictures.net. The photo of the week (front screen) just happened to be a picture of Southern Pacific steam engine 4449 with passenger special crossing the Two Medicine Bridge on July 5th. Exactly the same location as where we were a few hours earlier!
The destination was the third rail location I had on my wish list for the trip, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad’s Two Medicines River bridge at Glacier Park (East Glacier), and the famous barn seen in the foreground of many photos from this location. This bridge was also the topic of a Dave Smithey (model railroad mate) quiz question a few months ago, when he emailed a photo of the bridge (without barn) to Brendon Groufsky and myself. I immediately replied to both Dave and Brendon “I can’t see the barn”, which Dave knew was my way of advising I knew where it was, but was not letting Brendon know. It took Brendon a few more days of research to work out where the bridge was! The bridge, at the boundary between the plains and the mountains, was built by the Great Northern Railway, but since 1995 is under Burlington Northern Santa Fe ownership.
Half way between Calgary and the USA border, Rozi said “we have food we can’t take into USA”, so a kilometre short of the border we stopped and ate our lunch. It was exactly 12 noon anyway! We crossed into the USA quickly and with no problems; it was a quiet border crossing compared to the one at Blaine, south of Vancouver.
The landscape had changed a few miles north of the border to rolling hill country with cattle grazing and no wheat nor canola of further north. In Montana, and we only saw a very small portion of Montana, there were a few tepees to be seen, some alongside a lake and others used as rooms in a motel/camp complex. We stopped at St. Mary, an entrance to Glacier National Park (for photos), but continued on, using Route 89 and then 49, the shortest route distance to East Glacier, also known by its railroad name of Glacier Park. This turned out to be a winding, steep and narrow road, that is only open in the summer months, of about 12 miles (20km), with a 25mph (40kmh) speed limit, but it was very scenic. At one point we crossed the south branch of the Milk River, a creek about a metre wide. This river starts in the Montana, flows north east into Alberta, before turning back south into Montana, to enter the Missouri River, and ultimately the Mississippi, entering the sea at New Orleans. All of Alberta’s other river systems either flow north to the Arctic Sea or east to Hudson Bay.
We had passed the Two Medicine Lake west of Route 49, and crossed over the Two Medicine River a couple of miles short of Glacier Park, so I knew that the rail bridge was east of the town, so at the East Glacier junction of Highway 2 and 49 we turned left and within a minute we were on the road crossing of the Two Medicine River, with the rail crossing a few hundred metres north, but viewable from the road. Naushad stopped the car and I got out armed with camera and scanner.
Within minutes an eastbound empty grain train behind three locomotives, two BNSF pumpkins (orange) and a war bonnet (silver and red Santa Fe), came over the bridge, and once that had got back onto double track, a westbound grain came, this one with two locos at front and two pushing on the rear. The train was still climbing towards the continental divide at Marias Pass (about 15 miles west), so helper power was needed. This was followed within minutes by two SD40-2 locomotives, consecutively numbered (6818 and 6819), with 6818 still in BN green. These were for a work train working between East Glacier and Summit. I had fulfilled Tim’s requirement of a picture of a Burlington Northern green SD40-2. I could return home now!
Amtrak #8, the eastbound Empire Builder (passenger train), was heard on the scanner, stopped and waiting for traffic to clear after track work. I had hoped it was west of Glacier Park and I would get my first Amtrak picture, but it must have crossed the bridge just prior to us getting to Glacier Park, as there were still people at the station when we passed it. However, it was way behind schedule as it should go through Glacier Park about 10:00am.
It went quiet for about 30-40 minutes, with no trains, and we were just about to leave when we heard a locomotive horn east of us, so stayed a bit longer. The scanner was active with the work train crew (they wanted more track time but the dispatcher had trains queued up ready to go west), and then one of the three talking hot box detectors in the area (MP 1145.5) activated with its radio message of “no defects”. Soon the MP 1142.5 and MP 1138.8 detectors also reported no defects, so I knew another eastbound would be on the bridge within a minute or two. Sure enough a general freight with two EMDs (one in war bonnet scheme) and two GEs, passed over the bridge heading to Browning and points east.
I returned to the car and we went back to Glacier Park to fill up with gas (US$38), and then went west about a mile. The work train, a continuous welded rail train with Herzog equipment (road/rail) on the end, was being pushed back slowly to Glacier Park, where the work sidings are. The power was the two SD40-2s seen crossing the bridge earlier. We returned to Glacier Park and I photographed it crossing the bridge right in Glacier Park (not the Two Medicine Bridge), and then we left, heading east toward Browning (17 miles away).
The landscape changed immediately to rolling hill country, and again to the plains, and sure enough there were two westbound freights stationary just east of the Two Medicine Bridge, waiting for the work train to clear the mainline. We should have stayed at the bridge another few minutes as we would have seen another two trains head over it westbound. The railway line is just north of the road, until just short of Browning where it crosses under the road and enters the Browning yard on a large elevated curve, protected with huge snow fences.
It is 14 years since the merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, but there is still a lot of early paint scheme equipment. We had seen locomotives in BN green (1970-1995), Santa Fe war bonnet (1985 -1995) and two versions of BNSF orange, not to forget about the older yellow and blue Santa Fe unit seen at Everett on 4th July. The general freight trains contained a lot of BN green equipment too, but the two grain trains seen, had no BN lettered hoppers, just BNSF or other non BN/BNSF lettered hoppers.
We stopped in Browning for about 30 minutes and went to a large gift shop. Prices seemed reasonable, even when converting US$ to NZ$, but I only bought a pictorial book on Glacier National Park, while Shamina bought a few little pieces. Naushad checked out motel prices, before he decided to head home to Calgary. Instead of returning via Route 89 (St. Mary), we used Route 474 north out of Browning, straight through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. For a minor road it was good, and it joined the highway a few miles short of the border crossing at Babb. We stopped at a little café for a coffee ($1 a large Styrofoam cup) and continued north, crossing back into Canada with just a couple of questions from the Canadian Immigration officer (how long had the Canadians been out of Canada, and how long were the New Zealanders going to stay in Canada).
At Cardston, another historic town with a museum devoted to horse drawn vehicles (stage coaches etc) the ladies spotted The Bargain! Shop and decided to investigate. As they walked in one of the staff turned the “open” sign off (it was 5:30pm), but it turned out the shop didn’t close till 6:00pm. They purchased a few things and then we continued north towards Calgary, stopping at Claresholm for a coffee and washroom stop. Another full day with 740km put on the Lincoln Navigator.
I loaded the photos onto the computer, checked the emails, and then was going to show Naushad a few pictures from the internet (Fraser and Thompson rivers), so went to Railpictures.net. The photo of the week (front screen) just happened to be a picture of Southern Pacific steam engine 4449 with passenger special crossing the Two Medicine Bridge on July 5th. Exactly the same location as where we were a few hours earlier!
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