Trains look like Snakes on Providence Hill (4K) | March 30, 2024 

Another great video! The scenery here is a pretty stark contrast to the green of Oregon. Here's a little gas money to help keep you going!

These mechanical snakes are indeed incredible. We can see their enormous size very well from the air. The colorful locomotives are really cool. The Milwaukee Road bridge's ruins are interesting. The concrete is still in good shape, even after decades of abandonement. It's good to know you are a lone wolf when it comes to railfanning. Excellent aerial footage again Dan. This area is pretty nice and we can enjoy it from different angles.

Thanks Dan......👍

Thanks

Thanks!

Excellent job, Raifan, very well done. Awesome.

Thank you Dan. Best train videos

Amazing as always. I remember seeing that Oil Train with the NS DPU at Sagemoor. Love the Lakeside Subdivision Content!

Greetings from Bend, OR where we get about a dozen freight trains per day. I discovered your channel a month or two ago and absolutely love your work.

Some of your best footage, Dan. I love the early morning sunlight shining between the grain or coal cars. I like to find your sites on Google earth and as I zoomed way out I was struck by how much the area looks like military desert camo. I once made the mistake of calling some California hills 'brown.' I was quickly corrected; "In the summer, California hills are Golden!"

Thanks Dan, great footage and also thanks for the MILW references. My wife and I drove through this area in the mid-90s from Salem over to Montana but we had no real idea what was out here (no real Internet or RU-vid in those days - just the Rand Mcnally map books). Imagine my surprise when we got to the remains of the MILW Cascade division with it's timber catenary poles! The bridge at Lind features in a couple of videos on RU-vid but this time with a deck and trains!

Railfan Dan never disappoints; never!

It's always neat to see a train snake it's way around trackage and the drone shots make it even better! Lovely video! ^-^

Started watching this earlier, had a huge fire to go to. And finished it now, wow this is great stuff. Thanks 🙏 and 😊. B

The trains in this video did look like snakes as they slithered through all the curves in this section of BNSF's Lakeside Subdivision, Dan! There are a lot of curves in this section of the Lakeside Subdivision. The tank car train almost looked like a caterpillar. The sound of the engines in your ground shots gave us proof of how hard the engines were working moving the trains. Thank you for another wonderful video, Dan!

I see you were at Providence Hill on March 30. My father and I were railfanning there on March 28/29 and March 31/April 1. We just missed each other. I have railfanned at Providence Hill many times. Great place for BNSF trains. Grain accounted for more than 1/3 of trains seen on that weekend. Those are pretty direct opinions you have on long trains at 21:40 and there is validity to your concerns. I missed this train (and commented on Railfan509's video as he captured this train as well) and on that weekend, I saw 96 freight trains, the longest was a CPKC (or UP since it was in Bonners Ferry) train at 179 cars (potash specifically). That train was the shortest longest train I had seen on a trip in years. Being from Vancouver, BC, trains of at least 10,000 feet are very frequent on CN and CPKC. It makes sense if the long sidings or double-track sections are there. At least 80% of the sidings on CN between Winnipeg and Vancouver as well as Prince Rupert are at least 12,000 feet, enough to accommodate a 200 car grain train. CPKC also has many sections to accommodate these trains as well between Winnipeg and Vancouver. UP's Overland Route has many trains of at least 10,000 feet as well, since their mainline is completely double-tracked from Chicago to Salt Lake City. Based on videos observed, UP's Sunset Route has many 10,000 footers (starting in 2019) since around 85% of that corridor is double-tracked as well. In my observation, BNSF has the ability to run 10,000 foot trains between Sandpoint and Pasco due to lengthy sections of double-track, but points both east and west of those pose challenges since the Fallbridge Sub and the MRL and Northern Transcon lack capacity. In what I have viewed on numerous trips I have done to Washington over the years, I don't think BNSF is that efficient in the region. I saw trains stacked up waiting to go westbound at Hatton back in March and due to clearance issues, they still can't run double-stacks or autoracks over Stampede nor can they can run loaded bulk commodity trains over Stevens due to the vent issues. I think BNSF is bursting at the seams and I think if they added a lot more double-track, sidings, and resolve the clearance issue, they could increase their output in traffic dramatically. One commodity that I notice is way down over the years is international intermodal. We saw no solid trains of this among the 96 trains, as that traffic has gone to CN, CPKC, and UP.

Nice job Dan. Agree wholeheartedly with you about long trains.

Another great video Dan, I’m always looking forward to my morning coffee with your latest up on the big screen. A couple thoughts; Have you considered writing a book of your favorite spots along with your photos and the history of that area? And British Columbia is a few miles above, have you ever been to or thought of doing the Fraser and Thompson Canyons between Hope and Kamloops? A little further up the road is the double spiral tunnel at Kickinghorse Pass, that footage would be amazing.

Each time you mentioned 'the hill', 'climb', and 'grade', I would start wondering how they were able to make it up anything with such little power; especially the auto rack....then you mentioned that the most the trains had to tackle was 1.7%....then I understood that the grade was nowhere near as grueling as either Pengra, or especially Siskiyou! What a beautiful region it is up there btw! The remnants of the old rail line was spectacular, as was all of the views. My two kingsnakes would be jealous of the size of those snakes on that line!!! Keep up the awesome work, as always Dan. Maybe someday you can catch a train between Grants Pass and Roseburg; THAT would be quite a catch indeed!

Haven't we seen those old Milwaukee RR bridge pillars before? Just letting you know I was paying attention :-)

🚂🚂🚂

Interesting landscapes with loads of worms...kind of reminds me of Tehachapi but without any trees.

Nice coverage of the Hill. As you stated so well: the bean counters love the double trains but the crews hate them. Besides the potential issues of mechanical problems there’s no where to park them outside of double track or terminals. The result is other, higher priority trains being delayed such as the Z trains and Amtrak. Customer service isn’t important because every other class one is operating the same way. It’s very unusual to see eastbound empty crude on the Lakeside Sub. So my guess is that it came from a refinery around Bakersfield headed back to ND. One last thought- the BNSF is suffering because the BN executives decided the SP&S route from Spokane to Pasco was not needed after the merger. Ugh!

Oh Dan !

Great video. I'd love to know how fast the trains in your videos are going.

Some snakes make a rattling sound from their tails, others make smoke.

Hi Dan, enjoy your videos. For us rookies, could you please explain how %age of grade relates to geometric angle. Thx.

I’d like a little more commentary, Dan, like where all the grain was loaded on, and where it is going to. Otherwise, I really enjoy your videos. Those drones make a big difference.

Hey, Railfan Dan! Since you may be making a trip to Canada to video some trains in the future you and your commenters might want to check out some real good short train videos by: Trackside Tyson.

good

I’m curious to know if the same train crews keep going back and forth on this line.

Great shot on the best part of the line. Do use Sports mode much or is normal speed enough?

I try to follow the train routes on Google maps, but I think some of your descriptions are a bit out. Your coal train at 4:30 was north of Hatton, not just west! But don't bother about that, the shots are impressive.

Weird to see my thoroughbreds run on the West coast

hey Dan: Do you have a scanner to listen to the trains? I do. That way I know when they'll be coming.

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It's all about greed the more people they can run with out, that includes maintenance the more money they make if their is a crash it's just a write off who cares what it cost or whom it hurts the hole thing is just a write off. Witch means a big tax brake and guess who pays for that. Thankyou for your time. Paul

Thanks!