Railroad Crossing | 50th Ave E, Frederickson, WA

🗓 Date: 5/15/23
🛤 Line: Tacoma Rail Mountain Division
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The main railroading attraction on May 15th, 2023 in Washington was the Tacoma Rail. A unique little shortline, the railroad is operated as a public utility of the City of Tacoma. Despite this public operating philosophy, the railroad's Mountain Division had its days numbered. The Mountain Division is so named due to a 3.3+% grade in Tacoma, causing an enormous maintenance and operations nightmare. With this in mind, Tacoma Rail planned to cease operations on the Mountain Division. The line's customers, a cluster of industries located in Frederickson, would instead be served by shortline Rainier Rail, who would access the industries via a reactivated line running southwest from Tacoma.

May 15th, 2023 just so happened to be the very last day of Tacoma Rail operations on the Mountain Division, and I just so happened to be in the area on one of my regular visits to Washington. Of course, I knew I had to come see the excitement for myself, so I joined the battalion of other railfans and watched as the crew arrived and got on duty. Job 103, better known as the Hill Job, began working the industrial park for the very last time. Here we see them rolling through one of a handful of signaled crossings in the park. Two of Tacoma Rail's unique SD70ACe-P4s, with only four traction motors instead of the usual six, were in the lead.

I am not certain who installed these gates or when, but it is quite possible that they date back to the Milwaukee Road. Most of the equipment here is a mix of older and newer Western Cullen Hayes stuff. Tacoma Rail modernized this crossing a number of years back, replacing the original Western Cullen Hayes mechanical bell with a General Signals Type 3 and retrofitting the lights to LED. While this particular crossing still sees regular use, I am glad to have filmed Tacoma Rail here as seeing them here is now history.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Signal activation
0:28 - Train
1:38 - Signal deactivation
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