05/25/2025
Line Em Up
A scene from seven years ago that I've always found striking...
On the windswept plains of northeast Wyoming sits a line of power stretching east as far as the eye can see. These SD70MACs many still wearing their as delivered Grinstein green or executive scheme were part of a historic order from EMD for 350 units, the largest single order ever up to that time. These state of the art AC traction locomotives were the last new units delivered to the Burlington Northern before the BNSF merger. Ordered primarily for use hauling unit trains out of the then booming Powder River Basin, they now rest here in the yard they once worked out of.
This is about MP 585.5 on BNSF's Black Hills Sub (ex CB&Q) along the south edge of the big Donkey Creek Yard east of Gillette. This yard is the anchor for four lines, the Black Hills Sub to the southeast, the Bighorn Sub to the northwest (from Gillette), the Orin Sub south into the coal fields.
After waking up this morning in Sheridan it was clear and cold in the single digits with biting wind. I didn't have long to take in the operations and only saw one coal train roll by during my short visit. While it was a bit sad to see these units cold and dead, they certainly put in a yeoman's work after a quarter century of service.
Donkey Creek
Campbell County, Wyoming
Thursday January 11, 2018
