We spent Valentines Day Saturday the 14th driving across Washington State to Sandpoint, ID where we spent the night. There was plenty of snow in Sandpoint so I was encouraged about our prospects for Sunday when we would head into Montana.

      Sunday morning Feb 15th dawned with fresh snow on top of what was already there! It was a winter wonderland. My instincts told me to stay and shoot trains on the BNSF Funnel but we elected to head east into Montana as the MRL was our primary goal. Naturally the further into Montana we got the more the snow thinned out till it was almost completely gone. We caught up to a BNSF e/b intermodal near Thompson Falls and followed it to Plains, MT where it met a BNSF w/b being led by a Norfolk Southern GE wide nosed locomotive which we followed back to Thompson Falls. We then waited for the w/b MRL Gas Local at Thompson Falls and were pleased to find F45 393 was the second unit. After it's switching was complete we followed it east towards Paradise, MT. While the gas local headed over Evaro Hill we took the river line to Lothrup, west of Missoula catching a number of trains before heading back to the small Montana town of Plains for the night.

      Monday morning was overcast and pretty dreary. But at least it wasn't raining. We headed east and caught up to the BNSF M-PASLAU which was in the siding at Toole waiting for a couple of westbounds. Leading this e/b was MRL 316. Any SD45 leading a train in 2004 is worth a second look. We managed to get off a number of shots of this train plus others at the semaphores around St Regis. Word was out that 11 of these old signals were in MRL's 2004 budget to be replaced. This day would capture 5 of them on film. The MRL Paradise Local also ran with a couple of geeps and like SD45's are a dying breed on most mainlines. We would follow the local west to Thompson Falls before heading back to Sandpoint, ID and on home the following day.

      While the weather did not really cooperate to produce the "ideal" snowy or sunny scenes I was hoping for many of the images here are different in a sense of showing the railroads do operate whatever the weather may be. It can't always be sunny. Making up for poor weather this trip were catching the MRL SD45 and even the NS unit leading trains across the MRL. Those are the things I will remember. Plus the chance to shoot trains passing thru semaphores is something that won't last forever. These are the things that stand out and will be remembered about this trip for years to come, especially after those semaphores are long gone.