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Frederick Manfred Simon ~ Railway Industry Photographer & Multidiscipline Creative
If there ever were a case of atherosclerosis in BNSF’s vast cardiovascular rail system, the famed infamous “Funnel,” so famously coined by my friend Bruce Kelly so many Kodachrome boxes past, may well be the epitome thereof. The amount of non-stop (figuratively speaking), bidirectional-traffic pumped through this constricted chemin de fer construct at its most acute less than three-mile-short, 21-foot tie-end to concrete tie-end narrows – between Napa & Lee Street Junction and Sunset Junction – is a feat worthy of a standalone Discovery series, if not a Modern Marvels feature, or a modern-day History Channel “Hell on Wheels.” Here, just East of the geographic center of Spokane, the epicenter of The Funnel, it’s 21:35 of any given night or day, and Main Two has very little exposed rail as one eastbound after the other in “Train Ahead” formation follows on the DPU’s dim of the previous in a more stop than go precession. Meanwhile Main One is the antithesis as Boyer West shoots WB-after-WB out of Hauser 23 east-miles as rapidly as safe, making room for the in-frame and following eastbounds. In what may seem as arbitrary minutes, this grain empty will ease ahead keeping measured distance as the train behind it inches its way forward and so on an so forth ad infinitum. (© 24Jul18)