Chapter Notes: Skykomish (Destination Unknown) · 2:28am Jan 28th, 2022
It’s not a planned stop, not even the more accustomed unplanned stop where Sweetsong wants to go further but the train doesn’t. After the tunnel, she just has to have sky and openness to decompress.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
Skykomish was a railroad town, and back when the Cascade Tunnel was electrified, that was where the electrics were cut off the train and steam or diesel locomotives were put back on. Population-wise, there’s not much left of it; Wikipedia says that in the 2010 census there were only 198 people left in town. Due to its location in the mountains, it’s kind of cut off from easy access to anywhere else.
Interestingly, like a lot of towns that had a heavy industrial presence, there was a bunch of soil contamination from railroad practices back in the day (which I’m assuming were ‘if you dump it on the ground, it disappears and isn’t a problem any more.’) The cleanup cost about 100 million, and included moving 22 buildings, excavating the contaminated soil, installing new, uncontaminated soil, and putting the buildings back. That must have been an interesting thing to see.
Skykomish is also home to the Great Northern and Cascade Railway. It’s a scale railway that you can ride, featuring both live steam locomotives and other locomotives that their members bring in. It’s 7.5” gauge, which if my googling is accurate means the trains are 1:8 scale.
It’s open on weekends and holidays, according to their website. And the best part is, train rides are free!
A flatcar that carries rail wheels looks like this:
Source
Larger railroads (like the Canadian National) often have a small fleet of specialty cars like these. Typically they’re made from older cars which can no longer be used in ‘exchange’ service—that is, they cannot go onto any other railroad’s tracks, and I don’t think they can be used for revenue loads, either. (I’m less sure about that second one.)
[Many retired railroad cars are re-used for other purposes. Flatbed cars have been turned into bridges, railroads sometimes use tank cars as storage tanks, and box cars make excellent storage sheds. They’re also sometimes turned into offices, or used for work crews.]
The treads on a rail wheel do wear out, and they can be replaced or re-countoured. I would imagine that larger railroads (such as the CN) do that themselves at a central location, and the flat cars are likely used to move wheels from a maintenance shop to a repair facility. In the blog about the cars (the source link’ll take you there), he mentions new wheels and bearings being pressed on to axles at the Transcona shops.
As you can see, there would be a lot of places for a pegasus to hide on such a car, while still being somewhat in the open, especially if the wheels are stacked two high.
Incidentally, a custom rail car is not the only way they’re carried; I’ve seen them on semi-trucks before.
Where have all the hobos gone? One of them is flying around Skykomish, and there are a few on YouTube. It’s dangerous and illegal, of course.
Things aren’t the same as they used to be, for better or worse; the trains move faster, don’t have as many convenient ladders or hiding spots, and the tracks don’t go all the places they used to go.
Posted at 2:28 am! When do you sleep?!
The first and last pictures are beautiful.
Music:The Slow Train by Flanders and Swan.
Really, riding the rails isn't something you plan for so trying to plan it feels silly.
Finally getting to the point in my queue of catching up with this story. :)
5631908
It does show post time as local; I think I posted it at like 10:30pm my time (maybe it was 11:30).
Thank you!
5631942
Ooh, that’s a good one.
5631966
This is true, although there’s some planning and knowledge that goes into it (if you want to get where you’re going without being arrested or worse), and then a fair bit of luck and boldness.
5634313
Yay! Finally getting to the point in my queue where I’m catching up on comments
5635103
:)