Seattle Spur & Spot
Classic "loose car railroading" serving local industries.

"SPOT RAIL CAR DOOR HERE"

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• West Seattle has a long and interesting history of rail activity, and has recently been expanding in importance.  (revised 6-11-98)
  • The line down West Marginal offers more interest, and goes further, than one might suspect. (revised 6-11-98)
• Harbor Island delights with variety, and reliability of almost always being able to find something going on. (revised 6-7-98)
  • 11th Avenue has the UP, on the east side. (revised 6-8-98)
  • 16th Avenue has the BNSF, on the West side. (revised 6-8-98)
• The Whatcom line extends north from Argo Yard's northwest corner, and includes Whatcom Yard. (revised 6-9-98)
• The Colorado Avenue Corridor extends north from Argo Yard's northwest corner, and includes Stacy Street Yard.  (revised11-4-98)
• East Marginal has a long and active line from just south of Spokane Street almost past Boeing Field.
  • North End - north of the Federal Center South.  (revised 5-31-98)
  • The Heart - between the FCS and the First Avenue South Bridge.  (revised 6-12-98)
  • South End - south of the First Avenue South Bridge.  (revised 6-6-98)
  • Fox Avenue - street trackage off the South End, a block west of East Marginal.  (revised 6-6-98)
• The 2nd Avenue Corridor has the BNSF mainline from Argo to King Street Station and the tunnel. (revised 6-11-98)
  • Occidental Avenue is a classic of dirt track and funky old wood warehouses, but the flange marks in the mud show it isn't dead yet. (revised 5-30-98)
• The 5th Avenue Line can be busy and interesting, but hard to get at.
  • North of Spokane Street, it resembles a tree of mostly parallel lines.  (revised 6-3-98)
  • South of Spokane Street, it is less confusing, largely inaccessible, with some almost hidden treasures.  (revised 6-3-98)
• The Shore Line is a long reach through an appealing industrial area to reach an important customer. (revised 5-27-98)
• South from Argo we find a few things to look at in South Seattle and Black River Junction.  (revised 6-5-98)
• The Oxbow District makes the heart ache with disused tracks. I'd really like some help on this one. (preliminary 5-31-98)
• The Terry Avenue line once ran from Interbay almost to downtown Seattle. Its remnants will intrigue anyone interested in street trackage and classic industrial/commercial districts. (revised 6-11-98)
• Interbay has some inaccessible industry switching, and some accessible.  (revised 6-12-98)
• Ballard industry switching is treated within a broader discussion of railroading in the Ballard area. (frequent updates)

The  icons above indicate that map links are available on that page, the linked map above is a sample that does not show the full line or district.

The Union Pacific came later, and with only a single line into Seattle, via Milwaukee Road trackage rights from Tacoma, and via Northern Pacific trackage rights from Portland, Oregon, to Tacoma. But the UP is still a big player in local switching, and for daytime railfanning, it is often as easy to find UP switchers at work as BNSF.

The Milwaukee Road may have seemed a bit player in quantity of local activity, but in many respects, they made up for it in quality: The Milwaukee Road's use of electric locomotives into Seattle, via Pacific Coast trackage rights via Renton, made them object of much attention. The high visibility of their Whatcom Yard, and associated car float operations, held that attention. The Seattle & North Coast made an all-too-brief attempt to resurrect the car float operation, along with the associated Port Townsend to Port Angeles operations on the Olympic Peninsula, but it is long gone. Some other Milwaukee Road lines survive, most obviously as UP's line to Tacoma.

• I have started adding map reference links, using MapBlast. Look for this icon: 
• The Thomas Guides usually show rail lines, albeit with inaccuracies. I am trying to provide street locations to allow Thomas Guide use in the field.
• A Port of Seattle map of south end rail lines and yards is at http://www.portseattle.org/harbor/cargos/contterm/railcon.html. What it lacks in legibility (and occasionally accuracy) it makes up inavailability.
• A Port of Seattle map of Port terminals and facilities is at http://www.portseattle.org/harbor/harbrmap.html. It has good legibility, but little railway detail.
• 1917 Map of City of Seattle (Univ. of Texas map collection).
• Kroll has some excellent inexpensive maps from 1915 and 1937 available at their 2700 3rd Avenue store. Only rail lines are shown, not spurs, but they are a great help in figuring out how areas developed.
• Condensed profiles primarily show line characteristics, but also show spurs. The Northern Pacific Tacoma Division Fifth Subdivision shows some Seattle trackage as far south as Argo Junction.
• This site needs more maps!

The Internet address of these pages may change as necessary, or by my whim. A bookmark or link set to the master page -- http://www.halcyon.com/awinston/rr/ -- should be more enduring.

A recent out-of-towner inquiry about what to see on a short visit was an impetus, as was the introduction of the wonderful N scale SW-9 by Life-Like Products.

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