Saturday, March 12 dawned clear.  I had arranged to pick up a fellow photographer (a classmate of mine) for a day of trains photography.  I picked him up at 8am in Cheney and just then a westbound rolled through town.  I decided that since we were headed west for the day we might as well chase it somewhere.  We settled on Missile Base area and had barely enough time to get over to the tracks.  After this westbound manifest passed he headed back to the car (BNSF 5224, 4099).  Next we drove down to Sprague siding where we sat hoping for an eastbound.  After well over an hour we heard a westbound coming down the hill into town.  It turned out to be a hopper train with 2 DPUs on the end so although it wasn't a westbound we were able to get a good going-away shot (BNSF 4183, 4697, 5282, CN 2595).

     Next we chased this train down the tracks to Tokio siding where we parked and waited for another train.  After 30 minutes or so an eastbound hopper train arrived and rumbled on past (BNSF 5320, CSX 7760, 7317).  On the scanner we heard him go into Keystone siding for a westbound so we moved down to the middle of Tokio siding to wait for it.  A little while later the westbound manifest arrived and went into the hole.  It was the M-LAUPAS and after taking a couple of photos we headed west to intercept the eastbound (BNSF 775, 4924).  At Ritzville, WA we met the eastbound which turned out to be the V-PTLBLU (BN 3028, 9231(both patched), FURX 7267).  We decided to head on down to Paha to wait for the westbound which would be coming shortly.  Then we chased it down to Lind where it got a yellow light onto Main 1 of the double track.

     As we reached the top of Providence Hill we found the reason for the restricting signal, the westbound hopper train we had seen earlier was stopped just short of the Beatrice crossovers.  And ahead of him on main 1 was another westbound hopper train although this train was dead (BNSF 5387, 990, 907, NS 9266).  Then coming up main 2 we found a Z-PTLCHC with a long line of TOFC (BNSF 5161, 4480, IC 6250).  After shooting this train we continued down to Cunningham where we saw the headlight of another eastbound.  This turned out to be the V-PTLDEN with an MRL leading (MRL 324, ATSF 6350(patched), BNSF 8050).  Next we drove to the other end of town to set up for the westbounds which we figured would soon be coming.   After a little while the hopper train pulled through and we chased him down into the coulees on the other side of Hatton.  While down there we found a good place for the M-LAUPAS and set up for the shot.  Both of these trains met a train in Connell so we headed back up to Providence to wait for the eastbound.

     On the way we stopped to shoot the dead train since we had a little time.  Around 3:30pm the M-PASSPO slowly ground its way up to the top of the hill at 12mph (BN 2892, 2816, 2968(all patched)).  After getting this shot we were starting to head down towards Lind when we heard about another eastbound coming upgrade.  So back at the top we waited a little while longer for the M-PASCWY (BNSF 5094, 7901, 1055).  Next we drove down to the old bridge near Lind to wait for a westbound.  While waiting we discovered an owl's nest and took a couple of photos.   Soon an eastbound hopper train rolled off the hill (BNSF 1097, 5429).  Finally the M-NTWPAS showed up just as the sun was getting low on the horizon (FURX 7253, 8135, BNSF 329).  After that we waited around for the M-PASKCK but instead we got another westbound just at sundown with a new GEVO on the rear (BNSF 4668, 4768, 7659, ATSF 619(patched)).  Next we packed up and headed back home.  We missed a westbound hopper train at Keystone but other than that it was quite all the way back.