Day 14 - Livingston MT to Gillette WY

There is something about a grain train slogging its guts out right outside my window that makes an excellent alarm clock! In fact the room was shaking a little from all the noise. So that was my 7am wakeup call, but I decided it was a bit too early and had another hour of sleep before the same routine woke me up. This time I decided that I would chase this train up the hill, after all what is the point in staying in Livingston if I don't chase trains over Bozeman Pass???

It was a doozy of a train with an interesting CN/BNSF GE/EMD theme going. I've seen a couple of CN trains up here, which is odd since CN stands for Canadian National and last I checked I wasn't in Canadia. I jumped in the car, fuelled up and roared up the pass. Caught him at all the good spots and got some video too. It was snowing a little too which was exciting.

At the top he slowed down and I was lucky enough to catch the previous helpers returning.

I went back down the hill and caught a shorter manifest taking off, and again at Orea Rd. By now my video camera was full, and had a flat battery, so I decided it was time to cover some ground and set off on I90 for Wyoming.

Part way along I caught up with a Montana Rail Link (MRL) train moving a bunch of empty hoppers down the line.

I pulled in at Laurel and had a quick look around, and saw this fascinating machine scuttling around:

I believe this part of the yard is where BNSF make up their rail trains, as in trains that carry huge long lengths of rail to wherever it needs replacing. There was a lot of activity going on here.

Further down the road I caught a BNSF coal train.

Unfortunately I wasn't paying much attention to the local roads here and ended up getting fooled by the "dry" dirt roads again; they look perfectly normal on the surface, but are made of the stickiest, greasiest mud I've ever come across. You know the moment you hit it as you lose half your power, start sliding all around, and there is an almighty thunder of mud flicking off your tires and coating everything under your car. Hmm! I left a dirty great trail behind me as I accellerated up the on-ramp to the highway!

I continued on, catching a nice some intersting lighting over the mountains.

I eventually pulled into Gillette late that night having done 400+ kms. Checked into my motel and went for dinner. Place I wanted wasn't open on Monday nights so went to the next place I found, which was a super snooty restaurant; I'm sure they were shocked when I stomped in there in my nice muddy snow boots and jeans! They stuck me in an empty room at the very far end of the restaurant, I guess where I wouldn't scare the other patrons. Food was ok but not what I was expecting; I think I prefer the simple honesty of ma & pa type diners and restaurants to be honest.

Crawled into bed early and slept very solidly! So it is goodbye Montana and hello Wyoming. Tomorrow it'll be hello Powder River Basin, coal train capital of the world!