TOP: Easing out of Spalding like a snake, the Grangeville Local turns south and onto the 66.5-mile-long 2nd Subdivision to Grangeville. The track to the right heads east to Orofino and Jaype. ABOVE: Burlington Northern power off the Pasco, Wash.–Lewiston “Lowline Turn,” a local operating on BN rails from Pasco to Attal- ia, Wash., UP to Ayer, Wash., and Camas Prairie to Lewiston, waits patiently at Lewiston for the call back home to Pasco. RIGHT: Stopped for hour-long switching chores at Craigmont, the Grangeville Local works several grain elevators.


boxcar would have been worth a trip all by itself, and it seemed outrageous to shoot a few quick pictures and leave. As the Grangeville Local rolled on, so did I. Getting ahead of the Grangeville Local, there would be some time to spare in Lapwai Canyon and I was glad to have it. I wanted to shoot the train near Nucrag where the line passed over U.S. Route 95, and I would need to climb about 50 feet up the hillside. In a moment of complete consternation, I discovered the hillside was hard as a rock. My shot


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would have to be at track level, but still capturing the essence of Camas Prairie wonderment as the train crawled up the 3 percent grade. A few grain hoppers were dropped


off at Craigmont (2,995 feet higher in elevation from Lewiston), where the 13-mile-long Nezperce Railroad once interchanged with the Camas Prairie. Against all odds, the Nezperce oper- ated until spring 1983 with a trio of orange-painted GE 45-tonners bought secondhand from the Air Force on light


56-pound rail. While the Grangeville Local contin-


ued its switching chores, I headed three- and-a-half miles east to the massive 280-foot-tall, 1,520-foot-long, Lawyer’s Creek viaduct. At 3:00 p.m. sharp, the Armour yellow-and-gray Northwest Geeps inched out into nothingness, or so it seemed from the bottom of the viaduct. The engines looked like a distant airplane in the sky. As the freight cars rumbled by, I wondered how many trips over that viaduct it took before crews got


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