Grand Forks Sightings

We were in Grand Forks, North Dakota for a quick shopping trip to the good ol' USA. I managed to finagle a bit of train-watching time and spent it around the BNSF yard in town. When I first arrived, little switcher BNSF 3429 (SW1500) was working the west end of the yard but I was unable to get a photo of it.

I went to the east end of the yard where the turntable is. I parked my van and walked across Demers Avenue to get some shots from the sidewalk. BNSF 1745 (SD9) was working the east end but wasn't really in a good photo spot. BNSF 3126 was posed quite prettily, though.

BNSF 3126 is a GP50, built in August 1985 for the Burlington Northern. I found a photo of 3126 with BNSF 2886. You may recall that 2886 was a resident of Winnipeg for less than a month from late September to mid October 2009. This might be the first time I've seen a GP50.

Also parked in the yard were BNSF 4191 and 4106, both Dash-9s, unfortunately not in a great position to be photographed.


BNSF 2327 and 2271 (both GP38-2s) were also parked near the "roundhouse", and 2327 was in a nice spot for a photo.


After taking all the roster photos I could, I went for a drive west to see if I could find any trains there. No luck, but I did find a BNSF truck getting off the rails at Emerado, so that pretty much guaranteed no trains for a while. On my return to Grand Forks, as I approached the Amtrak station on the west side of town, I saw a coal train coming north from Fargo. I parked just east of the wye and shot BNSF 8880 and 9354 coming into Grand Forks with a loaded coal train.

BNSF 8880 is an SD70MAC and BNSF 9354 is an SD70ACe, both quite modern engines.

That was the end of my railfanning for Sunday. Not a bad haul!

Remember you can click on most photos for a larger version, and the complete list of units shot can be found in my railway sightings database.

On to part 2