SeattleRailFan's video: Oil and Stack train meet at Tukwila Station 10-13-2014

Today I'm at the newly renovated Tukwila Station in Tukwila, WA - about 12 miles south of Seattle. The old temporary wooden platforms have given way to concrete platforms, more shelters, a bigger parking lot, etc. Scanner traffic indicates that a northbound train is coming but I can also see that the Main 1 southbound signal is green. Hopefully, we'll get two trains for the price of one! An oil train comes around the distant curve on Main 2. The lead loco is BNSF 5332 (C44-9W). As she passed me, it was apparent that she was slowing down. This is unusual, as most trains just blast past the station at full track speed. Sure enough, she came to a complete stop. Just a minute later, a southbound stack train came hustling down Main 1 at full track speed. BNSF 5264 (C44-9W) is on point. This close to the train, the wind is enough to almost knock you over. Once the stack train passed, the oil train started pulling again. Nice train handling from the engineer, as there was barely a jerk as he throttled up. As the DPU units passed, you could hear them pushing hard as the train continued to accelerate. As for why the oil train stopped, I have a theory. I heard Dispatch inform the oil train of a 25mph Form A speed restriction on Main 2 several miles north of Tukwila. I'm guessing that there some sort of track work going on, perhaps with Main 1 shut down and Main 2 under restriction. That would have put the stack train on Main 2 past the work crew, then it would have crossed over to Main 1 at CP Black River to make the meet with the oil train. The oil train would have stopped short of the Black River signal immediately north of the station. The Black River Main 2 signal would have been red until the stack train passed. Once the stack train cleared Black River, switches would have been lined for the oil train to continue. The signal would have gone green and the engineer throttled up. Oil: 5332 / 7517 / 5043 / 4688 C44-9W / ES44DC / C44-9W / C44-9W Stack: 5264 / 7503 / 7604 C44-9W / ES44DC / ES44DC