The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train sits quietly at the Renton train station between runs from Renton to Woodinville. Approaching on the right is the Maltby Turn, a freight train that leaves Seattle daily for Renton, Bellevue, and Woodinville (near Maltby). This BNSF train occasionally transports a 737 fuselage that was made in Wichita, Kansas and shipped by rail to Seattle. Those fuselages are switched off at Boeing's big Renton plant, where they enter the final assembly process. A conductor who used to work on the Maltby Turn told me that BNSF locomotive 2189 (seen here) was one of very few in the system that is dedicated to the same train every day. (Thanks, Jim Ross.)
A cropped version of this image acts as wall decor in an apartment building named “95 Burnett.”
UPDATE: In August 2007 the dinner train ceased its Renton operation and moved to Tacoma, 30 miles (48km) south of here. That operation ceased in early November. Starting that same year, BNSF re-built the main line through Renton as part of a bridge replacement project.
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