FORT LEWIS, WA.

I was using " Google Earth " to look at Fort Lewis . The last roster up date said there were maybe 3 U S Army locomotives in use there ? But i could see none . And Google Earth gets pretty close.

It looks like a lot of track has been torn out also , much in the same way as at Fort Bliss and Fort Hood .

Thanks........Tom

If I recall Fort Lewis' facilities correctly (through the haze of destroyed brain cells) there was/is an enginehouse not far from the "main line' into the base. Simple steel structure, I believe.

But it's been a really long time since I was there.

Using Google Earth, locate McChord AFB, adjacent to Fort Lewis, and you'll see a BNSF rail line running north-south along the west perimeter of the air base. Follow it until you're just past the south border of the air base and you'll see a wye track going southwest toward Fort Lewis. This leads into what appears to be a freshly-ballasted 8-track rail yard. From there the tracks lead to a large load-out area, and there's also a building with a red roof that is probably a new two-stall enginehouse. Most likely the locomotives are inside it.

Much of the rest of the track, which mainly serves warehouse areas, appears to be out of service, as is the physically separate track on the west side of the post, where there are portions of track pulled up.

As for Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, both posts have active rail operations; however, old track has been removed as the Army built new load-out areas for taking units out via rail and bringing them back in again.

RailVet wrote:Using Google Earth, locate McChord AFB, adjacent to Fort Lewis, and you'll see a BNSF rail line running north-south along the west perimeter of the air base. Follow it until you're just past the south border of the air base and you'll see a wye track going southwest toward Fort Lewis. This leads into what appears to be a freshly-ballasted 8-track rail yard. From there the tracks lead to a large load-out area, and there's also a building with a red roof that is probably a new two-stall enginehouse. Most likely the locomotives are inside it.

Much of the rest of the track, which mainly serves warehouse areas, appears to be out of service, as is the physically separate track on the west side of the post, where there are portions of track pulled up.

As for Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, both posts have active rail operations; however, old track has been removed as the Army built new load-out areas for taking units out via rail and bringing them back in again.

They tore out a lot of track back in the 90,s. As far as where the locomotives are they always parked them in the enginehouse when they were done.

The older trackage on Ft. Hood was a real pain; those portions that were used for storing and switching cars. The tracks ran alongside two rows of warehouses with multiple crossings; most of these were blocked-off during heavy switch moves. Typically we used the paved streets on post to run ahead of any shoving movements to flag crossings with the pickup truck equipped with an amber lightbar. The new railhead is much better. I have yet to see, and may never see, the new railhead at Ft. Bliss. Again, yet another "fun" place to operate. I derailed two or three flatcars while shoving onto Biggs Army Airfield; I never heard the final outcome of that investigation, but preliminary reports indicated a sun kink may have been the cause. I tended to believe that it was the combination of long and short cars (of a 40-car cut ) rounding the sharp curve to the loading ramp, causing them to get "pinched-out."