Tag Archives: Mukilteo

Mukilteo From the Sea

I spent a lot of time covering the construction of the new Mukilteo terminal for Washington State Ferries.  The only limitation was that the best angle on the terminal was from the water and I didn’t have a good view on that.  Since it is north facing, the best time to get a photo of it is in the summer late in the day.  We were coming home from Whidbey on a Saturday evening, so I took the chance to finally get some photos of the terminal from the water.  The artwork can be seen from this angle which is not so easy from other places.

My Attempt At Aurora Shots

There was a prediction that the Aurora Borealis would be visible well south in the US and, with clear skies in the area, I figured I would definitely go and see if I could get some shots.  I thought my best location would be Mukilteo since I could be on the waterfront with an unobstructed view to the north.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to have that thought.  There were tons of vehicles lined up trying to find a space in the parking lot at Mukilteo.

I didn’t even bother to mess with this and turned around.  I figured I would try the park at the other end of the waterfront and found a parking spot as soon as I arrived.  No need to park on the street outside the park.  There were still a lot of people there waiting including a few cameras pointed skywards.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have anything to shoot.  The predicted aurora never got as well developed as far south as us.  I got a few shots including some where I tried to work out whether it was just ambient light on clouds in the distance or some sort of illumination from above but it was a bust.

RV Thomas G. Thompson

Quite a while back, now, I was down on the shore at Mukilteo when this research ship transited passed the lighthouse.  It was clearly a vessel designed for studying something marine related (unless it was a spy ship) so I decided to check it out.  There is a small fleet of these vessels operated by the Office of Naval Research.  They put operation of the ships out to tender and this one was won by the University of Washington.

The ship is named after the guy that founded UW’s Oceanographic lab in the 30s.  it spends over 300 days a year at sea, so I guess they get plenty of use out of it.  Originally, she would have been scheduled out of service by this year but a big refit was carried out in a local Seattle shipyard, Vigor, a few years back so she should be good until the late 2030s.

Mukilteo Rail Station

In all of my visits to the waterfront at Mukilteo, it would have been neglectful if I hadn’t had a quick poke around at the railroad station.  This is for Sounder commuter rail trains to Seattle and is across from the new ferry terminal.  It will be interesting to see whether WSDOT’s Amtrak Cascades trains stop there in the future to connect with the ferries but currently they do not (and, at the time of writing, the Cascades services north of Seattle are suspended anyway.)

The station is not that old since the Sounder service has only been around since the 2000s.  Consequently, it is a nicely thought out design rather than an old station that has been upgraded.  It includes some artwork with a local theme with stone sculptures of local boat designs.  A footbridge takes you over the tracks to the far platforms.  I doubt I will ever have the need to use it but it was fun to look around on a quiet weekend.

Murrelets Feeding On the Dock

When walking along the shore at Mukilteo, I will often see one or two Murrelets diving for food in the shallows along the edge of Puget Sound.  They are not rare but nor are they particularly abundant.  Consequently, I was rather surprised when at the new ferry terminal to see a large number of them swimming in the water around the new pier structures.  There was a constant stream of them diving down and surfacing again.

I can only assume that something is growing on the surface of the steel posts that support the new loading spans.  The birds would swim up to the posts, dive straight down for a while – presumably as they grabbed the food – and then surface at an oblique angle.  The result was a cycle of birds going down and back up again.  It looked really strange and seemed like something that would stop but there must be plenty to eat as they just kept going.  I figured video was the best way to show what was happening so below is a short clip of them feeding away!

The Widest Load I Have Seen

Railroads can be used to move unusual loads.  In my work I have often had discussions about clearances along tracks to allow the Department of Defense to move outsized loads by rail – presumably tanks!  However, most things I have seen have been within the normal clearance diagrams.  As I was driving down to the waterfront park at Mukilteo, I passed a train sitting in a siding that was the widest thing I have ever seen on a train.  It was two containers side by side.  Both of them were hanging over the edge of the car.  I assume that it was a single container for moving outsized loads and, given where it was staged, it might have been something to do with Boeing.

As I drove past it, I figured I would walk back and get a photo.  However, some locomotives showed up and they started switching everything around.  I didn’t get a chance to get a shot from close up.  I did take some pictures from a distance and they then staged the vehicles out on the pier where Mukilteo becomes Everett.  If anyone knows anything about this load, do let me know.  I assume it needs special clearance to move since it must impinge on the adjacent tracks which would make passing other trains an issue!

Unusual Patterns on an Old Log

I was walking along the shore and saw a log that had clearly been in the water and then out of it for a long time.  All sorts of things had happened to the wood.  Some of it looked like it had worn away while other marks suggested that creatures had been chewing their way through.  Some wildlife was still clearly living on the surface and in the nooks and crannies.  It was such an unusual looking log I just couldn’t avoid taking some pictures.

BNSF Along The Puget Sound Shore

The terrain around Seattle is pretty undulating which is not ideal for railroads.  Consequently, a good amount of the track is along the shoreline where you can be guaranteed to be flat (provided you do a little work).  Mukilteo is part of the BNSF line and it runs between the houses on the hill and the water’s edge including the new ferry terminal.  There is a station there too for the commuter trains Sound Transit runs.

The majority of the traffic is freight traffic.  Double stack containers or oil tank cars are a regular feature.  I was there to look at the ferry traffic and the wildlife but, if a train is coming, I am not going to ignore it.  One came through while I was in the station while another came through a little later when I was up at the grade crossing.  For people living the US, long freight trains are not that unusual.  For friends and family in the UK, the length of a US freight train can be quite a surprise.  The leading locos can have disappeared off into the distance but the rear of the train hasn’t even come in to sight.  A curving coastline like that along Puget Sound means it is easy to be unable to see each end.

Corvette C8

Corvette’s latest model is a big change from their previous designs and got a lot of attention.  While walking along the shore, I saw this example waiting to catch the ferry.  I had the big lens on at the time which was way more than I needed.  At least a bunch of shots can be stitched together to make a pano.  When I got up on the walkway, it was easier to get a simple shot down on it.  It’s a nice looking car.

Demolition of the Old Mukilteo Terminal

With the new terminal open and operational at Mukilteo, the construction crews have turned their attention to the demolition of the old terminal facilities.  The redevelopment of the waterfront includes returning this old space for new usage.  The old terminal building was not a particularly impressive structure but now it looks very sad as everything is taken down.

Across the road, the old lanes for holding the cars prior to boarding are still visible but some of the area has already been cut through by the new access road construction for the terminal.  One side of the old lot was briefly the home for one of the toll booths which looked rather feeble on its own.  Next time I was there, it was gone.

The old span that connected to the berth has been lifted out.  It was sitting on a barge on my last visit.  A large floating crane had been brought in for the large lifts where a smaller crane had previously been in use.  The structures were in the process of being removed.  The concrete top to one side had been removed and the posts showed the damage from the cuts.  The other side had a crew preparing the lifting lines to take that side off too.

It won’t be too long before all trace of the old terminal is gone and then it will be very hard to remember what it looked like at all.