Tacoma Trains, Planes, and Foamers! 4K

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Coming down from Seattle to spend a great weekend in Tacoma, we checked in early at the Silver Cloud, had lunch, and then made our way out toward the Chinese Reconciliation Park that has the bay on one side and the BNSF tracks on the other. It’s a great place to railfan.
The Chinese garden motif allows the park to stand both as an acknowledgment of the forceful expulsion of the Chinese population of the City of Tacoma by municipal leaders and a large crowd on November 3, 1885, and as a celebration of the city’s multicultural past, present, and future. The expulsion was an act of exclusion in response economic decline and anti-Chinese sentiment. The park is an act of reconciliation toward the people of diverse legacies and interests who are part of the city’s dynamic community. Somehow it seems just as appropriate now as it did then.
Our first train is BNSF 4454, pulling loaded grain cars toward the Port of Tacoma's Grain Terminal, which is operated by TEMCO Cargill. Covering an area of four hectares, the Grain Terminal has elevator capacity for 105.5 thousand kiloliters (three million bushels) of grain. The dolphin pier at the Grain Terminal has a depth of 22.3 meters (73 feet) MLLW. The terminal has capacity to store 300 rail cars, and it has direct access to the BNSF and Union Pacific railroads. The terminal is directly north of the Chinese Reconciliation Park.
A Boeing C-17 is seen turning final for runway 16 at McChord Air Force Base. The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft. It was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two previous piston-engined military cargo aircraft, the Douglas C-74 Globemaster and the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The C-17 commonly performs strategic airlift missions, transporting troops and cargo throughout the world; additional roles include tactical airlift, medical evacuation and airdrop duties.
Boeing, which merged with McDonnell Douglas in the 1990s, continued to manufacture C-17s for export customers following the end of deliveries to the U.S. Air Force. Aside from the United States, the C-17 is in service with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, NATO Heavy Airlift Wing, India, and Kuwait. The final C-17 was completed at the Long Beach, California plant and flown on 29 November 2015.
McChord is a United States Air Force base south of Tacoma, and is the home of the 62d Airlift Wing, Air Mobility Command, the field's primary mission being worldwide strategic airlift.
The McChord facility was consolidated with the U.S. Army's Fort Lewis on 1 February 2010 to become part of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord complex. This initiative was driven by the Base Realignment and Closure Round in 2005 and is designed to combine current infrastructure into one maximizing war fighting capability and efficiency, while saving taxpayer dollars.
Union Pacific shares the tracks with BNSF and a few minutes later, we see UP 8408 pulling a manifest train northbound. The train slows to allow the passing of the southbound Amtrak Cascades which can be seen briefly on track 1.
The tracks along Ruston Way are a great place to railfan and it’s not uncommon to see several railfanners spending the day photographing passing trains. A power move springs the trio to attention and they grab their cameras!
Later in the evening we return to catch Amtrak 14, the northbound Coast Starlight. This train begins its journey in Los Angeles, and terminates in Seattle a few miles north of Tacoma. It’s known for its beautiful scenery along the Pacific coast.
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