Hi and welcome to my website. My name is Ted Curphey and I adopted the internet screen name Funnelfan when I moved from Oregon to northern Idaho in 1998. I used to live and work within sight of BNSF's "Funnel", an 80-mile long stretch of alternating one and two main tracks between Spokane and Sandpoint. The Funnel was formed shortly after the creation of the Burlington Northern in 1970, when the former Northern Pacific route was favored over the competing Great Northern route via Newport, WA. By the mid-1970's all east-west through trains were funneled onto the former NP line and the GN was relegated to branchline status, only to be taken up in part during the 1980's. Even then, the Funnel did not become a true railfan hot spot until a surge in international traffic occurred during the latter 1980's and early 1990's. During that period train counts nearly doubled as export grain and double stack container trains began to multiply. By the mid-1990's the BN was running as many as 60 through trains a day, plus numerous locals and switch jobs. UP shared trackage in Spokane and Marshall Canyon, and added four daily trains to the count. More recently, UP's Washy and Spokane International lines has experienced an awesome amount of growth. Traffic on this route has more than tripled in just five years! 
      When the Burlington Northern and the Santa Fe merged in 1995, the Funnel was at its peak as a very congested single-track railroad. No other place in the nation regularly ran 50 plus trains per day on a single-track line with passing sidings for over 60 miles. BN only managed this by running short and heavily power trains that would roar out of a siding as soon as a CTC signal flashed from red to green. Fleets of hot intermodal trains would scream along the rails at 60 per riding each other's block signals. Plans were in the works to ease the tension, but the merger temporarily delayed them.
     By 1996, work began that would forever alter the nature of the Funnel. Miles of Second main track would be added, trains would grow longer, and trains would sit in the hole for fraction of the time they used to. By 2000 a traffic meltdown on UP, NS, and CSX (and BNSF to a small degree) combined with tapering  off of the economy, and the Asian Flu shrunk the train count. Through much of 2000, 2001, and 2002 roughly the same amount of traffic moves over the Funnel, but in fewer trains. Increased train lengths and higher capacity cars allowed this to happen. But starting in 2003 traffic rebounded to the point that congestion set in . In October of 2004, BNSF moved the crew change point to the new Hauser Yard Fueling Facility near Rathdrum, ID. This along with high levels of grain and stack traffic caused severe backups of traffic at times. BNSF is not alone, UP likewise experianced high levels of grain and potash traffic, and the resulting congestion. Late fall and early winter of 2004 has seen as many as 80 trains in a single day moving through downtown Spokane of both BNSF and UP.
      The seed of an idea for this website was planted when I searched the web for info on the Funnel just prior to moving from Oregon. I discovered there was no info on the Funnel. It wasn't long after I moved to Idaho that I rectified the situation. At first, I scanned in several of my prints on a friend’s scanner, that I displayed on the website. The results weren't very good, but acceptable. Within a few months I acquired a video camera and bought a video capture device. This really allowed be to post timely images, but they weren't very good. But they helped to illustrate my Railfan Guides. I did buy my own flatbed scanner before long, and was able to post some better images. But the real revolution came when I bought an Olympus Digital Camera in March of 2001 and a new car a month later. Now I was able to cover more ground and shoot far better quality photos that I could post on the web with only a minimal loss of quality (far better than scanning prints). Many more digital cameras would follow, each with longer zooms and higher megapixels, but none would be a DSLR. I have my reasons for not going the DSLR route, mainly that I cannot create a DSLR package that can out preform my current Canon SX10 in many respects no matter how much money I spend. I would need to spend several thousand dollars to come close to a Image Stabilized 10mp camera with a 28-560mm zoom lens that has live view viewfinder & histogram, that can also shoot high qaulity video in stereo sound and still take full quality photos while taking video!
I moved from the area in the summer of 2006 to take a railroading job and now get to run the latest and greatest power on the BNSF. I enjoy my job, but it has cut into  my railfanning, but I still make trips around the Northwest and will slowly update this website as time allows. I've contributed newsworthy items concerning the Railroads of the Pacific Northwest for years to various sources. I also count a multitude of railroaders and railfans among my friends. I hope you find the website a valuable resource on Pacific Northwest Railroading- Ted Curphey

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