The North Pool worked out of Balmer Yard at the time of this story. Balmer was a former Great Northern Terminal north of downtown Seattle. When I started working the North Pool as a young brakeman ...

The East pool ran from our home terminal of Seattle (Balmer Yard) east of the Cascade Mountains to Wenatchee, our away-from-home terminal. This was in December of 1983. It was very cold that day.