More recently, two of the special train operations that tried to use this route needed extra power for the ascent.

For the three months in 2007 (August-October) that the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train operated out of Tacoma before its shutdown, it ran with a Columbia Basin Railway SD9 (ex-Missabe) brought in to assist its two regular F9Hs.

I photographed it one Saturday that August as it began its climb up Tacoma Hill right by the Brown & Haley candy factory. The SD9 was cut in right behind the F9H on the south (uphill) end of the train; the other F9H was on the opposite end.

The short-lived Golden Pacific operation up the same route needed an F40PH to assist the ex-Reading T-1 4-8-4. The Northern had apparently failed on several tries to climb the hill on its own.

As someone who grew up in southeastern Pennsylania, I find it interesting that both trains had a Reading Lines connection: The Spirit of Washington had a 1937-vintage Budd coach-observation from the Philadelphia-Jersey City "Crusader", while the Golden Pacific had #2100, the lead locomotive of the 30-unit T-1 class built at the Reading, Pa. shops in 1945.