by Steve Eshom on January 25, 2012
Most of the snow from the January 15th snow storm fell west of Bingen. The result was I spent the day west of Bingen too! Snow in the gorge has been pretty sparse lately so I wanted to take advantage. Most of the morning I hung out around North Bonneville photographing Amtrak, several BNSF westbounds, and two eastbound UP trains. The gorge is pretty narrow and cluttered with trees around North Bonneville. I knew I wanted a wider view to demonstrate what the snow looked like so after lunch I drove to Dog Mountain to wait for an eastbound.
Since it was Monday maintenance was out in full force so I took a quick trip to Underwood during a lull to see what the White Salmon River looks like after the Condit Dam breach. I’ve read many people’s complaints about how the breach has ruined one of the best salmon fishing locations in the Gorge. I will agree that the river is choked with muck but since the October 26, 2010 breach we really haven’t had any high water. Once we have a few heavy rains it appears a river channel will reappear there. Now, what will happen with the back water areas? Good question. I’m sure mother nature will show us.
I arrived back a Dog Mountain about the same time and eastbound stack train was going through Stevenson. Perfect. I climbed the hill and gathered in the photo I was looking for.
by Aaron Hockley on January 22, 2012
Hi all… Aaron here, the founder of Dogcaught.com. Over the past couple of years the amount of time I’ve spent creating and sharing railroad-related images has declined as my photographic hobby and business have focused on other subjects. While I still enjoy railfanning and a good train picture, I haven’t produced much of that on my own lately. In the meantime, my friend Steve Eshom has been sharing more of his work here on Dogcaught, and he continues to produce a bunch of great material with interesting stories behind the scenes.
In the last couple of days, Steve and I have made some changes and he’s now assuming control of Dogcaught.com. I felt it made sense to hand the reins over to Steve since he’s been producing most of the content lately and I trust that he’ll keep the site online and full of interesting railroad imagery. I may still post the occasional photo, but as of today, Steve Eshom runs Dogcaught.
-Aaron
by Steve Eshom on January 18, 2012
Aaron and I will be making some behind the scenes changes to dogcaught.com over the next week. The result is you may experience some outages or unusual responses. Don’t worry everything will be as it was and we’ll get back to our normal content.
As a teaser here’s a photo I took on Monday while I visited the Columbia River Gorge. We received a bit of snow down to the river level on Sunday so I ran out Monday to take advantage. This image is the DPU of a west bound grain train crossing Cascade Dr. in North Bonneville, Wa.
by Steve Eshom on January 11, 2012
Vancouver still has not had winter. We had a bit of rain around New Years but since we have returned to a fairly mild weather situation. With the mild weather and cool temperatures we end up with fog. Sunday it was pretty dense in areas including at the Vancouver Amtrak station. I did hear one train confirm with the dispatcher that the dispatcher did request a signal for them. They normally could see the signals from their location but in the fog they weren’t visible. Just another day on the job right?
by Steve Eshom on January 4, 2012
Since we are starting a new year a common question comes to mind. Where will you go in 2012?
My plans are still up in the air but I do have some things which are coming together railfanning wise. Here’s my plans so far.
- Watch for snow in the Columbia River Gorge. Last year was a bust hopefully this year will be positive.
- MLK holiday railfanning somewhere in the area.
- Montana at spring break. I’m looking forward to another visit to Central Montana, this time while the snow is still around.
- GorgeRail in May. I’ve signed up to be a presenter, so make sure you can find your way there.
- Hot Rails/Gaynor Campout in July or August. I’ve passed on a couple of trips to Stevens Pass lately so this will get me back up there again.
- Autumn Leaf in October. I think I enjoy fall best in the Northwest so this should be a good time as always.
I have a few weeks of vacation to use this year so I’m sure there will be more. Maybe Northern California? Maybe Canada? We’ll see out things play out.
Where will you go in 2012? Leave a comment and let us all know.
