Don’t let the title of this post overwhelm you. In this time of the year sunrise to sunset really isn’t all that long. At any rate, one of our country’s fine soldiers recently said “why didn’t any shots from the Gorge make it onto your blog?” and I just can’t be letting down all my faithful readers, so here’s some shots from Sunday 12/4.
I headed up the Oregon side of the river after a fuel stop in Troutdale and as I got to the east side of the mountains where the weather became better I started figuring out where I might catch a train. The morning Z was stopped in the hole at North Dalles so I crossed the bridge, parked my truck, and walked out onto the bridge for whatever was coming westbound. The air temperature was probably around 30 degrees with a nice gorge wind blowing. As I stood there I pondered why the hell I hadn’t worn any gloves or a hat on this trip? Fortunately even being dumb enough to be cold I was still smart enough to take a picture and got this shot of the Empire Builder passing under the service road to The Dalles Dam. I thought about cropping out the transmission lines, but it’s appropriate environment.
We all know that a mediocre shot of the westbound Builder wasn’t my motivation for freezing fingers. A couple minutes after #27 cleared the eastbound intermediate signal went green and I was able to nab the Z-PTLCHC with Mount Hood in the distance.
You’ll never guess where I went next…
Unfortunately the Wishram yard didn’t yield anything of significance other than a friendly chat with the Bureau of Indian Affairs police. I drove up out of the yard about the time an eastbound grain empty was coming into town so I took this telephoto grab shot from the highway overlook. I’d like to explore this angle a bit in the future, I suspect there’s a good shot lurking here if I were to walk up or down the highway a bit to find a better composition.
I headed across the river, screwed around with some UP trains around Rowena which turned out to be just shitty photos in the shadows of the Gorge. I then headed back up to The Dalles and sat for a while waiting to hear something on the scanner. Finally I caught word of a westbound with a new ES44DC on the point. I headed to Doug’s Beach. Unlike the madhouse and full parking areas during windsurfing season, today I was able to park right next to the crossing, get out my ladder, climb on up, get laughed at by the public, and take this shot. I thought about a tighter crop but hey, you can do a tight crop anywhere, but you only get towering cliffs in places like the gorge.
Aw hell, why not chase it west. I even beat it through Bingen which can be quite a feat. I was able to get to Hood and managed to pull off this grab shot as it came under the highway.
I drove back east, searching for a train, a shot, or some amusement. I ended up exploring a few angles above Rowland Lake and took an artsy-fartsy into the sun shot. It’s over on RailroadPhotoEssays.com being critiqued so you can head over there, or be patient and I’ll eventually post a nice finished version of the shot here.
There was one more train coming, and I misjudged the speed. I should have driven farther east on the other side of Lyle. Instead I set up on the west side of the fill around MP 81 trying to get a broadside shot in the golden sunlight. Now mind you this is December, so my golden sunlight disappeared around 15:30. And of course, about 5 minutes later, along comes my train… with a sole GP60M on the point.
So there you go Mike, that wraps up a short winter day in the Gorge. Thanks for all you’re doing over in the desert.