RSS FeedToo Much Free Time
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 by Aaron HockleySomeone at the UP had some fun with chalk.
Someone at the UP had some fun with chalk.
For the railfan photographers out there I ran across a new Internet magazine for you to look at. It is called Railway Photography. As you read through it you’ll notice the content is distinctly European though, according to the editors notes, the goal is to expand outside the borders of the UK. The photographs presented are quite nice and it is fun to notice the differences between typical trains in the U.S.
This is part two of a three-part series where I’m going to post several shots from my June 2005 trip to Alaska on a family vacation. These images were the basis for my show at GorgeRail 2006 titled “117 Miles of Beauty.”
The Coastal Classic begins its journey towards Seward at Potter Marsh
The Coastal Classic along Turnagain Arm
The Coastal Classic arrives into Seward with two cruise domes on the rear of the train
The Coastal Classic is nearing Anchorage as it returns from its daily journey to Seward
The Glacier Discovery is leaving the city of Anchorage at Rabbit Creek
The Glacier Discovery skirts a hillside approaching Portage
The Glacier Discovery returns to Anchorage in the evening twilight
As many west coast railfans know Union Pacific’s SP ‘heritage’ unit numbered UP 1996 made its maiden voyage to Portland this weekend. It arrived in Portland during daylight hours Saturday (8/26) and covienently rested south of Brooklyn yard all day at a location a railfan could sneak into and out of quickly without raising too much attention. According to those I talked with Saturday night, the sun moved around far enough that by 6 or 6:30pm there was a reasonable photo to be had. I chose not to go poaching instead electing to catch it another time (i.e. during my normal Sunday railfanning).
Sunday morning (8/27) it departed Albina for West Colton at 7:10am. Unfortunately my family responsibilities kept me close to home until 8:45am and by then it had reached Canby. Doing some quick math it was apparent that even if I ran down I-5 it would be a minimum of an hour and a half until I could get ahead of it and get a photo. So instead of burning a tank of $3.00/gal gas, I allowed UP 1996 to win this battle and settled on my regular tour of the Vancouver terminal.
After seeing several trains at Vancouver Center I started north when a garbage train started south from Felida. Leading the U-INBROO I captured a worn Santa Fe unit followed by a wonderful series of rent-a-wrecks (NREX 5467, NREX 7510, and FURX something). This lashup begs the question: Where does the power stop and the garbage train begin? As a side note, this is a fine time of the year to stand next to a passing loaded garbage train.
My last experience redeeming Amtrak Guest Rewards points for travel was a bad one, with an agent who was hard to understand, couldn’t provide definitive answers, and didn’t seem to know much about train travel in general.
I’m happy to report that today I had a much better experience… in fact, I doubt it could have been any smoother. Next month I’ll be taking a railfan trip to Colorado and Wyoming, and I’ll be getting there via Amtrak to Denver. I wanted to redeem Guest Reward points for a roomette from Vancouver, WA to Sacramento on #11, followed by a roomette on #6 east to Denver.
I called the 800-number and after “Jackie” confirmed my rewards number and phone, she asked if I would be booking sleeper travel. I said yes, and she brought another agent, “Mike” onto the line. Mike handled the reservation and it was perfect. He was able to book me on the exact trip I wanted. He even noted that the system had booked me into lower-level rooms and asked if I would prefer upper level. He then read to me the list of all available rooms/cars on those trains and asked exactly which one I wanted.
Mike confirmed the train numbers, arrival/departure times, and all other pertinent information. He asked if I’d like to have the tickets mailed or pick them up at a station. He confirmed my e-mail address and sent a reservation confirmation via e-mail.
My experience with Mike today was exactly how every Amtrak customer service experience should be.
Three new items are coming from Canon:
Camera information from Canon Japan. Lens information at Rob Galbraith. I doubt I’ll ever own either of these lenses, but I may have to take a look at the 400D whenever I start considering a new body.
Vancouver and Portland are not known for heavy snowfall, so it surprised me a bit to see these visitors mid-train in a PTFI. They most likely never see their reflection in any river since they generally are on the high iron only in snow storms.
These were shot as they crossed the Oregon Slough between UP’s Peninsula Jct. and BNSF’s North Portland Jct. It was a good thing I was paying attention, while someone was gabbing or I could have quite possibly missed them. For you flanger fans who can’t read the small print, the numbers are SPMW 331, 320, and 326.
Interesting blog with a few photos: My Transportation Obsession
The blog author has been a reader here for several months… it’s always interesting to see a new blog on related topics.
This is part one of a three-part series where I’m going to post several shots from my June 2005 trip to Alaska on a family vacation. These images were the basis for my show at GorgeRail 2006 titled “117 Miles of Beauty.”
This post is a series of images shot while riding the Coastal Classic from Anchorage to Seward.
Calm waters, snow-covered mountains, and our train along Turnagain Arm
The dome car is a fine way for the ladies to enjoy the scenery
A friendly wave from a crew member at a meet at Portage
The onboard snack service was quite festive
Climbing towards Grandview
It’s a shame there’s no decent scenery along the journey…
My next Alaska Railroad post will be images shot while chasing/railfanning the line…
I haven’t posted many of my Alaska Railroad photos online because I wanted to save many of them for my show this year at GorgeRail. Now that has passed, I’ll probably throw several up in a post here in a few days. Here’s a teaser; the Glacier Discovery train cruises over Placer Creek on its way to Whittier.
How many of you have a picture of your first time? As I mentioned in my recent post on Stampede my first railfan adventure was in the spring of 1977 on a visit to Stampede Pass. Here I am outside of Tunnel 4 in full railfan regalia topped off with a BN logo on my pinstripe hat. Classic.
So what’s changed in this photo? Station sign Stampede has moved to a new home (most literally). It now resides on the other side of Tunnel 4 at was is considered ‘Old Stampede’. This location is no longer the east end of the Stampede siding and this point is no longer under CTC control (TWC now). The speed board just west of the tunnel is gone, replaced by a constant 20 mph from Lester to Easton. There’s a speeder set off just west of the speed board, that’s of course gone. During the reopening of the pass in 1996, the wood ties were replaced by concrete up to the west portal. Surprisingly the Tunnel 4 snowshed is the same, virtually unchanged after 30 years. Wish I could say that about me, I’ve grown another couple of feet and have facial hair.
This photo was snapped with a Kodak Instamatic camera and the film developed by King Size Photo in Seattle on Kodak paper. The paper has a ‘Magicstick’ backing to peel and stick into your photo album. The original photo is in surprisingly good shape after 30 years.
I stopped by the depot for an hour or so this morning and saw a few trains.
A southbound UP train passes beyond the rose bushes along the platform:
The first southbound Amtrak comes into the station, passing some light power that sat on the tail track:
As I mentioned a few days ago, lately I have been expanding my photography interests beyond the world of railroading. In order to showcase a wider selection of my photography I have started a photoblog. There are several posts up now, and it will be updated several times a week with new photos and photo-related material.
Dogcaught will still be the home to my railroad photograpy, writing, and trip reports. Things aren’t changing here, but if you’re looking to keep up with a wider selection of my photography, check out the new site.
I see that the Blog Herald has blogrolled and pointed to Dogcaught this morning, and if that’s how you got here, welcome! (Welcome to all my regular readers as well)
Feel free to poke around the site. There’s links by category and date on the left, and you can also view either my photo gallery or Steve’s photo gallery as well.
If you find us interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed. Again, welcome and enjoy!
I haven’t posted many photos here lately. Thankfully Steve has been posting some nice ones. Over the last month or so I’ve been in a bit of a funk when it comes to railroad photography. I haven’t gotten motivated to take any long trips for photos, and I’ve grown tired of shooting the same old things around town. I’m sure the funk will pass; it always does. I have a four-day railroad photography trip planned for next month.
In the meantime I’ve been doing more street photography and other photography around town. I’ve been posting those shots on Flickr. If you’re curious you can view my entire photostream, or just the ones in my Wandering Vancouver/Portland set.
I’m working on an online project to showcase my general photography in a better manner than my gallery. Stay tuned.
Nearly 30 years after my first visit to Stampede Pass I returned last weekend to what I consider the first place I ever traveled to explicitly to explore and find trains. On that first adventure in the spring of 1977 and a return trip in 1978 I didn’t see any trains, (bad luck and the Borup wash out bit me) but a trip in 1981 was fruitful and I saw my first train on Stampede. If recollection serves me, it was BN train 174 and was lead by a mish-mash of late 70’s power including an SD45, F45, GP-9 and an F-unit.
Things are certainly looking up for Stampede since the 13 year closure as evidenced by the traffic I observed last weekend. The train pictured below was the first of three trains I photographed between 9:30am and 1:00pm. All totaled the pass saw 6 trains between midnight Saturday morning and midnight Sunday morning. Not bad for a line that was closed to through traffic just over 10 years ago!
An empty grain train exits the ancient snow shed at tunnel 4 on BNSF Stampede Sub led by a new ES44DC and a borrowed NS SD70-2.
A westbound manifest starts around the 180° loop at Borup below tunnel 4.
The traffic pattern is pretty predictable with a westbound M-PASVBT departing Ellensburg around 8am. Later in the day there is usually another westbound manifest that hits the pass around 8pm. Eastbound traffic is all empty grain trains and they are usually timed to arrive in Ellensburg on the rest of a flipping Pasco crew (Pasco crews bring a train to Ellensburg, rest for 4 hours and then head back).
As long as you are a patient railfan and not put off by waits between trains this pass has plenty to offer.
Essentially he’s been blogging for several years, just without blog software.
Late last year Aaron posted about his sensor cleaning. Like Aaron I subscribe to the Copper Hill method and have been very pleased with the results and the gentleness on my equipment. Tonight though I stumbled across another sensor cleaning method that all DSLR owners should have a look at. Its called the Scottish method.
While I can’t recommend this method for Canon owners, it appears from the photos it works fine for Nikons. Good luck and bottoms up!
The longer I hang around railfans and the rail fanning hobby the more impressed I am with the diverse interests that exist within a single hobby. I firmly believe that each of us involved in this hobby likes something different about it. And just to spice things up, those that like the same things approach them in a unique way. Think about your railfan friends, enemies, or just people you know. What do they like? Is it the historical perspective, the locomotives, the freight cars, the operations, the structures, or photography? I think you’ll be surprised at the variety you can come up with quickly.
So what prompted this diversity discussion? I read an interesting piece on RailroadPhotoEssays about how one of the photographers I respect got his start in the hobby and how one particular aspect keeps his love for the hobby alive. To me this piece demonstrates perfectly the variety of interest that keeps all of us coming back for more.
It seems that every week or two, there’s a posting on some internet message board about photographers being harrassed for taking pictures in public. Popular Photography has an interesting article this month titled The War on Photographers, which touches on ones rights as well as reports on some anecdotes from around the country.
No discussion of photography rights would be complete without a link to Bert Krages’ The Photographer’s Right which is a downloadable flyer summarizing the rights to take photos.
Reflecting The Times:
Fast Trains:
Tracks in the Snow: