Archive for January, 2007

Last weekend I spent a few days on Stevens Pass with some friends hangin’ out in the snow.  You can see some of my photos as well as some from my companions on railroadforums.  Before you go there, here’s some ‘Tracks in the Snow’ at the east portal of the Cascade tunnel.

While wandering around Portland today, I snapped this photo at Albina yard with a variety of power waiting for an assignment and the old UP tower in the background:

Between errands today I ran up north of town to Yacolt, WA to shot some photos of the ‘Return of Steam’ excursion put on by the Battle Ground, Yacolt & Chelatchie Prairie (BYCX) using Crossett Western Co. #10 on Portland & Vancouver Jct. Railway tracks. Never heard of the #10? I found some nice history and discussions of the 10 and its restoration by doing some Google work. If you’ve ever been to Mt. Rainier Scenic and watched the Hammond Lumber Co. #17, this engine will look familiar because they are sisters. Just like the 17, 10 has a nice sounding exhaust and a sweet whistle. She was definitely fun to photograph and listen to!

Today their operating plan had them backing out of the BYCX depot in Yacolt, through the Moulton Falls station and tunnel, across the Lewis River and up to the station sign at Lucia. 10 was on the north end of an open air car, a coach, and a caboose where the rear brakeman took up residence for the reverse move. I applaud their choice of plans as this is the most scenic portion of this line and provides the paying passengers the best view of the line’s features.

Crossett Western Co. 10 pulls its excursion train north across the Lewis River between Moulton Falls and Lucia.

I hope more excursions can be run with the 10, especially in the summer when more people would be interesting in riding in an open air car (though plenty did anyway). Its a good sounding engine and if it is as powerful as 17, it would be a good puller on the reasonable grades on this line.

The cold weather lately has me longing for some sunshine… like that we saw last year when GN 274 went to Crusin’ Sherwood.  Shown here trailing in Milwaukee.

I don’t really hide that fact that I’m a geek. I work with computer software for a living and enjoy checking out random tech gadgets. I’m quite into blogging. I write at a few other blogs. And I read blogs. 258 of them is the current count.

It’s interesting to watch the railfan world overlap with tech. Last year I discovered Steve Sloan’s blog. He’s helped Vic with Winterail for quite a few years. Like many others, I also read Robert Scoble’s blog. He’s a former Microsoft employee who’s now involved with a podcasting startup. As one of the most-read voices in the blogosphere, he has some interesting things to say.

Like today, when Robert posted I Like Trains Too, admitting he’s a railfan. He specifically mentions the new version of MS Train Simulator being created and points to one of the developers’ blogs.

It’s great to see my various interests collide. We’ll have to see about getting Robert up to GorgeRail at some point…

Here at Dogcaught, we’re all about helping out our readers.  We’ve previously talked about my experiences with the Copper Hill method of cleaning a DSLR sensor, and Steve pointed out the Scottish method.

Today I learned of another method.  It gives me the chills.

I’ve posted my 2006 Highlights photos at railroadphotoessays.com.  Some of these photos are repeats of what you saw here and others are additional output from the expeditions I shared.  Enjoy!

The first round of updates are complete on the site design. The general layout is the same; here’s what’s changed:

• New header graphic
• Search engine search box at the top of every page
• Listing of Recent Comments on the sidebar — we appreciate the comments we get and want to make them easy to see
• Contributor information moved from the sidebar to a standalone page
• Advertising removed from between the first two posts on index pages

If you find any problems, leave a comment and let me know. I have a couple other things in the works as well, hopefully to be announced in the next couple weeks.

Tonight I made several updates to the site, mainly to the layout/styling, but I have several more things to do including introducing some new features. I intend to finish the changes tomorrow (Tuesday the 9th). Nothing should be outright broken at this point (if it is, please leave me a comment) but a few things are missing.  Once I’m all done I’ll post a summary of changes and ask for feedback at that point.

I’m doing some administrative and redesign work for the next few hours.  If things are broken, I know about it.  I’ll post again when the work is complete.

A locomotive’s job is never done as there always seems to be one more mountain to cross…

Here’s some new camera accessories of interest to railfans and photographers:  Canon Accessories  After viewing these new items, one railfan was quoted as saying “I was hoping they’d add a nice set of grain elevators as grain elevators are something quite few and far between here”

As we begin the new year I thought I’d take a look back at the highlights of 2006 on Dogcaught.com:

• Steve and I spent a day at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad’s Winter Railfan event in January, resulting in some amazing photos.
• February brought some photos of a rail grinder in action, as well as a relatively rare CN leader on a manifest doing some switching.
• March was my first Winterail trip… I posted my thoughts and a couple different photos.
• I enjoy post-work trips east, such as an April trip to the Columbia River Gorge.
• May of course brings GorgeRail, but also some April leftovers from Eastern Oregon.
• The SP 4449 was active in June, heading for Crusin’ Sherwood.
• Steve joined me as a contributor in July, posting some photos from the Tucson area.
• August brought some photos from Alaska, as well as Steve’s remembrance of his first time.
• In September we did an all-day jaunt to the Gorge, resulting in two photo posts - here and here
• The Dogcaught Railroad Search Engine launched in October, with a bunch of photos from some trips. I went to the Powder River Basin and Crawford Hill, and Steve posted a couple more from eastern Washington.
• It wouldn’t be a wet Northwest November without some photos showing evidence of flooding.
• We wrapped up the year in December with ZooLights, a group outing on Pengra Pass, and Steve looking back at some early photos from Providence Hill

I look forward to another 12 months of railroad photography discussion and am excited about a few new things in the pipeline to hopefully grow the site.

Last week I was on a 5-day vacation with some family, and as we were driving through Wheeler, Oregon I noticed some centerbeams parked on the Port of Tillamook Bay’s tracks through town.  In a brief discussion, I mentioned the unique cow-inspired paint scheme and my mother-in-law didn’t seem to believe me.

As we came through Garibaldi, I saw a moving train across the inslet, and we eventually caught up and overtook the train.  I was quite happy to see POTB 101 on the point featuring the bovine paint.  After a brief wait, I was able to grab this shot as the train moved along some tide flats south of Garibaldi: