Archive for May, 2007

Here are a few images shot this year at GorgeRail:

Eastbound at Ruthton Point, approaching Hood River

Eastbound manifest at Goodnoe (east of Towal)

A pair of CSX SD40-2s leads a westbound at East Bates

Crooked road, crooked tree…. crooked railfan? Nah… just Steve

With all the excitement around the double header and the UP 844 it has taken me a while to get to work on my GorgeRail 2007 photos. Tonight I finally finished cataloging them and I thought I’d post a few here and and on railroadforums.

I travelled with Aaron the whole weekend and he had the idea of photographing east of Maryhill since we rarely venture that far east on our day trips. We landed at Bates which proved to be quite an interesting location with opportunities for eastbound and westbound photos. Being mid day and quite overcast, the lighting was uninspiring so I decided to try something a bit different and I set up to photograph a nasty smelling garbage train with something that smells much better.

Spring in the Gorge

On Sunday GorgeRail again held a roundhouse tour at Brooklyn. As usual, the tour was wonderful and the PRPA folks who hosted us did a great job. As we wandered around I caught Aaron admiring Doyle’s handy work on the 190.

NKP 190

Every year as I evaluate options for GorgeRail, one question that comes up is that of location: do we remain in The Dalles, where we have an excellent theater and great railfanning literally out our front door, or do we pull the event into the Portland area, where it’s more accessible and we might get more folks at the show, but we lose the “Gorge” aspect of GorgeRail.

Every year, I come to the same conclusion… GorgeRail just wouldn’t be GorgeRail if we didn’t hold it in the Gorge.   Trains are part of the picture, but the scenery and environment of the Columbia River Gorge just couldn’t be matched in Portland or Gresham or Vancouver.  As you look at this photo (taken on Friday of GorgeRail weekend), the Empire Builder and eastbound BNSF train are just a small part of the picture, in both the literal and figurative sense:

I continued to chase the UP 884 east of Portland. The weather on Wednesday was on the dull side due to a high overcast that moved in. With the overcast in place everything from the sky to the dirt appeared in the same dull gray-brown color. I wasn’t impressed enough with the results to take the time to edit the images to post.

Thursday’s weather was much better and when I left my hotel in Hermiston the sun was shining in my eyes! After a couple of photos of the passenger special running about an hour ahead of the 844 I photographed the 844 at Nolin. It was sure a nice touch that the UP assigned the UP 8444 as a helper diesel. What a better combo? I then moved up to a gentle curve between Homly and Milam. East of this location the 844 would enter the Meacham Creek canyon and would be inaccessible to the general public for the hour of transit time between Gibbon and Meacham.

Gliding around a curve between Homly and Milam

The special ran around a freight at Ross and met a westbound at Motanic. The dozen or so railfans chasing were all gathered there so I moved on to my next planned photo between Hilgard and Perry. This turned out to be a perfect location to catch the specials short train.

UP 844 leads its tidy little train around a curve between Hilgard and Perry

For a parting shot of the 844 steam special I’ll end with a going away photo as the train works upgrade between Ross and Kamela. Thanks to this being a quiet (no freeway) location I could hear the engine barking upgrade for nearly 10 minutes. Since she was working hard Jack Wheelihan was forcing the fire and making lots of smoke. Even 5 minutes after the train passed the smell of an oil burning steam engine lingered in the air. Barking exhaust, smoke, and echos off the mountains, you can’t beat it!

Steam and Smoke at Kamela

Looks like everything went smoothly with the upgrades.  If you run into problems, please leave a comment.

I’m upgrading a bunch of back-end software, beginning now.  The site may be unavailable and odd things may happen with the RSS feed.  I’ll post again once we’re back up.

Yesterday I was tied up with some important meetings at work so I couldn’t chase the 844 east like many other local railfans. Instead I took a long lunch and headed down to the pedestrian bridge near Haig at the north end of Brooklyn Yard. David over at This Space for Rent refers to this as the Toonerville bridge, mainly due to the construction and (in)stability. I nominate the bridge for Most Likely to Topple in a 2.5 Earthquake. I was there for a little over an hour and only caught three movements, all in the first 15 minutes or so.

Northbound Amtrak Cascades train #504

Closeup of the cab of UP 522 on a switch job

A southbound manifest approaches Brooklyn

Here’s some samples from today’s chasing effort.  I have to say there were not a great number of railfan’s out, but local residents sure seemed to come out of the wood work.  I’m happy they too could enjoy the Daylight, 844, and the clean UP train set.  The roads were real manageable as long as you weren’t actually pacing the train.

The first photo I’ll share is the inspiration for this post title.  As I pulled up to a crossing North of Wabash a northbound UP U GLSE empty garbage train was departing there for Seattle.  CP1400 who was also on scene said “great, we’ll have garbage for a background”.  I can say at least I was on the correct side of the crossing.

SP 4449 leads the doubleheader south at Wabash, WA

The next photo was based on a photo I took at this location several years ago.  The location was riddled with about a half dozen locals, their dogs, and elderly.  One gentleman who appears to be about double my age kept standing in the tracks.  As Amtrak 506 approached from the south the family started to get a bit excited about getting him out of the way.  You see he was mostly deaf and they would have to risk their lives also to pull him off the track.  Fortunately he moved about 30 seconds or so before 506 arrived at 70 mph.

After a short wait at Woodland for Amtrak 506 the special continues south at the Lewis River bridge.

My last photo for this evening was a bit of a grab shot.  I didn’t think I’d be able to make it to the bridge over the Oregon Slough in time because of how fast the train was moving out of Vancouver, so opted for the photo below.  Just as I returned to the truck, the pilot let the terminal dispatcher know they were pulling the 4449 off at North Portland Jct.  This gave me a chance for my grab shot AND my planned photos on the pedestrian bridge over the Oregon Slough.

Only a few more moments together before the great Northerns part ways

I’ll leave everyone with this thought.  Its been 32 years since the 4449 and 844 were together on the same train, how long until they are together again? 

The past 3 weeks have been a whirlwind as I have helped Aaron put the finishing touches on GorgeRail and I chased steam across Washington and Oregon.  To top that off I write this on the eve of another 3 day chase as I follow the double header south from Tacoma and the 844 east to LaGrande.  Two steam trips in 3 weeks plus a railfan photography presentation, what a blast!

As with most things railroad certain aspects just never run on time.  The UP 844 was scheduled to leave The Dalles at 8am.  They opened the switch onto main 2 around 7:40.  After putting their train together and performing an appropriate air test, they pulled down to Crates arriving at 8:25.  At 8:20 the sun went behind a cloud and stayed there even as the 844 headed west around 9:30 after waiting for an eastbound.

The farther west I travelled I could see the weather was not going to improve.  By 5:30pm when the doubleheader passed through Stielacoom it was quite dark.  Check out the fans hanging out of the train.  At this point I chose not to fight the railfan mobs in Tacoma and headed home.

Last weekend, the UP 844 headed west from The Dalles, Oregon to Portland, where the SP 4449 joined the excursion to head north to Tacoma. I shot the train at several locations; here are a few photos.

UP 844 broadside at Rowena

844 with a yellow train and yellow scotch broom just east of Cascade Locks

UP 844 and a bunch of steam at Dodson

Leaving Vancouver, the train passes under Fruit Valley Road

Through the S curve at Steilacoom

At Mosier. No further explanation needed

Like every other railfan in the northwest, I was out chasing the 844/4449 steam special last weekend.  I haven’t posted steam photos because I’ve been busy with GorgeRail preparations (you’re going to be there, aren’t you?) but I wanted to share this photo I took of an eastbound UP train while waiting for the steam special.  When I setup at this spot at Rowena, the lighting was great.  However I was waiting on the UP, and they can’t run a passenger train on time even when it’s their own train on their own rails… so by the time the steam train got there, the lighting had gone all crappy.  This was taken when the lighting was only partially crappy:

Since the first of the year the Portland & Western has been operating what was formerly BN’s and later BNSF’s “664″ train into Vancouver.  The train uses the BNSF’s trackage rights over the UP from Labish (north of Salem, OR) to Portland and then uses trackage rights over the BNSF from Portland to Vancouver.  The BNSF builds and receives the train in Vancouver’s “B” Yard.   To date the schedule of this train has been quite variable with movements happening pretty much whenever.

What makes this train interesting is of course the power.  The P&W has named most of their repainted locomotives which makes them somewhat more personable than just another -9.  Two Sunday’s ago the variable schedule worked out just right as I caught McMinnville (PNWR 2314) pulling the train south out of Vancouver for Salem.

The final segment in this series was posted yesterday at Luminous Landscape.  In this last installment George Barr challenges the photographer address all levels of technical and aesthetic quality because as he says “…all photographers shoot at more than one level.  All one needs to do is look at your thumbnails or proof sheets to see that there is a clear variation in the skill applied to each image.” (emphasis added)

I couldn’t agree more.  Looking at my collection I see the full gamut of technical and aesthetic and on any given image I’d be happy if all the stars aligned and both technical and aesthetic were at a sufficient level that the image could be called ‘good’. 

What am I going to do to take my photography to the next level?  First I’m going to stay with what I consider a continuous learning process about the technical aspects of photography.  I will read George’s thoughts and continue to read various online resources.  Heck, I might have to consider a photography course since its been 23 years since the last one!

The one area I really want to change in my photos is to incorporate more emotion, add more of myself, and improve impact.  Unfortunately that isn’t as much book learning as it is study, practice and persistence.  This sort of a change won’t happen as fast a technical improvement, but I believe it is worth the long term commitment. 

As an aside, I reviewed some of my older photos this week and I have say that I’ve seen a change in terms of both a technical improvement and an aesthetic improvement.  As with everything, there is certainly more work to be accomplished though.

So, where does your photography stand and what are you going to do about it? 

Due to some scheduling circumstances we have added two new shows to this year’s lineup for GorgeRail.

In a group effort, five railfans from the Pacific Northwest present “Gorge Rails” which is a look at some great photos taken in (where else) the Columbia River Gorge.  Steve Eshom, myself, Drew Mitchem, Paul Petersen, and Robert Scott are all contributing to this show.

The last addition is a short piece I have put together called “North Slope of Hood”, featuring the Mt. Hood Railroad and originally presented at the Railfan & Railroad Show prior to Winterail 2006.

Head over to the GorgeRail website to learn more about the event and registration information.