Archive for August, 2007

Due to mechanical problems with the Talgo trainsets, Amtrak is using a variety of older equipment to maintain service on the Cascade Corridor between Eugene and Seattle. On Saturday, Train 516 departed Vancouver with the Cascades F59 and NPCU acting as bookends to the older silver cars.

Six years ago next month, the Red Line light rail train to the Portland Airport began operation providing a direct rail connection from the passenger terminal to downtown Portland.  Here, a train leaves the airport with a summer sunset in the background.

I see that with the substitute Cascades service that Amtrak has a new slogan. Considering the annual Amtrak funding issues the fact a train has arrived is probably worth advertising.

Promoting Successes

Union Pacific is well known for the slogans they’ve placed on their locomotives over the years. We Will Deliver… and Building America are the two most recent that come to mind. Those phrases are designed to evoke the feeling of competence about what the company does and to show that confidence around the community and customers.

I saw a locomotive slogan yesterday that cuts through all the corporate advertising and propaganda and gets down to basics about what every railroader dreams of from each trip they take on the road…

FLASH US PLEASE…and the sooner the better!

Amongst my many contacts over on Flickr are several other railfans. One of them, Patrick Dirden, was recently in Vancouver and snapped a photo of the Columbia River Drawbridge from the station platform. There are no trains in the image but he put together a wonderful composition which shows the lines of the open draw span nicely.

I’ve been down there hundreds of times, yet I don’t think I’ve ever taken this shot. Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to see something that’s been in our faces all along…

Click on the image to view it larger or check out more of Patrick’s work.

As I catalog my photos I attach the engine numbers visible in the photo for future reference. During this process if repeat engine numbers come up I usually take note and when I’m finished I search by engine number to see where I previously saw the dupes. Its a fun exercise that takes me on a trip down memory lane and sometimes proves interesting when it comes to the engines.

Case in point. During the “Hot Rail” event a couple of weeks ago I came across BNSF 1101. It has quite a storied history when it comes to the paint job. On 10/31/2000 it was involved in a rear end collision near Bellemont, AZ that moved it from and H1 paint scheme to an H2 paint scheme as the photo below from 3/3/2003 depicts.

Clearly something else has happened to is as it is now in primer. This is most likely from a more minor collision than the the Bellemont one, but certainly something to make it look well worn as it climbs Trinidad hill on 7/28/2007. So will 1101 be painted with the new logo next?

At lunch today while I was snooping around the web and looking at rail excursions in the northwest. I happened along one site that is advertising excursions in the northwest and around the world. I clicked one excursion of particular interest and the banner image caught my eye. “That looks like one of my photos“, I thought to myself. After verifying with another person I determined it and another were certainly my photos.

I’m flattered that this website thought my photos were a good tool to sell their product. In fact I thought their treatment of them was pretty good. That’s where my compliments stop. Unfortunately they blatantly stole these images from dogcaught.com without permission. Its too bad they did that because I might have been able to dig up some quality images that would suit their needs better. I’m even quite certain we could have come to a price agreement that was amenable to both parties. Hey, I like train rides as much as the next railfan :-).

After a phone call the images were removed, so despite their earlier indiscretion they were good about fixing the issue. That said I still wonder about the other images on the site. Since I have no information about the others I won’t suggest anything else is wrong. I will say they have lost my trust though.

We have copyright laws in the U.S. to protect original works. All I ask is that anyone wanting to use an original work contact the copyright holder to negotiate use. For the most part in the amateur arena that is a simple process that involves a few emails and phone calls. So even if an image appears in a Google image search someone, somewhere, took it. If you want to use it ask for permission.

Last weekend several folks were out railfanning the Scenic and Columbia River Subdivisions and I joined them. This was my first time to the Columbia River sub (other than as an Amtrak passenger) and my first time to railfan the Scenic sub when there wasn’t snow on the ground.

Amtrak’s Empire Builder heading downgrade near Trinidad

The Everett to Spokane daily manifest works hard climbing the hill approaching Quincy

A westbound Z train pulls uphill through the “slot” near Cascade Meadows

For more photos of the event, check out the photo thread over at RailroadForums.

Despite Ridgefield South being on the edge of the wide open Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge there are just enough trees to block serious amounts of sunset light from entering the area around the plant. Still the washes of light sneaking in provided for some different photos to be made last night.

The TACPAS is the middle of three northbounds to pass through Ridgefield South over a 30 minute period

I’ve always like the brutish look of the 3 window SD60Ms. They look particularly impressive with the heat waves showing just how hard they are working as they slow for an upcoming slow order.