Archive for December, 2007

At just before midnight eastern time, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2008.   May you achieve all your personal goals and may you find the door to opportunity open everywhere you look!

For some reason there is a strong association between Christmas and trains.  Stores include trains in their holiday displays.  Many folks have a loop of track around their tree.  And, if you’re the Oregon Zoo, Christmas provides a great time to light up Washington Park and Zoo Railway’s #1 steam locomotive as part of ZooLights:

Merry Christmas to all!

This year I was not motivated to fight the crowds to see the 700 arrive in Vancouver or ride behind the Daylight at the Holiday Express. Why, I can’t say, maybe I’m steamed out? I did want to make sure my youngest daughter was able to get her Daylight fix so I got over my lack of motivation and headed for Oaks Park. On the way we ran into the 700 simmering away at East Portland and stopped to enjoy it. We moved on to Oaks arriving around 9:20. We spent some time wandering around the Daylight taking in the sights, sounds, and smells as the volunteers readied for the 10:00 departure.

On our way out I spent some time wandering through the concessions tent and eventually settled on some items that I just had to have. While my purchase of these items isn’t individually going to build a home for the steam engines it certainly was another incremental contribution to the larger cause. Based on what I saw of ridership and the people milling around the tent lots of incremental contributions were being made!

I’m very happy to see these Christmas runs continue. It seems they have generated interest in the community and I feel it is this community interest and support that will ensure a future home for the steam we all enjoy. Despite my ambivalence this year it seems the rest of the community is on board and supporting the ORHF’s cause. Do you?

“Excuse me, what does it burn?”. Just like he has many times before Doyle McCormack carefully explains not only what the Daylight burns but the history and operation of steam locomotives. As president of the ORHF Doyle is always working to raise awareness of the ORHF’s mission.

Rarely do I say too much about railroad operations in a public forum but today is an exception. I’m sure you are all thinking the worst since this is a post about the UP. Before you go there read on.

On Friday a westbound grain train left LaGrande with a 3X5 configuration (3 on, 5 in) and not long after leaving Hilgard stalled. This time of the year a stall on the hill with the usual power is not uncommon according to those that operate there regularly. They say it takes a couple of snow storms and cold weather before the UP remembers to have a manned helper around just in case something like this happens. After the 4022 west contacted the dispatcher about the stall it was around two minutes when the dispatcher came back with explicit and concrete directions on what to do. Two minutes? The UP responded to a situation like this in two minutes? Steve, you’re nuts, no way. Way.

The train was instructed to get the conductor on the rear end and back down between switches at Hilgard to await the arrival of a manned helper. After safely backing the train to Hilgard the train crew once again contacted the dispatcher to let him know they were stopped. At this point the dispatcher informed them a crew van was on its way from Hinkle to pick them up and a fresh crew from LaGrande would be put on along with a helper. What, the crew wasn’t going to continue west and risk dying on the road? What foresight on the part of the UP! As someone who analyzes business process for a living I was impressed with the quick and reasonably smart decision making on the part the UP. Instead of letting the crew continue, only to reach their hours of service in the middle of the canyon (Camp, Huron, Bonifer), they relieved them and set the next crew up to be successful in getting the train to Hinkle under the law. To me that is somewhat unusual these days. [Note: Some would argue the helpers should have been called and on the train to begin with. I suppose, but weighing the cost of a crew and locomotive fuel and the fact the weather was good at the time the likelihood of that occurring was not high.]

Now that I’ve said that….on Friday 12/7 Robert, Richard, and I left LaGrande around 6am and worked our way west over Kamela summit towards Hinkle We spent most of the morning photographing near the summit but it was clear our crush of trains was drying up. We continued west until we ran into the first eastbound just east of Echo. The PDG1 met a couple of eastbounds that we’d already photographed west of Gibbon so we decided head back up the hill to continue chasing it east. In nearly the last light of the day we shot it for the last time between Hilgard and Perry at one of the most interesting locations in the Blues.

PDG1’s Wild Ride

After driving up and down the road between Glover and Kamela we became very familiar with the various nooks and crannies where a person could stick their camera and grab a photo. I liked this location so I separated from the group to get this photo of an eastbound stack train between Nordeen and West Motanic. This train’s crew must’ve been bored because they spent a bit of time with the whistle after they spotted me set up on the road.

Descending Quietly

Steve wanted to shoot from the old highway bridge at Glover and since I’d already sampled that location a couple of times I decided to camp out underneath for something different. I guess since this train is dubbed the Super Fruit was fitting it have some clean power leading. Nothing like putting the best on one of the hottest trains on the railroad!

Super Fruit!

…ahhh, winter in the Blues!

Many people get “the blues” in the winter. This year I got the blues too….more specifically Oregon’s Blue Mountains.

I just returned from a three day railfan adventure along the Union Pacific in eastern Oregon where Robert, Richard, Steve and I photographed whatever UP threw at us in various weather conditions ranging from sun to snow and ice. It was a fabulous trip that not only included plenty of trains and great photos but a bit hijinks to spice it up.

Mother nature cooperated with a nice a 6″ dumping of snow Thursday night followed by some cold temperatures that held the snow in place for the weekend. Sunday morning’s 8 degree temperature at Kamela marked the lowest temperature of the trip but the 30 mph wind with a 30 degree temperature at North Powder felt much colder! Either one of them is colder than I’m used to so I’m still working on warming up.

The grade between La Grande and Kamela summit is lined with various conifers and they were loaded with snow! In this first photo a westbound manifest crawls upgrade between Motanic and Nordeen through one of the rare straight sections. For the most part railroad operations didn’t have much trouble with the weather save for one stall and a switch heater or two that malfunctioned. Both were easily overcome with manned helpers and a signal maintainer.

Winter At Motanic

East of La Grande there are few trees and the amount of snow deposit was much less. The winds out there kept things interesting with frequent snow drifts over the road. Just like on the west end things moved smoothly except for a couple of stalls and some switch heater issues. In this photo an eastbound Z train stops at the Pleasant Valley to await the arrival of an uphill manifest.

Meet at Pleasant Valley

Look for more coming soon…

Today’s forecast for Vancouver includes the threat for cold temperatures and snow. Sure enough we’ve had snow showers off and on all day and so far my high temperature has been just under 36 degrees.

So, what am I thinking about today? I’m thinking about 2.5 months ago when the temperature was just under 3 times what it is today and there wasn’t much of a risk of any sort of moisture from the sky or the river…

On a nearly 100 degree day Union Pacific’s Z-LADV-18A rolls through the remote Afton Canyon near Basin, CA