Archive for October, 2009

Sunday before following the activity at North Portland Jct., I found myself at the north end of Portland Union Station for the arrival of America’s Train, Amtrak’s Empire Builder. Since I moved to Vancouver in 1993 this location has grown up so to speak. Prior to this condo building it sat empty while the soils were scrubbed from its previous life as home to the Hoyt St. roundhouse.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, portland, oregon, hoyt st., pearl district, amtrak, empire builder

Railroads Illustrated magazine’s A Day in North America brings railfans all over the North American continent track side on a single day each year to capture railroading as it is. For my day I headed to the Columbia River gorge with the goal of photographing a couple of places I have never spent much time at. For the most part I was able to capture what I wanted however the right trains and the right light weren’t always at the same location at the same time. I guess that’s the challenge of railfan photography even when its not DINA.

The DPU on a westbound grainer goes back to idle as 110 cars ahead the head end has passed an approach medium to east Bingen

An empty grainer sprints between tunnels 5 and 6 east of Cooks

As the day wore on rain showers became more regular and between about 2:30 and 4:30 west of Bingen it was pretty much a rain out. At 4:30 the skies cleared and the light was fabulous. I think the trains however were afraid of getting wet because they all ran away and hid. Such is life on DINA.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, railroads illustrated, white river productions, day in north america, DINA, BNSF, columbia river gorge