On the first days of our desert adventure we visited Tehachapi. Tehachapi is one of my favorite locations because everywhere you look the railroad is interesting. If I lived nearby like our friend Darren, I’d love it because there is so much to see and photograph. I’d love to be able to spend the time to wait for the right light for some of the unusual locations on the pass.
We were quite fortunate to find the grass green below the loop so we spent some time chasing the variable light and the green grass. The results were spectacular! In the photo above from Bealville the hills in the background demonstrate how the light was quite hit and miss. 30 seconds before I snapped this photo the entire south switch area was shadowed. Then wham, out comes the sun!
I really had to keep my eye on things as the light changed so quickly. The next photo is the same train passing the NSS Cliff and within a few seconds the light would again change but fortunately everything held up and the train and hills were lit just right.
Sandcut is the site of many a fabulous sunset photographs and despite that this is my first visit to this location in 4 tries. Sadly timing of the the train traffic didn’t support a perfect sunset photo. Instead I had to settle for this photo of the H-EVEBAR leaving Bakersfield and heading for the hill under a sky that saw sunset about 20 minutes before.
I’m ready for Tehachapi again soon!
