Archive for the 'general info' Category

As some of you know who have followed my photography, I have been branching out into more general photography and not just trains over the last year or so. I’m still taking railroad photos but have also started a new web project to share some of the things I’ve learned as I’ve grown as a photographer.

I call it Photoschooled.

The topics include general photography information, ideas on how to improve your photos, and digital image management including organization and online photo websites. Bookmark the site, subscribe to the RSS feed, and comment on what you see.

The SP&S 700 folks, Oregon Pacific Railroad, and Oaks Park are presenting a “Summer Steam Special” this year in Portland on July 12-14.  The event will offer both public (and private party) rides behind the SP&S 700 or one of OPR’s diesels.  For more information head over to their website, but it should be a few days of fun.

Oh… did I forget to mention they’re offering cab rides?

[tag]sp&s 700, sps700, oakspark, portland, pdx, trains, railroad, steamtrains, prpa[/tags]

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.

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? 

Why do we (the taxpayers of Washington) need to spend $110 million for bridge over the tracks at 39th St?  Here’s why:

This photo from the perspective of a driver westbound on 39th St demonstrates what can happen at this crossing.  In the foreground is the ‘north lead’ switch job running a cut of cars out of B6 into the SP&S main yard while the M-LYDINB rolls north on main 2.

Besides the general public’s obvious gripe with the crossing, the railroad too has noted it as an operational headache.  Rarely is there a train that fits between this crossing and Vancouver Center.  This of course causes train crews and dispatchers to have to think more carefully about where trains stop so as to not block the crossing.  In fact some dispatchers won’t even run a train south of Vancouver Jct. North until they know that the train can whiz through the center.  This just pushes the congestion at Vancouver farther to the north.

While the public thinks more of this as just a crossing elimination, it is really the beginnings of a larger project that will streamline transportation in the area.  When construction starts on this project late this year, I’m sure a collective sigh of relief will be heard from both railroad managers and the public.

Everyone does their own thing with the railfanning hobby.  I recently learned of someone with an interesting website offering downloadable train jigsaw puzzles.  The creator is now featuring one of my photos as one of the puzzles.

If you’re looking to kill some time with an online railroad game, check it out; it might be a good way to share the hobby with children.

For anyone not familiar with the Columbia River gorge here’s a photo of sorts of the ‘Home of GorgeRail‘.  GorgeRail will be held for the third consecutive year at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center which is situated just west of The Dalles, OR overlooking the Columbia River.  From various places on the property there are views of both the BNSF and UP tracks, including a large panoramic view of the north side of the river right out of the main hall.  Pictured is an eastbound UP manifest that is about to hit the beginning of double track at Crates.  The Discovery Center is in the brown buildings above the tracks and the grassy area around it contains exhibits related to the history of the gorge.

For those that have registered, I look forward to seeing you in May!  For those that haven’t, now would be the time to do so as seating is limited.

GorgeRail tickets have been on sale for about two and a half weeks, and we’re now about 40% of the way to selling out the theater. Have you ordered your ticket yet?

The intial response to the show announcement has been very widespread… we have folks registered from Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and a bunch from California.  Local folks better get their tickets soon

Once again, local railroad author Jesse Burkhart will be at our event selling/signing his books including a new book published in January.

Some folks representing the Oregon Operation Lifesaver group will be on hand as well.

I’m still battling some paperwork issues to get the group lodging secured, but we should have that situation wrapped up this week.

I’ve been working with the presenters to hone their shows and I assure you we have a great set of presentations in store. I look forward to seeing many of you there.

For photographers late February and early March can be the most interesting time of the year.  This is not because of great photographic opportunities but rather the annual Photo Marketing Association convention and trade show.  The PMA as its known is usually the excuse that manufacturers use to announce new products and components.  So far my assessment is that the products released are just evolutionary improvements, but I see that some are pushing the envelope.  Here’s my list from a Canon owner’s point of view…

1.  Canon EOS-1D Mark III Digital SLR
2.  Canon EF-16-35mm f/2.8L II USM wide angle zoom lens
3.  Lexar Professional UDMA 300X CompactFlash card (2GB, 4GB, 8GB) & Lexar Professional UDMA FireWire 800 Reader
5.  Miscellaneous accessories from Canon that I wasn’t interested in (wireless remote and flash)
4.  A variety of point and shoot cameras from both Canon and Nikon

I’m not likely to pick up a 1DMkIII, but the 16-35 and the fast Lexar card and reader are intriguing. 

With the new card Lexar has caught up to and passed SanDisk who with their Extreme IV series and FireWire card reader introduced high speed download.  With UDMA, Lexar raises the bar a bit higher, which is nothing but good for all of us.  Now, when will camera manufacturers improve their throughput to match the cards?

The 16-35 improves on a lens that originally received mixed reviews.  Some liked it and others hated it but if you could live with the known issues it would work for you.  With the II version Canon is attempting to correct the known issues and I believe finally provide a respectable wide angle zoom.  I mentioned to Aaron a couple of weeks ago that when I started research on wide angle lenses for Canon gear I was disappointed in the lack of consistent quality Canon usually provides in that category.  Hopefully this will correct that deficit.

For now these are just announcements.  I’m looking forward to when these products hit the streets and then seeing the reviews and how these devices work in the real world.   Ah, Christmas in February (and hopefully throughout spring).  

I need to apologize for my lack of updating on this site lately… things have been busy in my offline life and I haven’t had a chance to shoot much new material.  One of the things going on is me accepting a new position, which happens to be a few blocks away from a mainline in Southeast Portland… so you might start seeing some new material from that area.

GorgeRail plans are coming together with only a couple little logistical pieces needing to be worked out before we start selling tickets.  Stay tuned.

I’m bringing at least one more person on board to post here, and he has already shared some interesting ideas for ways to add material to the site.  His name will be familiar to those in the northwest as well as the locomotive preservation crowd… expect to see something in the next week or so.  Until then you can just wonder who he is

And since all good posts have at least one photo, here’s a short of our “train” from GorgeRail last year for a ride on the Oregon Pacific Railroad:

I don’t really hide that fact that I’m a geek. I work with computer software for a living and enjoy checking out random tech gadgets. I’m quite into blogging. I write at a few other blogs. And I read blogs. 258 of them is the current count.

It’s interesting to watch the railfan world overlap with tech. Last year I discovered Steve Sloan’s blog. He’s helped Vic with Winterail for quite a few years. Like many others, I also read Robert Scoble’s blog. He’s a former Microsoft employee who’s now involved with a podcasting startup. As one of the most-read voices in the blogosphere, he has some interesting things to say.

Like today, when Robert posted I Like Trains Too, admitting he’s a railfan. He specifically mentions the new version of MS Train Simulator being created and points to one of the developers’ blogs.

It’s great to see my various interests collide. We’ll have to see about getting Robert up to GorgeRail at some point…

The first round of updates are complete on the site design. The general layout is the same; here’s what’s changed:

• New header graphic
• Search engine search box at the top of every page
• Listing of Recent Comments on the sidebar — we appreciate the comments we get and want to make them easy to see
• Contributor information moved from the sidebar to a standalone page
• Advertising removed from between the first two posts on index pages

If you find any problems, leave a comment and let me know. I have a couple other things in the works as well, hopefully to be announced in the next couple weeks.

Tonight I made several updates to the site, mainly to the layout/styling, but I have several more things to do including introducing some new features. I intend to finish the changes tomorrow (Tuesday the 9th). Nothing should be outright broken at this point (if it is, please leave me a comment) but a few things are missing.  Once I’m all done I’ll post a summary of changes and ask for feedback at that point.

I’m doing some administrative and redesign work for the next few hours.  If things are broken, I know about it.  I’ll post again when the work is complete.

As we begin the new year I thought I’d take a look back at the highlights of 2006 on Dogcaught.com:

• Steve and I spent a day at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad’s Winter Railfan event in January, resulting in some amazing photos.
• February brought some photos of a rail grinder in action, as well as a relatively rare CN leader on a manifest doing some switching.
• March was my first Winterail trip… I posted my thoughts and a couple different photos.
• I enjoy post-work trips east, such as an April trip to the Columbia River Gorge.
• May of course brings GorgeRail, but also some April leftovers from Eastern Oregon.
• The SP 4449 was active in June, heading for Crusin’ Sherwood.
• Steve joined me as a contributor in July, posting some photos from the Tucson area.
• August brought some photos from Alaska, as well as Steve’s remembrance of his first time.
• In September we did an all-day jaunt to the Gorge, resulting in two photo posts - here and here
• The Dogcaught Railroad Search Engine launched in October, with a bunch of photos from some trips. I went to the Powder River Basin and Crawford Hill, and Steve posted a couple more from eastern Washington.
• It wouldn’t be a wet Northwest November without some photos showing evidence of flooding.
• We wrapped up the year in December with ZooLights, a group outing on Pengra Pass, and Steve looking back at some early photos from Providence Hill

I look forward to another 12 months of railroad photography discussion and am excited about a few new things in the pipeline to hopefully grow the site.

I’m currently on vacation at the Oregon Coast (POTB photo coming this weekend).  Today I had my dogcaught.com hat on.

I had this encounter at the Harry and David outlet store:

Cashier (looking at my hat): Dogcaught.com?
Me: Yep… you should check it out.
Cashier: Is it a porn site?

For years I’ve understood that color calibration of the monitor was a necessary thing to really ensure what you are seeing is really accurate.  I of course putoff purchasing a color calibrator due to the cost.  In its place I used things like Adobe Gamma, Quickgamma, and DisplayMate to manually adjust my montior to what I thought was a decent calibration.  Looking back, the results I got were acceptable.

For Christmas I recieved a Pantone Huey.  Huey is not a professional monitor calibrator, in fact it is not even an amateur tool, it is truly a consumer grade device.  All that aside, I have to say it works.  After installing the software, I plugged it into a free USB port and calibrated my Dell flat panel and in just a few minutes.  Simple.

Did I notice a drastic change?  Not really, though my wife and daughter both claim the colors appear richer.  Where did I see the biggest difference?  Well, I spent lots of time calibrating the monitor manually to ensure the darkest darks and the whitest whites appeared correctly.  Apparently I was close but didn’t get it quite right and with the Huey both adjustments look much better.

In the end I think the whole concept of calibation is worth the effort.  Whether you decide to spend for a high end color calibration tool or something simple like Huey, the results are much improved over manual methods.

Aaron and I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday season…

This is an actual bulletin about a missing railfan from the Atlanta area.

I want to pass it along in case anyone has any information. Sue’s email address is skampe1021@aol.com. Although this is near Atlanta I want to pass this along to everyone.

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My uncle, Barry Helling, is an avid railroad fan and a member of your site [Trainorders.com]. Last Saturday, 12/9/06 he went out railroading and we have not seen him since. He railroads in the Lawrenceville area, around the CSX tracks and the Norcross area. His appearance is being considered a possible homicide. We need help trying to find either him or his car. He drove a 2001 Gold Jeep Cherokee, license plate WD700D, wildlife plate. He is 61 years old, white hair and close beard. WE NEED HELP. Possible dark color Silverado truck seen with his possessions in the Birmingham area also. Police has not searched areas specifically. Please have anyone finding anything contact me or the Gwynette County Homicide Department ASAP.

Thank you,
Sue Kampe

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I also received this from Gwinnett County Police Department:

One of your fellow train enthusiasts has gone missing under suspicious circumstances. Barry Helling, age 61, has not been seen since 12/09/06. He lives in the Atlanta area and drives a gold Jeep Cherokee with tag # WD700D. If anyone has seen Mr. Helling or heard from him please call 770-513-5100 (Gwinnett County Police Dept) Mr. Helling is known for his white beard and Santa like appearance. He is also known as the “Silver fox” to some conductors on the CSX Line that runs through northeast Atlanta.

Thank You
Detective Brian Ray