We are so spoiled in Portland.  We are the home of 3 fabulous steam locomotives including arguably one of the most beautiful ever built, Southern Pacific 4449 (“The Daylight“).  This year the ’49 is the sole locomotive being used to operate the Holiday Express.  The annual Holiday Express is great for families, railfans, or those that just want to go for a train ride as it is a simple, relaxing 45 minute train ride through Oaks Bottom.

My daughter Haley is a big Daylight fan so I make a point to get her out so see the 4449 anytime it’s on the road.  This year we headed to Sellwood to see the Sunday 10am Holiday Express departure.  Instead of hanging out at the station at Oaks Park we stayed south where the train stops and reverses direction to head north.  I captured a few photos there while Haley enjoyed the atmosphere of a large steam engine passing.  Following the train we walked north on the Springwater Trail eventually meeting up with the train at the Oaks Bottom under pass.   Returning south we eventually had one more opportunity to see and enjoy the train as it made its 11am run.

We ride next Sunday at 2pm which I’m sure will thrill Haley to no end.  More importantly the ticket purchase will help with ORHF’s annual fundraiser and will help with the effort to build a permanent facility to house the 3 steam locomotives.  I encourage anyone who can to buy a ticket and go for a ride if nothing else to make a contribution.  Hopefully all of our contributions will incrementally get ORHF closer to their financial goals.

As a final note, I’d like to say thank you to all the volunteers, sponsors, and contributors that make this happen every year.  YOU make us spoiled in Portland!

For those of you that may have missed the announcement at Autumn Leaf or on rrf.com, the big news is GorgeRail is back!  Check out the GorgeRail website for all of the latest information on programs and registration.   See you in the Gorge in May….

My recent family vacation led me nowhere near an active railroad, so instead I’ll throw something up that I found online. It’s an interesting video montage of the life of a conductor, set to, appropriately, a song titled “You Are A Conductor” by The Constantines. From the early-morning on-duty call to a bunch of cab ride footage, you’ll enjoy this:

Technorati Tags: railroad, conductor, youareaconductor, theconstantines, cabrides, videos

I haven’t posted any good railroad links around here lately, but I definitely want to share one with you.  I recently discovered FL9, a blog and photo site from Texas which features some great photos along with good writing.  Check it out!

Technorati Tags: railroad, railfanning, fl9, trains, photos

Lots of folks love to bash Railpictures.net.  Sure, the site’s claims of being “The best railroad photos on the ‘net” are perhaps a bit ego-centric, but the reality is that they host a lot of photos, and like most other photo repositories on the internet, some of the photos are pretty good.  If you check out the most popular photos and the People’s Choice winners, you probably won’t be disappointed.

A lot of photographers won’t submit work to their site because they don’t feel the accept/reject judging is done correctly.  My attitude: who cares?  Do I agree with all of their decisions?  Of course not. I know whether or not I like a photo.  If I post it to their site, and they like it as well, then I get more exposure for my work.  If they reject the photo (for whatever reason), then I haven’t lost anything, and perhaps their reason for rejection could spur some thought.

I’ve sold a few photos to magazines based on exposure on their site.  And now they have twice chosen one of my pictures as their “Photo of the Week” featured on the site homepage.

So while some folks sit back and complain, I’ll take the free publicity.

Technorati Tags: photos, pictures, photography, railpictures.net, railroad