by Steve Eshom on November 5, 2010
Continuing my photographs from the Autumn Leaf Slide Show weekend…
Sunday 4:40PM Peninsula Jct.- To quote Scott “Peninsula Jct. is a very interesting junction but it is very difficult to photograph”. I couldn’t agree more. In my catalog I have exactly 7 photographs taken in and around the junction.
Penn Jct. is where two Union Pacific lines cross. East and west is the Kenton Line which is bisected north and south by the Seattle Sub. Each quadrant of the junction has a wye so a train can go any direction as it approaches. From above the junction looks like a perfect diamond. Through the middle of this jumble of tracks is Columbia Blvd. which parallels the Kenton Line east and west.
So what’s the issue? In a word access. There are no sidewalks in this area and parking is limited. If you do park and walk being on the grass might attract the wrong sort of attention. What’s the alternative? Wait for a train to block Columbia Blvd. and then photograph at will.
Sunday 5:00 PM – Through the St. Johns cut. Nearing the end of a long weekend, with creativity waning, I captured my second to last photograph of the weekend. Simply stated this is Amtrak’s Empire Builder (train 27) passing under Fessenden St. in a heavy rain shower. I suppose it is fitting that the weekend ended just like it started…in the rain.
This concludes my photographs from the Autumn Leaf Slide Show weekend.
by Steve Eshom on November 3, 2010
Continuing my photographs from the Autumn Leaf Slide Show weekend…
Sunday 12:20PM – Ask anyone from outside the Northwest what the weather is like here and they will say it rains all the time. Those of us that live here long term know better though we don’t go out of our way to correct the error. When it comes to the rainy season it does rain here and that fabulous rain fuels rampant tree and vegetation growth. The result is the Northwest is lush with vegetation and most of the rail lines west of the Cascades are overgrown. Thanks to environmental and cost concerns the railroads do little to fight the growth thus scenes like this at Rocky Point, Wa. are prevalent.
Sunday 3:15PM – Quite frequently the Northwest experiences showers. Showers are nothing more than pockets of rain that move across the landscape. In the Northwest these are not as strong as a mid-west thunderstorm but during a rain shower it can be dark and very wet for a brief period. In between the showers is when there’s magic. Often in this in between time the sun will appear and objects will glisten with the freshly fallen rain water. Watch out though because the next shower can catch you unaware while you are admiring the results of the previous one.
by Steve Eshom on September 14, 2010
Union Pacific 844 is visiting town this week as part of the 2010 “Portland Rose” tour which is featuring the Pendleton Roundup. As is normal with steam tours there are plenty of photos to be found on the Internet so I haven’t been overly excited about photographing and chasing this train. Additionally work has been very hectic lately so just dropping everything for a few days and heading out on a steam chase wasn’t in the cards.
In typical UP fashion the train is beautiful so there is certainly some incentive to get out and see it. Tonight I wandered down to Albina with my daughter to see if we could get a peek at the engine. What we found was the entire train accessible to the public and the gift shop open. They positioned the train on the mainline just north of CPS901 (Albina) so that the entire west side of the train was next to a parking lot. That made access to the train by the public very easy. Of course a special agent was on hand for our safety (cough). Nice job UP!
With so many photographs to take of this train I chose to focus on a detail. It was one of the first details my daughter noticed when we drove on the lot. Big Wheels.
by Aaron Hockley on May 10, 2010
Like Steve, I ended up down at Portland’s Union Station last weekend for National Train Day. Having been to events such as this with large crowds of the public, I knew I probably wasn’t going to get any prize-winning calendar shots. I’ve recently started playing around more with HDR photography so I decided to take a few photos that might let me explore this technique. This worked well for a couple photos, such as this one of an ex-UP caboose:
I was also able to pull out a decent amount of shadow detail around the Oregon Pacific 1202:
Things didn’t go so smoothly for the 4449. The running boards of the locomotive where nice and shiny which reflected the colors of the crowd next to her. These reflections weren’t too bad in the original image, but after processing the photo and tone mapping, the reflections turned into random noticeable splotches on the side of the locomotive:
You win some, you lose some. Hopefully I’m smart enough to learn as I continue to work on technique.
I’m testing a new embedding method with the images in this post. I see a couple issues so I’ll need to get those resolved.
by Steve Eshom on May 8, 2010
As most railfans know today is National Train Day. For those of us in the Portland, OR area that means a visit to Portland Union Station to see the star of many local shows, the SP 4449 Daylight. There were other visitors like BNSF 7400, “Mt. Hood”, and UP Caboose 25198 but as you can guess the Daylight was the star of the show.
Since my daughter Haley absolutely adores the 4449 and trains in general this turns into a must do event for our family.
Portland Union Station
With Haley, Tammy, and Tammy’s Mom in tow we headed out for NTD adventure. As I expected there were plenty of people enjoying the nice weather and the trains which made the line for Daylight cab visits about 30 minutes long. We passed on that but did take advantage of tours of UP Caboose 25198 and GN Empire Builder car “Mt. Hood”. We also spent plenty of time exploring the booths around the station where Haley picked up some goodies and a couple of new t-shirts.
Waiting for the Daylight
Haley’s most comfortable when she has the full lay of the land so we headed up on the pedestrian overpass at the south end of the station to get a view of all the equipment parked for us to examine.
National Train Day – Portland
On our way out we visited the BNSF 7400. Rarely do we actually get up close and personal with locomotives so I encouraged Haley to touch the engine and look around it. We felt the vibration of the engine idling, we looked at the “big wheels”, and admired the BNSF paint. A perfect end to a great National Train Day!
If you want to read Tammy’s perspective on the day visit her blog.
