by Steve Eshom on June 29, 2011
One of the interesting things that occurred daily while I was in the Oregon Cascades was the movement of various cars to Portland in preparation for the NRHS Cascade Rails 2011 convention and its excursions. These cars moved north on the end of Amtrak’s Coast Starlight and the number of cars each day varied from 2 to 6. Seeing nice cars like this on the back made photographing the rear of the train fun again!
On Saturday 6/18 the Starlight had the Chapel Hill bringing up the markers. Take a look at the car’s website and you’ll quickly see this is no run of the mill car. I believe luxurious would describe this car and its amenities. What a better way to travel though? Leisurely pace, your every need cared for, and beautiful scenery. Wow. I think DeWitt Chapple has done a great job with this car.
In this photo the Chapel Hill and fellow PV are exiting tunnel 13 just south of Frazier. I’m betting the folks on the rear platform were shocked to see a person standing track side after passing through the rough terrain between Cruzatte and Frazier. In fact it took them a minute to realize I was there and wave back.
by Steve Eshom on June 20, 2011
Last weekend I traveled to UP’s Cascade crossing at Pengra Pass. I love this mountain pass because it has such a variety of things to see. Rugged terrain, tunnels, trestles, and a variety of flora. It is hard to beat if you like the see and hear trains working their hardest to get the freight up and over the mountains. Done correctly you can easily photograph the same train in multiple locations on the hill. If you stop at the right spot you can hear a train for an hour as it passes through the switchbacks. Paradise for a mountain loving railfan.
This trip I wanted to focus on a few areas I hadn’t visited before and to revisit others. Unfortunately some of my plans were thwarted by snow. A snow drift block the road to tunnel 6 so visiting there was out unless I wanted to do some shoveling or walking. Still I was able to accomplish many of my goals and see the things I wanted to see. With items left undone I have an excuse to return again in the future!
For tonight’s post I’ll give some bullets of the things I accomplished and I’ll cover more in upcoming posts.
- Visit the bridge at Westfir
- Visit tunnel 15
- Re-visit the south portal of tunnel 5 now that the repairs are complete
- Visit the second gravel pit on the road to Cruzatte.
- Visit N. Fields
- Visit the Frazier slide
- Night photos at various locations
My wish list still has about the same number of items on it which will have to wait for less snow and high streams.
by Steve Eshom on May 23, 2011
May 21st was GorgeRail 2011. That translated into a whole weekend of Gorge railfanning activities for me! On Friday I headed out to enjoy fabulous sunny skies and lots of trains. Saturday I had plans for an early sunrise photo before the show and afterwards I expected to spend time with friends so I didn’t have plans then. Sunday I set aside as a make up day for the early sunrise photo followed by some time to get together and railfan with friends.
As you might expect with great plans something would go wrong. Unfortunately the trains and light didn’t cooperate perfectly for the planned sunrise photo. That’s life as a railfan I guess.
At this time of year the light should be rising over the ridge behind my right shoulder (in the image above) about 5:45am. I arrived around 6am on Saturday but the sun never did shine thanks to an incoming rain storm. To top it off I had to leave long before an eastbound train ever arrived. Sunday on several occasions the sun did break through just perfectly but wouldn’t you know it the train wasn’t there. I ended up with the image above which I like very much but would have been better with one of the sun breaks shining on the point where the train was.
I have something to work on for next time I guess.
by Steve Eshom on April 10, 2011
I had a fabulous time at the beach last week with my family. For the most part the weather was just fine and I was able to capture some interesting images. Until my camera stopped working that is. Thursday morning while photographing various things at sunrise the 7D would no longer turn on. Removing all the batteries, CF card, and lens didn’t help. It was absolutely a brick. Now it is in a UPS trailer somewhere headed for Irvine and the Canon Service Center.
The good news is I still own my 20D and it is in good working condition. Out it came and off I went to see some trains today.
At Vancouver a BNSF crew was in the process of bringing an empty UP grain train out of the Port of Vancouver an onto Main 1. Just after 9am there was a discussion with the dispatcher about the fact the train was making reverse moves in the plant at Vancouver to assemble their train. From then on they never moved. I’m not sure exactly what happened but the train sat blocking Main 1 between the bridge and the center for several hours with almost no radio chatter. Trains continued to move around them on Main 2.
Using the 20D was entertaining. The first time I fired the shutter it startled me because it is so much louder than the 7D’s. I quickly remembered how weak the focus system is on it when I attempted to use one of the side focus points. It hunted all around before finally locking in out of focus. Man I like the 7D’s system where any focus point works very well. Since we all know equipment doesn’t really matter I’ll stop the comparisons here and enjoy using my faithful old camera.
by Steve Eshom on March 9, 2011
After watching a couple of westbounds at Bridal Veil I started to leave but the radio crackled to life and I heard the 38 detector report that the Z-KCBR was by. I decided to drive back east and photograph the train at a spot across from Wahkeena Lake. This was a location I’ve driven past numerous time but haven’t stopped. Sunday I did and I was amazed at the background from this location. How many places do you find that have a fabulous waterfall falling above the train? This is probably not a four season location thanks to copious vegetation and the potential lack of water.
