Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Favorite Rail Images from 2008

With 2008 drawing to a close, I put together a slide show of some of my favorite images from my adventures along the rails during the year. The show is around 15 minute long and is chronological in order through the year. You might have to down load an updated version of the free presenter software in order to view the show. The software is windows based. I hope you enjoy the show.








I want to wish everyone the best for 2009.

Ken

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

December Snow in Cajon

During the week of December 15, 2008, two winter storms passed through southern California binging snow levels down low and causing the closures of the main passes in and out of the Los Angeles basin. Cajon Pass is one of those passes. On December 18th, my wife and I made a trip up to Cajon to see what we could find in the way of train traffic and opportunities for photography in the snow. Samantha was in school, so it was some time for us. The traffic was not too bad until we got about a mile past Kenwood Ave. on I-15. The traffic slowed to a crawl. Apparently the off ramp for SR 138 was back up due to the heavy volume of skiers headed for Wrightwood. According to the radio traffic reports and the information signs on the freeway, chains were required for all vehicles on SR 138, and we didn't have any. We were able to get off the freeway at Cleghorn Rd. where we found a westbound BNSF train sitting at Cajon Jct. We stopped there and joined up with the other half dozen or so rail fans, who were getting their pictures of the stationary train. It sat there for a while, and the crew watched two eastbound trains pass by on track 1 before they were gived permission to continue down the pass on track 2. This image shows BNSF 4051 after it got permission to head down the pass.


We saw several trains in the couple hours we spent in the area, but we decided to head back to Upland to pick up our daughter from school. We had a good time together.


On Saturday, December 20th, we made a family trip back up to Cajon. This time were were abel to head up SR 138 and up on some of the dirt roads leading to the tracks. We spent some time in the snow near the tracks at Dell, along Power Line Rd. Samantha had fun throwing snow balls at mom and making snow angels and snow penguins. There were a lot of people in the area. Many of them were rail fans, and ohters were out to play in the snow. We were amazed at how much snow was still on the ground after two days of sunshine. It helped that the temperatures were lower than normal. In this image, a Union Pacific manifest makes its way down the Mojave Sub.


After a while, we moved up to the pull over area at Summit along SR 138. It was a parking lot up there. I don't remember the last time I saw so many rail fans in one spot except for a steam train. We spent about an hour at this location and caught a few trains. One train was an ethanol train that made its way down track 2. In this image you can see the DPUs of the ethanol train as it disappears around the curve.






We had a great time up in the pass. It was fun to get up in the snow, which is not that common for us. More images from these two trips to the pass can be seen in the slide show or at my webshots album.



December Snow in Cajon Pass