To Shiny Rails

Union Pacific’s Great Excursion Adventure! Vote for your hometown to be on the next steam route, and win a chance to ride in the cab or other related prizes. Go here: http://x.up.com/433

On the ocassion of his retirement as UP’s Vice Chairman of Operations, Dennis Duffy enjoyed a one-last special train ride. We caught the train as it went through San Luis Obispo earlier this afternoon. All the photos: http://jf2.com/100905

The Friends of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad supported a speeder run on the SMVRR today. http://www.friends-smvrr.org/100410.html

These photos were taken on the Bellwood Subdivision, between Seward and David City, Nebraska on the BNSF. Seward is about 25 miles west of Lincoln, on the Ravenna Sub. A few blizzards and sub zero temperatures coupled with moderate winds made for a beautiful, but, flash frozen environment. A freight train was snowed in at David City and a rotary snow plow was sent to clear the track of drifts that varied from 6ft or less up to 12ft in spots! The photos were taken on Jan. 8th through Jan. 10th. All the pics are here: http://www.jf2.com/snowplow/

What with the full moon and a close encounter with Mars, it seemed a fun night to go try some photography. Here are the best three taken at the Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo. These were handheld, though I think it’s time to get a tripod going.

This is an amazing, somewhat fantastic, O-gauge, 3-rail layout. From their web site: “Croton Canyon RR is an environmental kinetic sculpture, using O gauge model trains as the motion medium. After three years of planning and 14 years of construction, the Croton Canyon Railroad was finally inaugurated in October 2008.”

http://www.crotoncanyonrr.com/

Don’t miss the videos.