Life and Times of a urban railfan

Don't fear failure,  Fear being in the exact same place  next year as you are today. ~Elissa Roberts        This past weekend I finally knocked off a item on my list that, Has had me to say up against the wall per say. For the most part one of my favorite genres of photography is night photography, I don't know what it is about it maybe it is that most of the world is asleep, or maybe it is the sharp contrast between the colors of darkness and light. Whatever the case maybe it is one of my personal favorites. Add in the fact that I have shot every type of train photography and gotten it on Railpictures except night photography, it was a mission of mine to accomplish before the end of this year. It looked like the end to another year of failed bucket list goals, another year where I did not accomplish what I set out to do, but that would change very quickly this weekend. Now I have seen some excellent night work done with flashes, but without the funds to obtain

"Friends are the siblings God never gave us" ~Mencius~             This is one of those cases where you wonder who had more fun, you or the other person. Every year our local shortline puts on a dinner special for the clients who use the railroads service. This time we caught wind of the dinner special a few days early and decided to give chase. That day would prove not only fun to us but also the whole train of clients and their families.  I got off work as usual and decided to head over to Dave's house to ride with him as my van was in no shape to be chasing trains. Once we got everything in the car we proceeded behind the shopping plaza near the yard to set up to try and catch the consist as it left the yard. While waiting for the train to get under way we got to see a few CSX trains including the Q016. Q-016 entertains us as we wait for the dinner train. With the Q016 out of sight we began to hear the dinner train proceed out of the yard and wit

"As a child I used to think nap time was a punishment  now as an adult I think it is a mini vacation" ~Unknown       I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, that is where the story begins. I was sitting eating dinner with the family when my buddy Dave messaged me, and we discussed going out to Bellevue Ohio on Saturday. Well over the course of a few days those plans solidified and we decided to go. I arrived at his house at 4am and we proceeded to make the almost 2 hour drive out there. Upon arriving we were greeted with some pre-dawn trains going into and out of the yard. As the sun rose we managed to find a Wheeling train with Norfolk Southern power over on one of the connecting tracks. Not wanting to miss the opportunity of catching a sunrise with a train (one of my favorite things) I managed to get this picture right here. Fenced in power While the angle wasn't my favorite due to the industrial fencing paralleling the locomotive I still

Once on my Birthday my Old man gave me a bat .  The first day I played with it, it flew away  ~Rodney Dangerfield         This past summer during my time off I was able to bag a railroad that I always had wanted to but never had the time or the means to. That Railroad would be the R.J.Corman railroad. Now as close as the R.J.Corman comes to me is a town called Clinton Ohio at a small interlocking and interchange yard called Warwick. Sadly enough for most of us railfans they are a nocturnal move and very rarely do they ever move during the daylight, but for a rare moment in time I was able to catch them during the daytime.        It began with me getting off from the train shop almost an hour early and I decide to make my way over to my buddy Dave's house where the plan was to chill out and watch the parade of Gevos on the New Castle sub from his yard. We caught wind of the Q015 having BNSF power and decided to drive in Railfan1 a few miles into town. As we set at the g

"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light" ~Helen Keller.              I am back friends, I took a much needed sabbatical from not only my blog, but railfanning for the most part. I have been busy pursuing my amateur radio license and trying to fix the van to make it road worthy before winter. In early August I was granted my ticket (technician license)  to operate my radio that I had been busy fixing while I worked on my studies. After obtaining my license me and my buddy Dave decided to go to Alliance Ohio and watch trains. It was a warm September evening and thunderstorms had just finished rolling through the area. As the sky was clearing off we visited a local train shop and once we were done we headed trackside. That is when we heard a Westbound coming into Alliance and I got the bright idea to go and see if I could get a picture off the Martin Luther King bridge. Now this was no easy task due to the rock fencing applied to the

I told my psychiatrist everybody hates me.  He said I was being ridiculous- everybody hasn't met me yet . ~Rodney Dangerfield~               This past couple of weeks has been rough, how rough you ask? Well so rough that railroad rock feels like Charmin toilet paper. However at least I was rewarded with some great foreign power running on the sub.  BNSF ON Q138 Wednesday morning provided me with the pair of BNSF pumpkins on Q138  as I was headed into work. Later that day I would miss UP and other great power due to the fact of someone tricking me into meeting their daughter for lunch. The reason I say tricked is the way they described this girl as the most beautiful one and it might change my mind on what I desire, well the girl was a nice girl but far from the description heck, the nicest thing I could think to say was I liked her hair. Honestly the girl was a younger resemblance of Mi-Mi off the Drew Carry show, not my cup of coffee. After this I

" The richness of life lies in the memories we have forgotten"  ~Cesare Pavese~                       Most of my experiences with trains has been positive throughout my life, however this particular night wasn't per say a bad experience for me but a interesting one to say the least.  It was on Sunday February 26th 1989 a night that certainly would remain in my memory for years to come. It began with a evening at Quaker square, I don't remember the details other than we ate at the restaurant and I wasn't supposed to go but I was pardoned at the last minute I don't remember by whom but I remember the joy of getting to go. As my mom drove us home I remember it was getting dark out and we were on our way home. About the same time the crew of the D812 local left Warwick  after setting off 11 cars and picking up 5 (4 cars and a second caboose) with 4 locomotives, 49 cars and, 2 cabooses. (and yes I am old enough they still used cabooses on locals) Th

                                  I know it has almost been two months since my last post and I truly apologize to my followers who read this blog, to tell the truth I just haven't been myself lately. I had lost my passion due to a number of reasons, mainly people. I began with my boss telling me I had to much time on my hands and increasing my workload in order to wear me out after work and it worked for a while. but from time to time it would work out in my favor to catch something rolling through in the early morning or the early afternoon right after work but with my van acting up, the weather, and my work/Life schedule it just kept me from getting out trackside like I wanted. In my last post I talked about making room for more railfanning and I have, but somethings just haven't worked out in my favor yet. But what began to get my spark back was I had to go to the dentist in mid-June and with a headache (caused by a tooth) I had about 2 hours to kill so I wandered tracks

           I know it has been a while since my last post, to be honest with you I just have been busy with work and other things that has kept me from the tracks. During my unwanted sabbatical I managed to get a few minutes in with the trains. The first being when I went on a fishing trip with our family ( this was a wanted trip by the way, not to be included in the unwanted sabbatical) during that trip we crossed a set of tracks belonging to the Wheeling and Lake Erie and I heard a train on the scanner as we packed up to head home. I figured that the train would be by us by the time we got to the crossing, but that would prove me wrong as I approached the crossing I looked out the window and saw the train about a quarter of a mile away. Stopping the van on the other side of the tracks I grabbed my camera and ran  back toward the tracks (this has been a little easier since I have been walking and losing some poundage) with only seconds to compose the shot I managed to get this pictur

A CSX auto rack runs through South Akron in a scene similar to what I saw as a kid          I was flipping through the April edition of Railfan and Railroad magazine the other  day and in one of the commentaries it was basically put that railfanning is one form of a persons work and entertainment for others. I can relate to this for the most part from the perspective of being entertained by the immensity and power of the motive power and the freight cars that are moved across the country everyday. It began with the walks me and my dad would take up to the end of the street while walking our dog, if we heard a train horn blowing for South street ( I was to young to know this at the time) we would wait and in a few minutes here we would see a train emerge from under the Main Street bridge and I would be treated to seeing a train. Over the years on various occasions I would go out with my dad not really railfanning but he would go to places there would be a probability of seeing on