Life and Times of a urban railfan

The best thing one can do when it's raining is let it rain  ~H.W. Longfellow  This past Friday I was able to finally get a day off from work and while the weather was not the most opportunistic for trains or amateur radio it was a great day to be trackside. I packed a few sandwiches and drinks and headed off to meet my buddy under the bridge in his car ( our default rain location) while I was there only a few minutes I heard the Q216 call Firestone signal knowing he would be there in a few minutes. Q-216 with a SD40-3 leader passes by a piece of construction equipment  After the Q216 I set and shot the bull with Dave and within about a half hour we hear the Q015 as it cleared a few signals away. What I would see next would not leave me disappointed. Q016 with a lone Horse?  What appeared around the corner was what seemed to be a lone horse leading a long line of double stack containers. Was this real? had CSX lost their minds?,  no absolute way...

"A wise man gets more use from his enemies that a fool does from his friends" ~Baltasar Gracian   There is more truth to the above statement than I would like to admit. I first off want to apologize to my loyal followers for my abrupt abandonment of my blog. It was with a great deal of personal anguish that I had to quit blogging at the request of my now former employer. If you remember back to my last post I had mentioned about how my job provided me with the opportunity to watch trains but soon the skies would darken not physically, but metaphorically speaking the storm was on the horizon and it didn't look good.  Shortly after my last blog post my new manager called me into the office and had me write down exactly what I did and once I did that, a new directive was written this included for me to stop all social media, train, ham radio, and other activities not related to work as it was a distraction to my work in his eyes. One of the few Auto racks I was ...

The most important thing is to enjoy your life — to be happy. It's all that matters.  ~Audrey Hepburn~              The above quote has so much meaning, meaning I never took it to heart till this past Friday.  For the most part I have been super busy with work, life and other things that I had to let somethings go, however I am back. With changes at my job with management, getting a new van, and other responsibilities  I just have been too busy to really get trackside like I used to. One thing however that hasn't changed is the fact I get up before the sun rises and go watch trains before work. Now most of my mornings trackside before I became a ham was listening to the scanner, reading my devotional, and something out of the Bible, and before I had a vehicle my usual challenge was to either stay cool during the summer or warm during the winter and spend about 45 minutes riding my bike downtown. Even though now I ha...

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. ~Thomas Paine ~         After a long and much needed sabbatical I am back, to say I was at my wits end when I posted my last post before Christmas would be an understatement. I walked away from almost every aspect of railroad photography and photography in general. To say I was fed up with the hobby in general,  plus having people back in my  life who did not approve of my hobby and set out to make my life a living hell and it would eventually affect my health. I decided to just stick to watching trains in the morning and a few trips while I pursued my new hobby of amateur radio obtaining the highest class license available. Now it is rare that I would ever find what would happen next, but I wound up finding my way back to the tracks. One of my few after work catches Now last summer I joined a local ham radio club but I mostly kept qu...

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 w...

"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 p...

"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 locomotiv...

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 ...

"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...

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 C...

" 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, ...