Life and Times of a urban railfan

               To say the least the past couple of weeks have not been my favorite, in my last blog I talked about how my new year was off to a great start and how I expected great weather, well my friends that just has not happened yet. Almost every day this month including my birthday it has rained, only the first week in Jan did we have some snow and very little did we have, before the nice heat wave that came along with this wet weather. Shooting in the rain in the winter months is a challenge in itself, low sun angle coupled with a thick cloud deck only adds to ones lighting sorrows. The only time the light is good is between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 the rest of the time it is too dark and having a lack of trains during suitable daylight hours creates its own problems. Along with this weather my work schedule has not been kind either to my passion and had lead to me being depressed and down. However today I p...

    Happy New Year to all of my friends and followers here on my Blog.  To say I will not miss 2016 is a understatement, while it had it's ups and downs I am just glad to be into the new year 2017, a new 365 page book that I get to write and I already have written an awesome first page. It is sometimes considered a old wives tale that how you begin your new year is how it will be. If it is any indication of the things to come just from yesterday I am going to have a epic year ahead. Let's begin on how my new year began, I spent the evening in church like I have been doing for the past 16 years and then I got up and went to service the next morning. Yesterday morning it was superb weather for January and not a cloud in the sky. After church I went out trackside to catch one or both trains out running, the Q299 and the L389  (I was fortunate to catch the latter), what better way to bring in the new year than with a mixed freight led by a clean SD70AC in pe...

        With the rear of 2016 in the clear and the headlights of 2017 in full view I begin to look back over the past year and where I was this time last year. As 2015 came to a close it was a year of hard change I lost a lot, how much I would rather not say. This year brought me a new vehicle a much needed asset in the train chasing realm. With my new addition brought about some new trips, it was this past spring on my first trip driving out to Bellevue Ohio with my buddy Dave that seemed to show the first signs of change for the better. One of the memorable moments from the trip was when we caught the Wheeling coming out in Monroeville Ohio I remember it greatly as I stood on the bridge of the former New York Central Eastbound track that was turned into a trail and provided me with this perfect shot as the train began to cross the river. Tigers on the Prowl in Monroeville  Later on in a few weeks of this picture would bring me to having...

     Some things bring about a memory, this one come while I was driving last Thursday on my way to help someone move some boxes out of the basement. While I was driving through the new interchange ramp I look over to the right and saw that what remained of the Akron Barberton Belt's East Akron  line right of way and the water department maintenance facility was totally wiped clean and nothing remained but a dirt pile. Let's rewind  25+ years ago back when I was about 9 or 10 I remember riding over to South street to a restaurant called the Bunn. It was about 1500 feet south of the water dept and the Beltline crossed directly in front of it and me and my dad would go for a cheeseburger and the hopes one of the pinkish yellow switch engines would traverse the line, and every once and a while  we would get a show when they made their way back to Barberton. Little did I know that in less than 5 years the tracks I would see these trains on would be nothi...

    One thing for certain is change is inevitable, Trains change tracks, direction, and symbols so it should be to no surprise that eventually I would have to change the format of my blog. I made the changes due to wanting to simply make the blog better and easier to read on mobile devices. Also I just got sick and tired of trying to keep the description and links from running into the pictures or the actual writing. Like when trains change tracks a bulletin is issued giving a detailed description of what changes the crew can expect so hopefully this post can be as such. Let's take a look  at some of the new changes......... Screen shot with some Descriptions For you desk-toppers, or those who have a laptop and read my post from them there are some neat features to look at. The first feature to the left is a side bar featuring all of my post from the most recent all the way back to the beginning. Also another neat feature is to the right the little black bar,...

            It was Nov,10th 2015 a year ago today although oddly it seems like a lifetime ago. I got to where I am today because of these choices I made this day. It was raining that morning, thankfully the rain held off just enough for me to ride my bike down to the spot where I set and watch trains roll through the city. Now it had began to rain again as I took shelter under the overhang of the parking deck trying to stay warm with damp pants from the ride down and only a Thermos of hot coffee and some saltine crackers for breakfast. Could it have been worse? I guess it could, but to me it seemed like the end of the world and it was it was an end to the world I knew, one I created based upon false hopes and dreams. For about a year and a half I called myself trying everything I could to try and make this lady I fell in love with love me back but to no avail. I should have known it when she said we would be done as soon as the fri...

  Good evening fellow railfans,  you may have been wondering about the title well it is my short title as the long title is guilty of watching trains but not guilty of failing to live up to your standards.  Since the beginning time people have tried to set some form of standard and make people feel inferior or guilty for not living up to it. From the Bible times to the present day society we classify things we do such as clothing, lifestyles and hobbies into what is deemed normal. For many years I have been hurt by rejections due to the fact I like trains. I have been told everything from grow up to something must be wrong with you. Society has always went with the IN-CROWD the cool kids, the ones with the most clout, the best clothes, the latest gadgets or who is the most popular kid/person in the group. For me growing up I never could be put into this class for the most part of my high school life I put work in trying to learn my trade as a carpen...