The Impossible Shot

If there were ever a picture that could benefit from editing, this would be the one. The edited photo is impossible, mostly because it doesn't exist in real life. Allow me to clarify.

When The Clark Boys and I set out on before church Sunday morning to get Egg McMuffins and take train pictures, I was hoping for a shot that I could post on WARail. We pulled off Holgate Street to investigate an older Geep sitting on a siding; as I had just taken my third picture of the engine and its two company cars, I turned around to the tell-tale sight of a high-powered headlamp and a couple of ditch lights. Perfect spot, I thought, as there were no buildings or abutments in the way of this shot and the Seattle cityscape was behind approaching train. I was thrilled! Several shots were taken, and the engineer even waved as they passed by with their load of piggy back trailers on flat cars. Everything seemed to be aligned to make this the shot.

Downloading from the camera told a different story.

In my efforts to capture the photo quickly, I didn't see what was right in front of me until I saw the photos on the computer. Once again the nemesis of old and young photogs alike - pesky electrical wires, reminder of an industrial society - ruined an otherwise fun photo. Everything else in the photo captured Seattle well. The colors in the buildings and sky, typical to the Pacific Northwest aesthetic, were greyish blue and filled with the demoralizing ambiance that has spawned many hard-rocking bands in and around Seattle. In the center, a bright orange freshly-washed GE on the point of a hard-pulling train. Exhaust smoke curled into the sky as a signal that this train was going places with horsepower to spare.

All topped off with a heaping dose of electrical wires crossing over everything.

So in the end I am now more thankful for the free "Wire Pilot" tool from the folks at Color Pilot. It pretty much saved the photo, as you can see below. You just move across the page and remove want you want gone. Will I try posting this to RailPictures.net? Heck no. First, I don't think the photo captures the true nature of the scenery, since the wires are actually there, even if I like the wireless photo more; it's an impossible shot, because in order to make it look good I had to fabricate what was in my head at the time I took the photo. Second, RP's focus tends to be photos beyond what Seattle has to offer most of the time: "Common Power" and grey skies. My difference of opinion on that subject is an argument I'll leave to anyone else familiar with RP's stringent policy of photo acceptance.

So for now I'll continue taking the shots that I see in my head, because now I've got the tools to actually show others what's going on in my brain!

Mobile Moment - Foggy Day

Yesterday the boys and I got some donuts for church coffee time by heading over to the Krispy Kreme in Seattle. October is a foggy month around our house, but usually the fog around Seattle has lifted even if our house is engulfed. This was not the case yesterday morning.

The entire area was wrapped in fog. It's another one of those weather conditions that we get here, other than rain. Natural occurrences like this can make even the photos taken by a camera phone look interesting. Granted they're dark and somewhat pixelated, but that fog just makes dark and pixelated into something that can be palpable.

These were taken with my Treo 750. The first photo was of possibly the dirtiest switcher I've ever seen. It was idling, warming up presumably to start moving double-stacks around. The second photo is of BNSF 2334, a standard-issue GP38 road switcher that gets plenty of local use (better photo here). It was idling in the fog as well; when they are parked right along the road like that, I still get amazed by the overall size of even the most rudimentary examples of switchers and road switchers. Recently there was a story about a switcher running from Harbor Island back to the Stacy Yard; a tractor-trailer rig ignored the warning horns and drove right into the path of the engine. The truck ultimately was flipped over and pushed 75 yards and into a Volvo. And the switcher? It was doing 5 mph at the time it impacted the truck. That tells me these things are big. And heavy. And dangerous. Keep off, kids...

The final shot was taken at the UP crossing at Lucille, as UP 561 was shuffling cars back into the yard alongside the BNSF Mainline that runs under Airport Way South. Better photo of this GP38 can be seen here. 561 has a hand-painted number sign on one side held on by duct tape. Certainly not the poster child of road switchers, but filled with character nonetheless. There is a playground nearby where the boys and I can go hand out. One night we were there for the better part of an hour. 561 rolled back and forth on this switching track about four times during our visit. It's heavily used and very urban.

That morning I also shot a video of a passing double-stack train at Holgate, but the soundtrack of the video is so saturated from the horn blast that it's simply not usable. Oh well.

Heritage One Paint Scheme

BNSF 7155 is an EMD SD-40. That means it has six axles as opposed to four (which would be a "GP" series locomotive). Built in 1979 for the Burlington Northern, it has never been renumbered.

7155 was repainted in the attractive "Heritage One" paint scheme sometime in the 1990s, possibly during a rebuild. Heritage One blended colors and logos of some legacy railroads that made up the new BNSF in 1995; the cross logo on the front and BNSF font style on the side were lifted directly from the Santa Fe, while the colors were common on the Great Northern Railway (folded into the Burlington Northern in 1970). Since 1995 there have been a couple of changes to the paint scheme (called "Heritage II and Heritage III" not surprisingly).

Check out the heavy clouds behind the locomotive. Yeah, that's Seattle for you!

Last Run of the Dinner Train to Woodinville

This isn't earth-shattering video, but for a railfan in the right place at the right time it was nice to catch the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train on its last run from Woodinville to Renton on July 31, 2007. The right-of-way between Renton and Bellevue - at the time of this writing - is being abandoned (I think it's a bad idea, but that's a whole other subject that I have already fought). Without the right-of-way, the Dinner Train had to relocate. It is currently running from Tacoma out towards Lake Kapowsin in the shadow of Mount Rainier, with plans to operate a total of three: Tacoma, Snohomish/Woodinville, and Vancouver WA.

Now that's my kind of trifecta!

Under Jackson Street - Then and Now

Bikers call it "A Cage." I call it my truck, and to date it has whisked me and my sons to great railroading venues around the region. It's reliable, somewhat fuel-efficient (compare to my big block powered `59 Chevy anyway), and navigates easily around the area. But it's a cage. It's a cage to me because - at 30mph or more - I miss much of what is going on around the streets I drive. There's nothing like walking the same route I've driven, and seeing 10 times more simply because my speed is roughly 3mph instead of 30. For me, walking around downtown Seattle has opened up so much of the city's railroading history that it was simply astounding. During my stint of jury duty downtown, I focused my lunch break attention on King Street Station and the surrounding tracks/roads. I go away with a great understanding of the railroad through this area and its impact on the blocks just south of downtown.

The first picture in today's Then and Now segment was taken in 1948 of Great Northern 1450 on the GN mainline as it is passing underneath Jackson Street. UP's Union Station is situated behind the locomotive, which was shared with the Milwaukee Road (lettering on the right side of the building). An electric trolley runs under wire along Jackson Street to the right. If you look closely in the expanded photo, you will see above the locomotive, standing on the street, a 40s era railfan watching the train...in the same exact spot that I watched several trains go by yesterday. A man on Jackson is also giving the steamer a passing glance.

Thanks to the Sound Transit train station along the mainline, citizens today are able to stand safely along the tracks underneath Jackson to watch trains, although legally I'm not able to take a photo from the same exact spot as the 1948 picture. There are chain link fences and BNSF signs that keep ethical people from breaking the law. Being an honest railfan means following the rules, even if it means you have to give up on the sweet photo op.

So for this installment I have the best possible alternatives - a picture of Union Station in the modern day, a picture of an SD40 passing under Jackson from the other direction, and a picture taken directly under Jackson. For perspective the second locomotive with the white face is in roughly the same spot as 1450 was in the first photo. Not surprisingly, the architecture of the overpass hasn't changed; it's pretty crumbly underneath, but if it was unsafe the City of Seattle would shut it down in no time. Standing near the tracks you can see the soot of railroading's decades applied to the ceiling along with passive graffiti on the pillars like "SP&S Dave."

In the 35 minutes that I hung around, two double-stack trains, one mixed freight, and a commuter train switching tracks all made movements along this stretch. Now that I have a better idea on how to use the bus around downtown, it's likely I'll be back to keep up on what's happening along this busy line!