Blog

Day 17: Baker to Las Vegas

Woke up in "lovely" Baker and all was quiet. Looked outside and everyone had left town by 9am. Well, I guess no one in their right mind would actually want to hang around here. The only reason I was still here was to change over some settings for a PatronBase client, and you heard how prolonged that was.

So as soon as I possibly could I left Baker and hit the freeway. Didn't stop until I'd crossed the Nevada border at a little town called Primm. Primm boasts a roller coaster and several casinos, surprise surprise. Also a large power plant. I guess if you're going to build a coal power station, build it right on the border with California huh, let them get half the emissions!

Spied a couple of trains crossing on the UP LA-SL (Los Angeles to Salt Lake City) line, but lighting was all wrong to get much of a shot. Followed the tracks into Las Vegas, snapping a single unspectacular shot on the way. And then I was driving down Las Vegas Blvd!

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Day 16: Kingman to Baker

Another lovely morning in Kingman. I tell you, life is pretty rough when in the middle of winter you can go around in short sleeves. That's how far south I am. For the curious, here is what $45+tax/night gets you in Kingman:

$45/night. Note the lovely 50s decor: lamps, bed head, etc. The lamps were attached to the desks too!

So I left Kingman via Rt 66 which took me past the canyon and then out into the open desert. Things are pretty flat out here. I had an idea from the maps that after a while the road would curve and there would be some good bluffs to view things from, but didn't quite work out that way. The highest things for most of the drive were highway overbridges! So I caught a single container train from a highway overpass…

 

Continued on a bit further and took another exit down to a wash. Ended up crossing the wash which was a new driving experience. For the ...

Day 15: Kingman Railfanning

Woke up and had a long Skype chat with a friend, then since the weather had largely cleared up I headed back up the hill towards Walapai to try something a bit different. On the way up I caught a downhill train so snapped off a few quickies.

I then went up the road a bit, parked the car and went exploring. I found a little bridge that was just high enough to walk under, provided you bent over. Came out on the sunny side of the tracks and before long an EB intermodal was making its way past me. A few minutes later a WB intermodal cruised down the hill, and already the headlight of another train could be seen making its way up the hill.

The approaching train turned out to be a massive EB manifest, complete with a mid train helper and a rear pusher. Even before he'd finished passing me (which admittedly did take a while) another down hill train had come around the corner and w...

Day 14: Flagstaff to Kingman

Time to head West. Packed up and hot footed it down the Interstate to Seligman. Took Rt66 at the first opportunity and was soon paralleling the railway, where I saw some possible good photo spots on the way down. Pulled into Seligman only to find the Sno Cap was closed for winter, so no malt for me today. Wandered down to the tracks and found this old barn along the way:

(Note the lovely weather)

Down at the tracks I could see a WB train quickly approaching town, so lined up for a shot. Found some really old looking track in the yard, reminded me of an old western movie.

Cruised back up Rt66 to my previously identified photo spots and even before I'd got there I cold see a light off in the distance heralding an approaching train.

Continued on to my actual spot and could see another approaching train off in the distance. While waitin...

Day 13: Flagstaff

(Ok I've gotten a little behind on the updates…)

Another cold and gray day in Flagstaff. Started off fairly good, just a bit of high cloud. Went down to Maine again to try and get a repeat of yesterday, but very little was happening. I could hear on the radio that a train was just up the road a bit at Bellemont with DPU problems, seems the front half of the train wasn't talking to the rear. Once they got it all set up again they did something called the "bump test", where the rear locos are told to go forward and depending on which way the train lurches they can see whether the locos are operating in the correct direction or not. It's something I'm familiar with on my model railway, so to see it being done in the real world too was funny.

Strolled down beside the tracks in the snow for a bit to see if there was much around the corner. Caught this EB flying past…

And then eventually the guy who had been ge...