Western Railroad Discussion > Blooming Orchard Blahs

My quest to photograph trains passing the blooming orchards in the Modesto - Escalon were pretty much shot down this year. First of all, the warm weather caused the orchards to begin blooming two weeks earlier than normal. Once they were blooming we had lots of windy, cloudy, and foggy weather. We finally had decent weather this past Sunday, but in my exploring, I found only three orchards along the BNSF between Modesto and West Escalon that had decent blooms left on the trees. The bloom situation was very similar along the ex-Tidewater Southern line. My "grab-shot" photo shows Amtrak San Joaquin Train #712 hustling along at East Escalon.

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