Western Railroad Discussion > Another fall color chase, sorta

I got up way before the chickens did! I made the 1 hour (give or take) drive to Salina and took a quick look for some night time exposure opportunities. I found a subject and shot a short sequence, then headed up to I-70 to wolf down a big breakfast at the Huddle House. I had a determined agenda ahead of me: Fall color change. Let’s cut straight to the captions>>v

1. UP’s Salina switch power, the 502 & the 1402 are back-to-back at 5:59 AM. EXIF: 42mm for 8 seconds @ f14 jumped up to ISO 200. Slight wide angle distortion corrected in Photoshop.

2. After breakfast (6:52 AM) I noticed the switch engines at the ADM grain elevator complex were ripe for shooting. Click: A 32mm shot 4 seconds @ f14 jumped up to ISO 200 does the trick. Again, wide angle distortion corrected in Photoshop.
Images #1 & #2 taken in Salina, KS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/24 19:45 by santafe199.

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On the drive along Old US 40 over to Salina I noticed a rear-end FRED at Solomon. I was pretty sure the KYLE had a train ready to roll up the old UP branch to Beloit, KS. I filed this tidbit away in the back of my mind. After breakfast I saw no evidence the Uncle Pete was going to run any trains. So I headed north to see about a possible interception of that KYLE outfit I spotted earlier. Sure enough, at Niles, KS I looked SE down the track and saw a distant headlight approaching. Again, to the captions>>v

3. 4. & 5. I’m at the 245th Rd crossing NW of Niles, KS to capture a sunrise as KYLE 5006, in UTAH paint is approaching.

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6. & 7. To & fro shots further up the line at tiny Verdi, KS.

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8. Another look at the 5006 passing behind the Bennington (KS) high school grounds.

9. Now passing through unincorporated Lindsey, KS from the Jade Rd crossing.

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10. An approach shot from S Ottawa St, and...

11. ...an away shot from Markley Avenue, both in Minneapolis, KS.

12. One more away shot from Laramie Rd still in Minneapolis.

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I had a decision to make. I knew a BNSF train was on duty at Concordia, and was most likely an easy target for my camera. And I had a chance to shoot at a location I hadn’t previously gotten in good morning light. What to do... ?

I abandoned the UTAH paint on the point and went for the BNSF local...

13. 14. & 15. BNSF 1938 leads the Abilene-bound local as seen from the Eagle Rd crossing NW of Miltonvale, KS.

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I went back to the KYLE, but couldn’t find the 5006 anywhere. On a hunch I ran west of Beloit clear over to Downs. But I never did re-acquire the 5006. Evidently I zigged west while that train zagged NE over the hill to Jamestown & north to Scandia...

As a fall back, I acted on another tip that the BNSF had a unit tank train coming up the Strong City Sub...

16. 17. & 18. BNSF 4306 is westbound (NW as the crow flies) as seen from a farm field just below Fawn Rd between 230th Rd & 220th Rd. I’m “in the sticks” NW of Miltonvale, KS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/24 04:47 by santafe199.

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19. The 4306 one more time at Concordia, KS.
19 photos taken October 23, 2024.

Thanks for looking!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Lance,

You covered a lot of ground in this chase!  I really enjoy your coverage of this part of Kansas.  
How did you know the Kyle would be on the move?  Is this their typical pattern to park a train on the KP east of Salina?

Jeff N
Olathe, 

sfn2633 Wrote: > ... How did you know the Kyle would be on the move?
It was an educated guess. I've spoken with several KYLE crewmen, and I've learned their general MO is to put a crew aboard a train in the morning and have them go as far as they can within the 12-hour law. Then they will often just tie that train down and transport that crew back home. A new crew will be transported out the next morning to repeat the process. It works out for both RR & crew. The KYLE has no crew lodging to pay for, and the men get to sleep in their own beds every night. 

>  Is this their typical pattern to park a train on the KP east of Salina?
The train was actually parked on KYLE trackage. I spotted the FRED by looking up the KYLE while driving over the WYE track crossing(s) on the west side of Solomon. It was very reasonable to assume that train would be moving some time during the morning...

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/24 05:43 by santafe199.

The ADM grain elevator shot is great! They're all good but that one is my favorite!

Lance,
 It is a good thing pixels are cheap! Kodak would have loved you in 35mm days! What a great set of enjoyable images.Your big glass really distorts the Kansas pool table flatness to make it look like the roller coasters of Cedar Point Ohio!
Gonut

Gonut1 Wrote: > ... Kodak would have loved you in 35mm days! 
(chuckling) Au contraire, my friend! Kodak DID love me in the 35mm days. I would routinely shoot 200-300 rolls of Kodachrome each year. In 1980 I remember shooting over 360 rolls of mostly 36-exp K-64. My heaviest year ever. And I was never a commercial shooter/trader. I never bought film by the brick. I never shot an entire roll of slides on a perfectly lit, 3/4 wedgie just for resale! And I was working the Emporia Brakeman's extra board full time, all year long... 

> ... Your big glass really distorts the Kansas pool table flatness to make it look .........
I have been explicitly told, in NO uncertain terms that Kansas is "nothing but a complete billiard table, end to end". Ohhhh kaaaayyy.............

;^)

Great bunch, nice mixture of colorful diesels and colorful trees. And some nice locations too...

JG

16, 17, & 18 are cool indeed!

As I have aged I have decided that older ladies are much more appealing than they once were to my younger self. Being married to one probably affects my judgement just a wee bit. Taking into account that the ladies are taking better care of themselves probably accounts for some of this but I guess that my older but much wiser tastes have something to do with it too. So then I must say that I find in that picture of that well aged lady UP 502 that she is very becoming in her fresh makeup. While I am fairly sure that I never new her personally, I did know several of her sisters and found them to be hard workers and very dependable. And the fact she is an original real UP unit and not a merger diluted imposter only makes it better!!
Thanks Lance!!  

x6924w Wrote: > … Thanks Lance!!  

That’s quite a narrative, and you’re very welcome! Of course, none of that was going through my mind at the time. In fact not much was going through my mind other calculating than a routine exposure, atop my tripod. My stomach was doing a little bit of talking, though. It was saying: “When the hell are we going to get some food down here?” 🤪

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Nice series!

Kodak!, I could write a book but the short story is while raising 3 kids film, actually the developing of film, became a luxury. Once I bought a camcorder the pixels plus sound was a huge move forward. The K-1000 and lenses went in the closet. Big mistake :( .
Then, a now dearly departed railfan friend, gave me a Canon EOS Rebel DSLR. I burnt as many pixels as I could squeeze onto the few memory chips I had to transfer to my desktop. But most of that is just routine boring stuff of little value today. Images made on 35mm have been scanned, but not so great, as they were all from prints. I didn't shoot slides after many difficulties with projectors (remember them?).
So, what to do with all that unfortunately analog video? I bought some sort of tape to digital device and converted all my tapes to DVDs. Big problem is they are just DVDs that you can't search or play individual segments.Last thought here is to buy a program to extract individual segments. I have a freebie program but it limits the input to only a few minutes, not 6 hours! I tried it on some short segments but it inverts the images. A Conrail OCS flying by upside down is sort of weird.
Such is life!
Gonut

Gonut1 Wrote: > … Such is life!

Yessir, railfan photography can take a strange direction if you let it. I lost the hobby for nearly 20 years. By the time I came back out of my shameful hibernation, Kodachrome had died. But I embraced digital all out. And I made a promise to myself that I’ll never let the hobby go again. I feel like I’m shooting some of the best stuff of my life, with one hell of a lot of help from Photoshop. Like I have said a few times before, for me it’s not the quality of the picture so much as it is the thrill of the chase. And I can still bring it… 😎

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