Western Railroad Discussion > Tunnel 12, Clover Creek, NV

This picture was taken last Sunday afternoon (October 30, 2005) at tunnel 12 on the UP's LA&SL line. The location is about 10 miles northeast of Caliente, NV. This is an eastbound train (headed for Salt Lake City) but at this point the train is headed almost due south. Saturday, I was setup at Tunnel 7 for westbounds and had a parade of eastbounds (4 stack trains in a row). Sunday, I setup at Tunnel 12 waiting for eastbounds and I saw mostly westbound trains. I was hoping to get a new SD70 ACe in the lead or anything really clean but it did not happen. At least it was a nice day in a really peaceful place. I really like this area but it is not the easiest place to get to.

I also posted this picture over on the Railfan Electronics Forum.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?9,1031681,1031925#msg-1031925

I just purchased a new Sigma SD10 DSLR camera and had some comments on the advantages and disadvantages on this camera. The main advantage is that it has more real resolution than any of the other popular DSLRs. Main disadvantages is probably higher noise at high ISO numbers. Also, it only uses RAW format which some might see as a disadvantage but I think this is probably a good thing. Photobob might like this camera. Maybe even Sam Reeves should look at it. Anyway, I am still learning how to run the camera and had it mostly set on auto exposure mode. The major problem with the picture is that I set the focus too close to the mouth of the tunnel so the second and third locomotives are in slightly better focus than the lead locomotive.

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This was my favorite picture from Saturday's visit to Tunnel 7 south of Caliente, NV. This is looking thru the tunnel which is only 461 feet long at a westbound double stack. There was a clean SD70 ACe in the consist but it was the third locomotive not the lead.

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Another shot looking thru Tunnel 7 at a westbound bare table. I saw 2 westbound bare tables on Saturday and 2 more on Sunday. Are they scrapping that many containers at their destinations? It seems that if they are just staging empty stack cars, this is a long way from the port at Long Beach.

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An eastbound manifest approaching the south (railroad west) portal of tunnel 7, Another chance for a SD70 ACe picture but there is a GE locomotive in the way. At least it is only a little dirty. Note that the SD70 ACe is the only locomotive that is running quite clean. The train is climbing a steady uphill grade here.

The light was completely against me in this picture but the Sigma Photo Pro software has a function that is called X3 Fill Light that seems to work magic in cases like this.

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Nice series and nice little camera you have there.

Mike
Henderson, NV