Western Railroad Discussion > "Photobob", The "Alien", and the Queen Mary II.........

Imagine logging on the T/O in the early 6AM time frame on a Saturday, and already having a trip planned to Dunsmuir, Mt Shasta etc for the day, then to check out the local western railroad threads and reviewing all of the Redding to Shasta area items, and seeing some great photos by Robert Morris and Ryan Wilkerson, wishing I could get such great stuff. I also reviewed a thread about a private car ride to Portland,OR that had photos of Photobob in them and I think Ryan Wilkerson. Anyways my wife and I headed out for the day north from Redding,CA and we always stop in Dunsmuir to shop and check things out, as the day was warm at 11am but not as bad as the Redding area. We always stop mid town, and we see the new Art gallery as my wife loved seeing the duck paintings on the front door area. So we went in, and there was a nice selection of duck stamp paintings all framed with matching $10 duck stamps inserted into beautiful gallery frames. Wow!

As we viewed all of the paintings and artwork for about 20 minutes, and "just" as I saw a huge rack of large format railroad photos, I turned and picked up a photo of a railroad shot in Montague,CA., and a man and a lady walked in, they talked to the shop owner at the desk, and then he said something about the rail shot photo, just as I was looking on the back for the photographer info, and I said, " yes, I'm sure these are Robert Morris photos....." as I scanned the back of the large print. I don't remember my exact words but to the effect of did he know of or ever meet Robert Morris? he said " That is me..!!" What??? I said.? "you're Robert Morris?" - I was shocked and felt extremely lucky to have had such a chance encounter,(my wife and I couldn't believe it actually) and my wife and I met Robert Morris' wife right there, she is very very nice and we all talked for 20 minutes - such a neat chance encounter. We had quite the quick talk around about everything railroad local Dunsmuir and the surrounding area, and how I found an old postcard in the shop across the street 6 months ago that was addressed to John Signor, how my wife had just gotten me the Shasta Division large format book off Amazon.com by John Signor. Photobob told us many great stories, talked about many of his photos there in the art gallery and where they were taken, and we covered his recent trip on the Queen Mary II and his ride on the private coach rail car ....we were just amazed to have met Photobob and his wife!

Anyways, Bob and his wife were tired as they had been up since 5am having to deal with another private coach issue( I felt terrible for them..LOL) and we exchanged information and they left and we headed out for the day on our trip and photo run of stuff my wife likes to photograph. We stopped by Dunsmuir on the way back of course, and heard the sounds of the NB freight pulling into Dunsmuir and a crew change pending, so we made a left turn, down the steep hill past the Theater, and parked at the Dunsmuir station( in fact we are probably on the film camera at Dunsmuir in the white Ford SUV as the train pulls in to stop...check 7/12 about dusk....(I'm uploading my video of the start up now.) We went and bought Lottery tickets after this really neat and great day! Fun!

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You never know who you might run into in Dunsmuir. It's a fun place.

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I met Photobob about a year ago, while I was in Dunsmuir for Railroad Days (back when that was a thing). It felt like meeting a real celebrity. I still have a photo print of UP 1996 when it was about a month old on my wall, signed "Photo Bob".

Tor in Denver

Have they been water skiing though the tunnel?