Western Railroad Discussion > Of a Comet, a Fire and a Train

Starting an adventure just after midnight, with a goal to capture the NEOWISE Comet at the crack of dawn and whatever else crossed my path on Sunday, July 12th, 2020

1. During the summer months at this northern latitude, it's never completely dark on the northern horizon. But at the crack of dawn (2:30ish) firey arcs of light reach across the top of the world and tear at the night sky. Best witnessed far away from the lights of the city, and a area of darkness the reaches north into the artic. Comet NEOWISE precedes the coming dawn by an hour or so. During one of the exposures, a particularly long one, I heard clicking noises on the pavement of the road in the darkness ahead of me. As soon as the exposure finished, I turned on my headlamp on to see a very surprised Badger only 15' from me. It froze in it's tracks for a moment before turning tail and ran off into the brush. I also ran to get my lantern from the car to ensure it was gone.

2. The reason I had to travel from my home in Cheney some two hours west to a place some miles west of Grand Coulee Dam is that a wildfire had broken out west of Mansfield and north of Withrow on the Dutch Henry Ridge. Winds had filled the sky between Mansfield and Spokane with smoke and I needed to get around it to view the comet. This photo of the fire in the pre-dawn light, as viewed in a super long telephoto shot some 20 miles distant. Wind was buffeting the camera and tripod making for a less than sharp image. The pair of lights on the right are a road block on Hwy 172 at McNeil Canyon Rd. The butte before the fire in the distance is Lone Butte, 5 miles west of Mansfield, which is out of view to the left. The black areas are the burned over brush and fields.

3. Fairview School at Fairview in Douglas County, WA

 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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4. Dawn as seen from Fairview, WA

5. A huge Split Rock dominates this farm a few miles to the east of Mansfield, WA 

6. The end of GN's Mansfield Branch east of Wenatchee. The rail was never upgraded to handle 100ton hoppers and the line was eventually abandoned. Elevators of Mansfield, WA at first light.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/20 13:28 by funnelfan.

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7. I had hoped to catch the Grand Coulee Dam illuminated in morning light, but clouds foiled that plan.

8. Deer feeding in the morning at Grand Coulee, unconcearned about the out of town visitor.

9. A plump quail roosting on a branch in Grand Coulee, WA.
 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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10. "Straight as the Crow Flies". Hwy 174 on a 10 mile tangent northwest of Wilbur, WA. Smoke from the Road 11 Fire fills the sky.

11. Final reward for the day, catching the Q-SSECHC climbing the grade between Espanola and Fairchild, WA.          

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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There are some wide open spaces we see little of on the east coast.  It reminds me of the slogan from my geology field camp in Montana back in 1984. 

It isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from here."

Beautiful set of photo's and a reminder of the treats lying in the west.

Cheers, Jim

Great shots! Gonna be heading out (with my Mom) to Rice or Kelso, CA later this week to see NEOWISE ourselves in the early evening dark Mojave Desert skies.

Mr. MRL

Your time to post these is appreciated.  With five decades of photography and railfanning behind me your palette of pictures illustrate some of the aspects of our hobby that still serve to draw me trackside.  Very nicely done!

Jerry

Wow !  You sir are truly a photographic artist. The Comet shot is over the top !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/20 05:20 by perklocal.

Fantastic series!

Killing it again. If I have a proper idea of what eastern Washington looks like, it's because of you Ted.

Great series of photos! Are you familiar with noctilucent clouds? It appears in Photo #1 you captured some. This is what they are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

Awesome series Ted. That comet shot is the best! Love the split rock as well-never seen that before. Can't imagine the energy to
spit that out of a volcano.

BB

A wonderful series, my favorite is Highway 174 toward Wilbur, that reminds me of countless long vistas seen while driving throughout the west.
An ordinary scene? Yes, and that is the point, it is a scene from everyone's life who has traveled, only you took the time to capture it.
 

I have read that the Comet will not return for 7000 years!

Lucky catch.

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

Outstanding bunch!
JB

The colors in your first photo remind me of the case hardening colors on some Colt single action frames.   Just really a great shot.

funnelfan Wrote:
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Great stuff. Well worth first call at 0 dark hundred and driving to somewhere west of Far Boondocks.

> 6. The end of GN's Mansfield Branch east of
> Wenatchee. The rail was never upgraded to handle
> 100ton hoppers and the line was eventually
> abandoned. Elevators of Mansfield, WA at fiirst
> light.

That was the last line in Washington that had to load grain in 40 foot box cars. It also had to have the lightest of the GP7s assigned to it, making it the only line other than the Boeing spur in Mukilteo that had assigned power. If I remember correctly, the only elevator left that could unload box cars was Harvest States in Kalama. The last train off the Mansfield was stashed at Gold Bar for quite some time until Harvest States could handle it. A job was sent from Interbay to fetch it. On the way back, the Tacoma crew was on hand for a main line change at the White House (such things were actually done once upon a time). The Tacoma crew got on, blasted off...and went in the ditch around Puyallup. It seems that in the era of plain bearings were still around but rare, nobody checked the train to see if there was oil in the boxes. In some, there wasn't, resulting in a burned off journal. The end of the Mansfield came shortly thereafter with not another train using the line.

TAW

Now that was a very productive photo trip Ted with so many interesting pictures. Your comet picture is the cat's meow. Last time I saw a comet from my train cab was the Hale-Bopp comet back in the 1990's and that lasted for weeks. Great shots all!

Larry

Split Rock, #5, is very likely a glacial erratic.  As a glacier ground past, that rock rolled onto the glacier, rode it till that farm, where the glacier stopped and melted.

Very nice set.  Undecided as to whether to go out to a dark spot to see the comet.  I went out to the Salton Sea (SP Yuma Sub) to see Hale-Bopp Comet.

mapboy

Edit: corrected spelling of Split



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/20 11:48 by mapboy.

Nice catch with the Comet.

The problem with those magic early hours of summer is waiting those six hours until the rest of the world gets out of bed.
t4p.