Nostalgia & History > Lazy afternoon at Morris

1977 was my first full year shooting with 35mm capability. I can still remember my youthful exuberence and excitement at becoming a railfan photographer. I felt like I needed to shoot everything I could whenever I got a day off work. With my job as a mailman with the USPS in Manhattan, KS that was usually just one day a week, and if I was lucky it would be two. So I was always anxious to make the most of my day off. That meant running down to Emporia to visit the Santa Fe, up to Marysville to visit the UP or into Kansas City to visit a whole bucket-full of RRs. Even then, during a visit to KC I would invariably end up on the Santa Fe mainline west of Argentine. I had grown up a Santa Fe fan, and in the summer of 1974 I had worked as a Santa Fe track laborer in the Morris/Holliday area between Argentine & Olathe. That's where I was on on the 2nd Thursday in September of the year in question. I had spent the day chasing around Kansas City.

By this time I had learned enough about railfan photography to look for that shot with the sun shining over one of my my shoulders. But I wasn't always true to that spirit. Early on I would also take shots that were "outside the box" of the so-called perfect 3/4 wedgie mentality. I had some instinct to explore all facets of the hobby from behind the camera, and I sure made lots of mistakes. I figured you can't correct mistakes until you make mistakes, and I was never afraid to make those mistakes.

For the shot below I was perched on a wooden stair-case which led from the ground up to the 'hi-line' main in those years. Right behind me was the S 74th St crossing where the quaint Morris depot stood. My camera was pointed timetable west and a turn 90 degrees to the right would have produced a roof-level view of the depot and remnants of the Morris stockyards in the land beyond it. My choice of a vertical format intrigues me. If there was a sunset developing I would most likely have tried to include it in this shot. Maybe I was leary of getting a false meter reading. I really don't remember. By the railfan book I should have been on the ground shooting from the train's 3/4 left-front. Obviously I elected to stay up on the staircase. The sunlight would have been back-lit and this late in the afternoon there may have been shadow issues. But knowing myself I probably just felt like staying up in my comfortable perch on that staircase. Another lazy afternoon of railfanning a busy main line...

1. AT&SF 3023 is rolling eastward toward Arengtine with local train 1232(?) H-1 on September 8, 1977.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

PS: I have NO friggin' idea why the strike-through crap is appearing again. It doesn't show up in the preview. I'm posting from a lap top in Addison, TX.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/22 21:25 by santafe199.

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Hiding your text with strikethrough doesn't work, I can still read it

You may have done everything "wrong", but it all worked.  Very nice artsy shot.

I did 7 years delivering mail myself, and having a day off in the middle of the week sometimes worked to my benefit!  More than once, my day off aligned nicely with  a directors special, or some other unique happening.  Always having Sunday off was nice, and the three day weekend every 6 weeks was fun too.  Some days I regret moving on, but that usually goes away rather quickly.

Rob

  Obviously, you need to stay out of Addison, TX.

GP30Frank Wrote:
>   Obviously, you need to stay out of Addison, TX.

Unfortunately Addison is where the Santa Fe convention is all this week. But funny you should mention: today was all model railroading stuff, so I did indeed get out of Addison. I went south to Ennis & Corsicana and shot a few pictures. I was last through there in the summer of 1980. Both places seem a bit different........ ;^)

Posted from Android
(back in Addison)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/15 16:27 by santafe199.

penncentral74 Wrote: > Hiding your text with strikethrough
> doesn't work, I can still read it...

Ah shucks... and I thought I was being clever...
Honestly though, I'm wondering why in the sam-hello this website needs a strike through feature anyhow...

Posted from Android, sitting in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza hoping to recognize a familiar face or two. (It's only been a shade over 30 years since I've last seen some of the guys I will probably bump into)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/15 16:58 by santafe199.

hey Lanzo ... it works better by not typing anything at all rather than going through the trouble and time of typing text and redacting it with lines through the text ... sorry to say as hard as you tried to sabotage this thread, the image came out just fine ... looks real good ...

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
... sorry to say as hard as you tried to sabotage this thread...

Never a dull moment, eh? (I guess that's better than being dull & predictable...

Posted from Android

Why the line thru the text?
Computers are used to set up different things, drafts for constitutions, businesses, churches, bowling assoc., etc., things are added to and deleted from rules and constitutions & by-laws. To show what is being deleted from the old, a line is drawn thru it and the things that are being added, has a line underneath it. upkpfan

upkpfan Wrote:
> Why the line thru the text?

Marvin, you are absolutely pre-historic, Go back and read my "PS" line...