Nostalgia & History > BB: another shot of MILW boxcab work train from yesterday

In response to my post yetsetday (BB: face to face with a MILW boxcab) 'bradleymckay' wrote:

"As an FYI Willow Creek is 8 miles southwest of Three Forks.  The ex-NP "passenger main" is just out of sight to the left...the head end of the work train is facing northeast.  The consist was E29A, E36C, E29B. 
I'm sure Bruce shot multiple slides of the work train from different angles.  Looks like he had excellent weather that day

Allen"

Given my knowledge of BB's habits, I thought 'that's gottaa be correct', so I searched thorugh files and found a couple more of this work train and here's one of them. Taken on the same day as the shot in yesterdays post. Don't have a location for this one .... looks like it's close to the Willow Creek shot.
 

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In this shot it seems like the background mountains are a bit further away than in yesterday's image. And there are slight differences in the pole lines, so my guess is Bruce caught the train at the Willow Creek signboard either stopped or moving pretty slow. Then he moved on up the road a-ways toward Three Forks for the 3/4 shot. A check of the slide sequence numbers (if any) might verify this. In my experience with work trains, very seldom were they "balls of fire" while in transit...

Lance/199

Thanks Lance, checked and Willow Creek shot was no. 36 and today's was no. 35

valmont Wrote: > ... Willow Creek shot was no. 36 and today's was no. 35 ...

Aha. So I either have it backwards, or the train was backing (moving west). Perfectly legal within train order "work between" limits. In ABS and/or in CTC territory, whichever applies...

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/18 12:30 by santafe199.

Note the presumably insulated hood over the end of the crane boom.
Don't want to touch that wire!

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In this shot it seems like the background
> mountains are a bit further away than in
> yesterday's image. And there are slight
> differences in the pole lines, so my guess is
> Bruce caught the train at the Willow Creek
> signboard either stopped or moving pretty slow.
> Then he moved on up the road a-ways toward Three
> Forks for the 3/4 shot. A check of the slide
> sequence numbers (if any) might verify this. In
> my experience with work trains, very seldom were
> they "balls of fire" while in transit...
>
> Lance/199

Lance, I'm pretty sure one of the slides Bruce took of the work train was used on a postcard, but I do not think it was in the Lyman Cox "vanishing vista" series.  I have several postcards from "Rail Card" and I'm thinking that's who published Bruce's slide.  The address on one of the cards I have shows "copyright 1978 by Rail Card, PO Box 801, Manhattan, KS  66502".  Did Jim Watson publish it??

Allen

bradleymckay Wrote: > ... "copyright 1978 by Rail Card, PO Box 801, Manhattan, KS  66502" ... Jim Watson? ...

Yessir! That was indeed Jim's business address for Rail Card. I remember quite a few evenings I would spend time over in Jim's garage-cum-office/packing & mailing station. I helped him fill & box up orders for the cards. I'll bet I pestered him with endless questions about this card or that, wanting to know what it was about the image: composition, angle, vertical, horizontal, etc that made him pick it. Without ever handling a camera I think I learned quite a bit about railfan photography during that era ('76 into '77)...

Lance

I have that Rail Card postcard in my collection. It’s dated 5 September 1973. It’s a different angle from the two photos posted by Valmont. At far left, the NP main is visible.

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