Railroaders' Nostalgia > A man watching my train...

…while being an unsuspecting photographic target!

There are many times when a railfan photographer will get a great shot that could never have been planned. But capturing the moment does require a couple of things: a loaded camera and the wit to react quickly when an extraordinary scene presents itself.

In July of 1981 I was covering a regular brakeman’s vacation vacancy on Santa Fe’s Abilene ~ Osborne, KS local train 1351-52. On a blustery Wednesday evening my crew went on duty at Osborne at 6 PM for the return trip to Abilene. I was looking forward to arrival & tie-up at Abilene. I had received a message from the crew office telling me I was released upon tie-up, and I could deadhead back home to Emporia.

We went to work under a mean & nasty looking ceiling of dark-gray-fading-to-black cloud cover. It looked like some very energetic rain (or worse) was nigh at hand. We departed Osborne at 6:20 PM, having gotten our train switched together & air-tested upon westbound arrival earlier that morning. It was always nice to get a good start to a home-bound trip, especially during the prime of a typical Kansas summer wheat rush. Ahead of us we had sizeable pick-ups to make at several stations, including Corinth & Tipton, KS.

Enter the rain! And it did NOT take center stage politely. It was just doing some preliminary spitting on us during the work at Corinth, but somewhere between there & Tipton Mother Nature just let loose. And she was in a very ugly mood. It was an old fashioned deep-dish, gully-washer Kansas style. You know: the kind where small children & family pets could be in danger of just floating away… There were several minutes where we literally couldn’t see out the front of the engine. I’ve forgotten who my braking partner was, but both of us were grateful when engineer Lou Wegerer slowed our train way down. The regular district speed of 30 MPH may not seem fast to the casual observer, but it may as well have been Amtrak speed when you had zero forward visibility. So plodding along at 10-15 MPH seemed a lot safer. Not to mention our ulterior motive to let the rain run its course before we had to get back out in it again. Lou was a good guy, a stocky red-headed Kansas farm boy who had been athletic enough to play football at Kansas State. He was recently promoted to engineer from the brakeman ranks, so he knew what us brakies would likely be in for while making the Tipton pick-up in that hard driving rain.

As we crawled into Tipton the rain did ease up enough to be able to see a couple of city blocks. But make no mistake: it was still coming down! Even with our rain gear we got pretty wet making the pick up. Then all of a sudden it seemed that Mama had finished venting her fury. The rain all but stopped just as we got rolling again. (I swear she was laughing at us!) It ceased altogether as we neared Hunter, KS. This former Salina Northern trackage had taken a NW to SE directional angle. I was keeping an eye on my rear-view mirror on the left side of the cab. A bright sunset was developing in the northwestern sky. Interesting…

We had a significantly large pick-up at Hunter so we cut away from our train to clear all road crossings. As we came into town limits aboard light power I noticed a man on top of the western-most of some hoppers being loaded. He was idly watching our 4 engines roll in. It would be my job to get our pick-up “all laced up” (air hoses connected & hand brakes released), while my braking partner took our engines down the main to get them lined back into the elevator track. I also saw that the sunset was a good one, so I dug into my grip for my trusty Kodachrome-filled Canon AE-1. I hit the ground with the AE-1 strapped over my back and went to work. The already good sunset was now moving into one of those unbelievable color spectrums. I had only rarely seen such a deep purple hue in my Kansas sky, and this was just after it had been jet-washed 100% clean of all dust & haze! That’s when I discovered that the man on the hopper was STILL on the hopper being loaded. I immediately swung the camera up and fired the shot you see below. We got the hoppers picked up and back on the train. In the process I was able to pick off 4 more shots.

The waiting time for getting a given group of slide boxes back from Kodak was always garnished with a bit of anxiety. But I hadn’t been that antsy to get a particular roll back safe & sound in a long, long time. I wasn’t disappointed…

1. An unknown elevator employee stands on top of a hopper watching us at work. Photo taken well after 8 PM on July 8, 1981 on Santa Fe's Salina District branch line in Hunter, KS.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/15 12:14 by santafe199.

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A lovely shot indeed! Nice story about how you got it too!

Beautiful shot,Lance.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Very nice!

What can I say? That is an amazing shot of a "behind the scenes" moment that few people ever witness.

A bit of irony here.
The last processor of 'Chrome on planet Earth was Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas.
...Lorenzo

Beautiful shot man!

Posted from Android

567Chant Wrote:
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> A bit of irony here.
> The last processor of 'Chrome on planet Earth was
> Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas.
> ...Lorenzo
They still do Fugichrome

Uncle Joe

I've still got 80 rolls of medium format Kodachrome in my freezer.

Lee

Posted from iPhone

The elevator man looks a piece and  maybe the last hopper of the day maybe just enjoying the nice sunset great picture Lance.