America 2010

Day 14: Flagstaff to Kingman

Time to head West. Packed up and hot footed it down the Interstate to Seligman. Took Rt66 at the first opportunity and was soon paralleling the railway, where I saw some possible good photo spots on the way down. Pulled into Seligman only to find the Sno Cap was closed for winter, so no malt for me today. Wandered down to the tracks and found this old barn along the way:

(Note the lovely weather)

Down at the tracks I could see a WB train quickly approaching town, so lined up for a shot. Found some really old looking track in the yard, reminded me of an old western movie.

Cruised back up Rt66 to my previously identified photo spots and even before I'd got there I cold see a light off in the distance heralding an approaching train.

Continued on to my actual spot and could see another approaching train off in the distance. While waitin...

Day 13: Flagstaff

(Ok I've gotten a little behind on the updates…)

Another cold and gray day in Flagstaff. Started off fairly good, just a bit of high cloud. Went down to Maine again to try and get a repeat of yesterday, but very little was happening. I could hear on the radio that a train was just up the road a bit at Bellemont with DPU problems, seems the front half of the train wasn't talking to the rear. Once they got it all set up again they did something called the "bump test", where the rear locos are told to go forward and depending on which way the train lurches they can see whether the locos are operating in the correct direction or not. It's something I'm familiar with on my model railway, so to see it being done in the real world too was funny.

Strolled down beside the tracks in the snow for a bit to see if there was much around the corner. Caught this EB flying past…

And then eventually the guy who had been ge...

Day 12: Seligman Sub Railfanning

Sun! What a difference a bit of sunshine can make. Slept in thinking it'd be another gray day; the weather forecast hadn't been very encouraging. Was confused when I went into the toilet and the window was blue; looked outside and Flagstaff was bathed in glorious sunshine. As I was gawking :the earthworm" roared past outside in full throttle. The earthworm is a unit grain train, full of brown BNSF grain hoppers. When stretched out it looks like a long brown worm, hence the name. Today it was in a 3x3x2 configuration, i.e. 3 head end locos, 3 mid train helpers, and 2 rear end DPUs. Even more excitingly the rear DPU was a warbonnet.

So in about 5 minutes flat I dressed, washed, packed the car and was on the road heading East, determined to catch the worm. A few miles out of town at Bellemont I made a carefully timed drive-by shot on the overbridge.

Onwards I went to Parks/Maine. Great wee spot, and bow was I in for a treat here....

Day 11: Flagstaff

Bit of a gray day today, not much sun and really cold, so didn't get much shooting done unfortunately. Went a short way out of town and set up camp waiting for the torrent of trains. Caught a west bound fairly shortly after with a warbonnet SD70 leading. Don't often see EMDs on the transcon, it is almost exclusively GE territory.

Heading towards Flagstaff, containers snaking away.

Then another west bound with a warbonnet on the point.

Then things ground to a halt. I could see the next train off in the distance, but it wasn't moving. 30 minutes passed and a westbound crossed it, then another 30 minutes and another WB crossing, and then finally it continued on its way.

West bound meets east bound and finally things start moving again.

As expected there wa...

Day 10: Mexican Hat to Flagstaff

Slept really solidly, didn't even hear my Peek vibrating and chiming for at least 10 emails through the night. Woke with a start when someone banged on the door and called out something about coffee, I think. I grunted something and they went off to the next room.

Was soon on the road and before long I was going through Monument Valley. So much quieter this time, hardly any cars on the road and none of the roadside vendors were there. Saw a sign advertising a motel, saying "Stay where John Wayne stayed". This is, after all, the setting for Western movies.

Came across some wild (?) horses grazing amongst the snow. They weren't tame enough to come up and talk to me, but they didn't run away either. I also saw a very serious looking truck making a lot of noise climbing...