Travelin' dog part II
Apr. 28th, 2009 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogHey there!
I know what you're thinking.
You're sitting around at work on a Tuesday afternoon, thinking "Man! If only![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stormdog would post some pictures of massive, thunderingly loud machines for me to waste my employer's time looking at!"
Well, wait no more! Here is the second part of my travelogue on the weekend's trip. Specifically, I'll be talking about the Rochelle Railroad Park. Enjoy!
Kuma and I made it to the park about eleven-thirty and found a place for the Neon to rest facing the north tracks. Almost immediately, a big Union Pacific freight rumbled through. That pattern continued for the next couple hours. I would say that there was a train about every fifteen minutes, more or less, for quite some time.
The pavillion itself is quite nice. It's at the top of a rise, with a concrete ramp leading up to the structure, which covers a few picnic tables and some benches at the side rails. To the north and south are twelve foot walls rising up from track level, while to the west, on the side where the diamond crossing is, are two sets of stairs that lead down to the recreation hobo jungle and a display of iron strap rail.
At the bottom of the stairs is a really quite nice firepit surrounded by benches. I'm totally seeing an afternoon and evening picnic here with some friends.
Opposite the firepit is a little dugout that offers some shelter from the winds for park goers and perhaps the occiasinal hobo.
>
A close up view of the graffiti reveals a note left by one Wingnut, who was here just this month, making his way west to Cheyenne. Assuming it wasn't some more typical visitor making up a cool tag.
It was a rainy, overcast day as you can tell from the photos. Still the rich, saturated red of this Canadian National stands out beautifully against the background.
On occasion, a west-bound and east-bound train roll by on the right-of-way at the same time. Here are two UP freights, passing just a few feet from each other on their way to opposite destinations.
Kuma very much enjoyed himself here. I was a little worried after being there for a bit that the air horns would be too loud for him, but he seemed largely unaffected. He did bark a little bit if I went out of sight, down the walls to ground level to get photos. I forgot to bring his bowl with 'cause I am dumb like that. He seemed to manage with the water bottle though.
(Note the signs above his head. There are reproduction hobo signals here. I'd inadvertently tied KUma up under one for 'Barking dog here'. *laughs* Someone pointed that out to me later on, and I had to apologize for Kuma falling down on the job as he was pretty quiet.)
Speaking of Kuma, he made friends with two little girls who just adored him. I was glad to see him getting all the attention, and he certainly seemed pleased with himself too. Kuma seems to just be a magnet for small children. He had them fawning over him on our trip to Stronghold Faire too.
It was tons of fun to see other people getting excited over trains too! There was too much noise as this freight rolled through to hear, but I can just imagine the gentleman with his arm held out saying "Look at that!"
Though the majority of traffic through here is modular containers, there are a good number of grainers, car carriers (GM has a nearby plant) and tankers too. And once in a while, a good old boxcar, as seen above. Someday...someday I'm going to take a ride in one of those.
I loved the bright red of this line of containers.
I spent my last twenty minutes or so there talking to a guy by the name of Rick. He's in a Yahoo group that has real time location updates for traffic around these freight lines thanks to some ham radio operators who monitor the control transmissions via radio. I love geeks. But after twenty minutes or so of a lull, I realized it was getting on toward two thirty and I had other things I wanted to see. Of course, as soon as I got to my car, I heard another train coming. I parked at the grade crossing and shot a few pictures through my windows. Here's one of a few other railfans, down near the line, watching it barrel through.
And here's a shot of the locomotives hauling that one, streaming through the grade crossing.
I had such a fun time, and ended up with about a hundred and fifty photos of locos and rolling stock. I want to come back under different light. Ideally, I'd like to come in the early afternoon and shoot some pictures under the bright light of day, and maybe hang out until dusk when I could start a fire and take some motion-blurred shots of the beasts rushing by the pavilion. There's a lot of potential here. It's too bad it's as far away as it is.
There are a lot of spots to discover here, I think. Lots of ways to get fresh angles on the trains from surprisingly up-close vantage points. I don't know that I'll be back on a regular basis; it's two hours' drive and my primary photographic pursuit is not railfanning. But I will be back a few times I think. And this could only be more fun with some friends to keep company with.
And that's about all for Rochelle. In the next and final installment, I'll write a little bit about the Kapotas sculpture park I stopped briefly at on my way back home.
Thanks for looking!
I know what you're thinking.
You're sitting around at work on a Tuesday afternoon, thinking "Man! If only
stormdog would post some pictures of massive, thunderingly loud machines for me to waste my employer's time looking at!"Well, wait no more! Here is the second part of my travelogue on the weekend's trip. Specifically, I'll be talking about the Rochelle Railroad Park. Enjoy!
Kuma and I made it to the park about eleven-thirty and found a place for the Neon to rest facing the north tracks. Almost immediately, a big Union Pacific freight rumbled through. That pattern continued for the next couple hours. I would say that there was a train about every fifteen minutes, more or less, for quite some time.
The pavillion itself is quite nice. It's at the top of a rise, with a concrete ramp leading up to the structure, which covers a few picnic tables and some benches at the side rails. To the north and south are twelve foot walls rising up from track level, while to the west, on the side where the diamond crossing is, are two sets of stairs that lead down to the recreation hobo jungle and a display of iron strap rail.
At the bottom of the stairs is a really quite nice firepit surrounded by benches. I'm totally seeing an afternoon and evening picnic here with some friends.
Opposite the firepit is a little dugout that offers some shelter from the winds for park goers and perhaps the occiasinal hobo.
>A close up view of the graffiti reveals a note left by one Wingnut, who was here just this month, making his way west to Cheyenne. Assuming it wasn't some more typical visitor making up a cool tag.
It was a rainy, overcast day as you can tell from the photos. Still the rich, saturated red of this Canadian National stands out beautifully against the background.
On occasion, a west-bound and east-bound train roll by on the right-of-way at the same time. Here are two UP freights, passing just a few feet from each other on their way to opposite destinations.
Kuma very much enjoyed himself here. I was a little worried after being there for a bit that the air horns would be too loud for him, but he seemed largely unaffected. He did bark a little bit if I went out of sight, down the walls to ground level to get photos. I forgot to bring his bowl with 'cause I am dumb like that. He seemed to manage with the water bottle though.
(Note the signs above his head. There are reproduction hobo signals here. I'd inadvertently tied KUma up under one for 'Barking dog here'. *laughs* Someone pointed that out to me later on, and I had to apologize for Kuma falling down on the job as he was pretty quiet.)
Speaking of Kuma, he made friends with two little girls who just adored him. I was glad to see him getting all the attention, and he certainly seemed pleased with himself too. Kuma seems to just be a magnet for small children. He had them fawning over him on our trip to Stronghold Faire too.
It was tons of fun to see other people getting excited over trains too! There was too much noise as this freight rolled through to hear, but I can just imagine the gentleman with his arm held out saying "Look at that!"
Though the majority of traffic through here is modular containers, there are a good number of grainers, car carriers (GM has a nearby plant) and tankers too. And once in a while, a good old boxcar, as seen above. Someday...someday I'm going to take a ride in one of those.
I loved the bright red of this line of containers.
I spent my last twenty minutes or so there talking to a guy by the name of Rick. He's in a Yahoo group that has real time location updates for traffic around these freight lines thanks to some ham radio operators who monitor the control transmissions via radio. I love geeks. But after twenty minutes or so of a lull, I realized it was getting on toward two thirty and I had other things I wanted to see. Of course, as soon as I got to my car, I heard another train coming. I parked at the grade crossing and shot a few pictures through my windows. Here's one of a few other railfans, down near the line, watching it barrel through.
And here's a shot of the locomotives hauling that one, streaming through the grade crossing.
I had such a fun time, and ended up with about a hundred and fifty photos of locos and rolling stock. I want to come back under different light. Ideally, I'd like to come in the early afternoon and shoot some pictures under the bright light of day, and maybe hang out until dusk when I could start a fire and take some motion-blurred shots of the beasts rushing by the pavilion. There's a lot of potential here. It's too bad it's as far away as it is.
There are a lot of spots to discover here, I think. Lots of ways to get fresh angles on the trains from surprisingly up-close vantage points. I don't know that I'll be back on a regular basis; it's two hours' drive and my primary photographic pursuit is not railfanning. But I will be back a few times I think. And this could only be more fun with some friends to keep company with.
And that's about all for Rochelle. In the next and final installment, I'll write a little bit about the Kapotas sculpture park I stopped briefly at on my way back home.
Thanks for looking!
