Late Night in Yates City
It’s last call down at the local bar. Just before they turn out the PBR sign hanging out front, an empty BNSF grain train rumbles through Yates City, on its way back to North Dakota for a reload. Be sure to join me on Facebook – Twitter – Flickr
Now Departing Galesburg
Amtrak’s westbound Southwest Chief departs Galesburg, IL after sunset on a winter evening. The many passengers who boarded tonight’s train will arrive in the much warmer climate in Los Angeles in about 36 hours, passing through the beautiful scenery in New Mexico and Arizona en route.
Spring Storm, Elmore, IL
Since it is just beginning thunderstorm season here on the plains of central Illinois, I figured it’s a great time to begin with some lightning photography. We had an early season storm move through the area last weekend, and I took the opportunity to head to one of my favorite spots near Williamsfield, IL where [...]
Centralia Crew Change
I spent some time in Centralia, IL over the weekend. The town of Centralia hosts three railroad mainlines, all of which bisect the downtown district on a shared alignment. The BNSF’s former CB&Q southern Illinois coal route snakes through town, sharing track with the Norfolk Southern and crossing the Canadian National on the south end [...]
Five Miles Away
I often feel that the Midwest gets a bad reputation for being nothing but flat. Table-top boring-ness for as far as the eye can see. For the most part, though, this is an undeserved assumption. Yet there are a few places where the flatness is definitely not a myth. One such completely horizontal place is [...]
Moving Your Freight While You Sleep
Part of what fascinates me about the railroad is that it is a 24/7/365 operation, through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. Just like the post office, except with big colorful steel machines. And no where does the all-day-every-day culture better exhibit itself than from above a giant freight yard at midnight. Such was [...]
Bridges Over The Calumet
The Norfolk Southern’s bridges over the Calumet River stand tall against the sunset sky in South Chicago, IL. The only span in the photo to still have an active railroad on it is the bridge on the left, which carries NS’s Chicago mainline towards Englewood and the BRC, and is quite busy. From left to [...]
On (Frozen) Wisconsin
Starting 430 miles to the north, near Lake Superior, the Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi River just south of Prairie Du Chien, WI. The delta formed by the junction of the rivers is vast and there are many small inlets and bays filled with backwater. This time of year, they are all frozen over, [...]
Mississippi Sunset
Shortly after the sun had sunk below the far bluffs along the Mississippi River, a fast moving BNSF intermodal train rolls toward a crew change at LaCrosse, WI with autos and containers bound for Seattle. The trains passing kicked up a small blizzard of freshly fallen powdery snow from the banks of the river, as [...]
It’s A Lonely Job
One night, while waiting for something to happen in suburban Chicago, I ventured up to the Mannheim Road bridge over the east end of Canadian Pacific’s giant Bensenville freight yard. As it turns out, there were two trains working this end of the yard, the first of which was an IC&E freight train just beginning [...]
Getting Lucky With the Lighting
Sometimes you really plan out the lighting in a photo, getting your lights set up just so, adjusting and adjusting, and still everything fails (haha). And sometimes, you don’t set up any lights, spend no time at all adjusting anything, and everything just works. Such it was on Labor Day evening, as I was setting [...]
First Sun
The Mississippi River valley is very quiet early in the morning, with only the occasional boat motor from passing early morning fishermen disturbing the silence. This is especially true when you’re high up on the bluffs over the east bank of the river, in the Mississippi Palisades State Park near Savanna, IL, waiting for the [...]
Freight Yard
I figured I’d put up another photo that I got from my late evening sunset shoot at Union Pacific’s giant Proviso Classification Yard in suburban Chicago. As the sun was setting over the large expanse of tracks, it was almost hard to NOT make a good photo. The light was glinting off of everything in [...]
A Late Night in the City
For a while now, I’ve been working on night photos of the railroads of Chicago. It’s been an ongoing project for me, and I probably have enough photos to fill a large book by now. In fact, I did make a book using Blurb, but their printing on the darker shots just wasn’t up to [...]
