Slashing through the Heartland, the former Illinois Central mainline provides a straight shot south from Chicago towards the Gulf of Mexico. The route is fast and straight. And on this foggy night, somewhere out in the country south of the tiny town of Ashkum, IL, a distant headlight is approaching. It’s just another freight train, M398, making 50mph or so with tons of lumber, plastics and chemicals, trying to get into Champaign ahead of the due-pretty-soon City of New Orleans. The glow of the headlight on the foggy horizon silhouettes the grain elevator in Ashkum. Pretty soon, the train will be here, I’d better move the tripod.
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During the day, the Mojave Desert is a harsh, unforgiving landscape. But, in the minutes after sunset, the Mojave takes on a completely different look; different hues and shades of colors appear and rapidly fade into the twilight. Sounds carry for quite a ways out there too. Especially the sound of thousands of horsepower lifting a couple thousand tons of commerce out of the Colorado River valley, in the shadow of the Dead Mountains. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ll have to forgive me for bringing up yet another old photo (this, like yesterdays, is from my Cali road trip in 2007), but I’ve been revisiting a lot of these to print out and put up on my walls. And, this is one of my favorites. I think the vertical version of this shot won an award or something. Anyway…out along the Texas Panhandle, making my way towards Amarillo and trying to stay out of the way of the Texas-sized thunderstorms brewing all around on this first day of spring, I managed to run into quite a few trains along US 60. This is somewhere between Hereford and Canyon, TX. I noticed a headlight sneaking up behind me on the ever-so-flat plains, and pulled off the road to photo this BNSF Z train hustling its time sensitive load of trailers toward Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve had the lid on this photo for quite some time, and I’m not sure why. To be honest, I guess I forgot about it. It’s easy to forget a time when you stood in the middle of a towns main street on a ladder for over an hour, apparently. Anyway, this is what downtown Hampshire, IL looks like at 1am on a warm and still summer evening. There isn’t much auto traffic (thankfully, as I’ve mentioned the ladder in the road). There also isn’t much rail traffic, despite the appearance of the IC&E 6430 West, rolling across the State Street grade crossing at 10mph. One of the neat features of downtown Hampshire is over there on the left, the old Mobil gas station complete with 1950s signage. On to the photo: Read the rest of this entry »
