The Rollag Trip

Every year, two specific Saturdays are blocked out in my calendar before any others. They have "priority", as it were. Those dates are the longest Saturday of the year, which is fast becoming the traditional weekend for Verndale Rail, and the Saturday before Labor Day, which has turned into the day of my annual visit to the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion in Rollag. This past Saturday was the day of Rollag.

In the past I've taken my camera with, and even got some railroad shots on the grounds of the show. This year I left the camera in the car and enjoyed the show. Not only are the displays and equipment fantastic, I have the privlege of attending with a great group, which includes my son, and don't want to distract them with frequent requests to stop for a picture.

That doesn't mean there are no train pictures from the day, though. On the way home, we just missed a meet at the Frazee S curve, where the westbound was still passing as we approached. Another meet seemed possible at the Luce crossing when a headlight showed up. Being as how I was the driver I stopped at the crossing to shoot the train. It was a Superior coal empty.


The eastbound hadn't shown yet, but I decided to move on, but my companions encouraged me to wait a couple of minutes for another shot. At their urging I did. Here's the stack train with a pair of Dash 9's leading that would have been part of the Frazee meet had I been a couple of minutes earlier.


As you can tell by looking at the sky, I was lucky to catch him in the sun. That's all the train photos for that Saturday, but it was fun to be able to include a bit of railfanning in what was otherwise a super day of old time agriculture, sawmills, and delicious food all shared with good friends. Thanks for waiting, guys!