Catching Up

And some more catching up. I tell you between work and family sometimes it seems there is very little time for railfanning. Oh, and I guess I should include modeling as another time sink interfering with getting trackside.

That doesn't mean there is no time to fan. Last Monday (the 21st) involved a trip to the Lake Park and Hawley area. Meetings were set up for morning, afternoon, and evening, but the drive over started in nice light. A train hit the detector on Main 2 just as I left Wadena, so a short pause at the Bluffton curve was in order. Here comes a warbonnet-led manifest, throttling up from the slow order over the Bluffton bridge where the BNSF is driving piles.

There is a "black hole" of sorts in scanner coverage west of Bluffton. The radio still works fine, but when you get close to the detector at MP174.1 long trains can pop up before the detector registers the end. I've had this happen a few times, the latest on Monday morning. As a result this shot required a u-turn and race back east to beat the train to CR 147. I shot it out the passenger window as the Escape rolled to a stop.

Finally for the trip to Lake Park, one more east of Frazee, rounding the curve. Dark skies served as a backdrop to this photo.

My day in the Hawley area ended up being busy with no free time to railfan. It was about dark by the time I got out of town and it made me anxious to get home at the end of a 15 hour work day, so the three shots above are the grand total of my production from that day.

A trip to International Falls on Wednesday and Thursday provided the opportunity to shoot a CN train in nice light at Ranier. Unfortunately, I left the camera at my folks house in the Falls so no photo was made. Sadly I didn't see any headlights upon crossing the tracks in Bemidji. 

On Friday my #1 son made the trip home from Grand Forks. He's not so much of a railfan but we do like to visit the rifle range west of New York Mills when he is home. Friday evening that resulted in 5 trains but again no photos due to the clouds. Saturday we managed to get a shot, though. Here's a manifest on the Brainerd Sub just after crossing the Gull River. Yes, I'm a sucker for H1's, always have been and probably always will be. 

And that's the trains from last week.