VR2K12

It's about the people.

Folks came from far and near. Much food was consumed. For the first time, many (real) train horns were blown. And some not so real ones, provided by yours truly. Videos were watched. Trains sailed by, in both directions this year. Even tank trains, for those who enjoy such things. It was, for the first time, an international event. Attendance records were set. Door prizes were awarded. A group photo was made. In what is becoming a tradition, a few extra dollars were raised for a good cause. Stories were told. Old memories were exchanged.

All that was great, but far and away the best part was the people, young, old, and in between.

Here's one of the oddities of this year's Verndale Rail. Since Mrs. L4T and myself were preparing for an upcoming move, I used the morning to make a couple of trips to the transfer site north of Wadena. I crossed the tracks 4 times that morning, and three of those times, sure enough, I saw a headlight. Each of those three time the locomotive shining the headlight was attached to a crude oil train. I was quick to share my good fortune, resulting in protests that surely that was the day's ration of such trains. Somehow, Mr. Buffet's railroad managed to scare up one more, to the delight of one of the younger fans in attendance.

And, I suppose, to me.

The horn guys were there for the first annual Verndale Horn Honk, which I would rate as a re"sound"ing success. They were good enough to provide hearing protection to all who desired it. By the time they were done that was everyone. That's quite a selection of horns.

Each train that passed by was greeted by a flock of railfans. The crews in the area must look forward to this day just about as much as those who attend. With a foam cushion like that you could land a jet wheels-up in Verndale with no damage.

My favorite photo of the day includes a train but it's a tiny one. Here a group of hardcore modelers assemble one of the day's door prizes. Honestly I haven't seen this much concentration on the task at hand since the year Chris tried to learn his camera's self timer during the group photo.

If you are interested in the fate of that trainset you'll have to check with Bryant.

Chris found it in himself to play with the sign out by the highway. Don't worry, he put it back the way it was after he was done.

And finally, as has become habit, we got one final train as the sun was setting. Except this year everything was twice as good, so instead of one we got two!

And that's my story of VR2K12. I, along with a lot of other people, want to thank Chris Muller for all his hard work. Also, thanks to everyone who attended. Like the first line of the post says, it's the people who make it special.

Verndale Rail 2011 Recap

June 25, 2011, dawned bright and early. The long wait for the third annual Verndale Rail outing had finally arrived, and an epic day of railfanning stretched out ahead of us. This year's plans included a quick morning visit to the west of Wadena to take in CP action and whatever eastbounds the BNSF was willing to throw our way while the light was still favorable. Given the flooding in Minot and resulting closure of the BNSF tracks through that area, traffic was being routed directionally and westbounds on the Staples Sub had dried up almost completely.

MN Chris arrived at my place early that Saturday morning and stowed his truck, loaded with gas grill, coolers, and other sundry items for the afternoon's get together, at my place. He, Steve, and I set out to the west in the trusty Escape. After passing through Perham, we spotted a train carrying MOW equipment. It turned out to be a westbound and I stepped on it a bit to get a look at the head end. We knew things were brewing up in Vergas as well, which called for a quick decision on which way to head. The sight of a C4 leading the MOW equipment train sealed the decision, and we set up to shoot the backlit train under overcast skies between Frazee and DL.


Knowing that things were developing fast in Vergas, I took a "shortcut" which worked so well we arrived in time to see the gates drop as a westbound passed through town. Then, an eastbound behind 5 units started to creep across the highway, and great depair was felt throughout the vehicle. With a long history of reacting to mighty mullerings, however, we gathered ourselves and concocted a hare-brained scheme to do an end run around the westbound and get in position for a shot. There's no way I can tell it better than Chris, so here's his description of the detour:

"Jim consulted with his TomTom and I consulted the Minnesota Gazetteer and we had a plan. We pulled off the road that was a black line and went down a road that was a red line. We followed the red line until is split to two red lines. One red line turned into a smaller red line and was a more direct route, but unfortunately it turned into a smaller dashed red line. We followed the bigger small red line. Curving through the backwoods north and east of Verges the road became more and more interesting. Eventually the red line road started getting so narrow and curvy the trees were barely wide enough for the Escape to fit throgh. I started getting concerned when there were more snowmobile trail signs than road signs and the trees were not only becoming a width issue, but a height issue as the foam antenna on the roof was whipping off branches. Pushing onward and upward, the terrain started to look more like a jungle. Jim commented that it was like driving in Afghanistan, but green. Eventually the small red line got big again on the map and we found the tracks."

That's pretty much how I remember it.

We reached the tracks, and were able to get across ahead of the train. Only problem was, this put us on the wrong side for photography. I was loath to cross back and wait for the train to pass before resuming the chase, so all the shots are from the dark side. I won't even post one.

However. All hope was FAR from lost, as DS and Jer were both hot on the trail of this train and in constant communication with Chris, who is the flip phone texting equivalent of NASCAR's Jimmy Johnson. In other words he's fast. Brief confusion about "Milky Way Drive" was resolved when we literally almost bumped into Drew and convinced him to come about and follow us to a secret spot selected by Jer. The entire fleet arrived with a few minutes to spare, which allowed us the privilege of shooting a CP GE under overcast skies. Do you feel lucky?


Well if you don't already feel lucky, you soon will. The 2011 version of the Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF is not known for running solid 3 unit sets of cascade green EMD's. However, that doesn't mean it's impossible, as we all learned after a short wait at the Detroit Lakes depot. Take a gander at the consist of this manifest train:


I, for one, know a good thing when I see it, and am prone to milking it dry. Saddle up, boys, this one is worth a chase. Following a brief trip east on Highway 10, we arrived at the Frazee S-curve where many more shots of this train were made. Here's mine:


You know, that was so much fun we should do it again. And I know just the place. West of Perham is another curve that will bring him around so the nose light is a bit better. Heck, that foreground could almost pass for static grass from the grassinator!


RED ALERT! Another eastbound has been spotted on ATCS.


By now it's getting close to Verndale time. The little group of foamers that had been over west decided to head east. This gave the opportunity to shoot the 5033 once more, near the Bluffton curve but from an angle that is rarely shot.


Then it was off to Verndale! The parade of eastbounds with nary a westbound to be found challenged the record group of photogs who turned out for this year's event. I tried a few different things. First, going "artsy":


And then, for some reason it popped into my head that the Verndale sign offered shade, and could be used to compose a backlit B&W while keeping cool. Here's the result of that effort:


Of course, even with no nicely lit trains, there were still people to shoot. Every train, whether backlit or not, drew a crowd.


At some point in the late afternoon, this wise bunch of fans somehow divined a westbound on the way. ATCS, the radio, and our intuition all told us that we were about to be in luck. A couple of truckloads of foam headed up to the sag to shoot the train, while I waited in Verndale. My heart dropped when it turned out the train would be doing some work in Staples, and there wouldn't be a westbound after all. I called the crew at the sag to let them in on the news.

One final eastbound gave the chance to catch the gang as they watched the warbonnet flash through town. The gathering dusk was a hit on the quality of the shot, but looking at it brings back some good memories. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Thanks again to Chris for his organizational effort and cooking. Thanks to everyone who contributed door prizes. Mostly, thanks to all the fans who showed up and made this another day that will live on in railfan infamy. Special days like this are what makes railfanning really worthwhile.

Verndale Rail 2010 Part 1-the Trains

Since last Thursday night the evening of June 17, life around L4T homebase has been hectic to say the least. Attending Verndale Rail 2010 was a welcome respite, but I haven't had time to more than look at the pictures until recently.

Since the best part of these outings is the time spent with other fans, I decided to focus first on the trains and leave the "human interest" type shots until I have a little more time to devote to them. So what I am sharing here are some of the train photos from that afternoon and evening. First up is a coal load that I caught as I left Wadena and decided to shoot at the Wing River sag, since the DPU was facing me. The sun was high and heat distortion was evident, but it's hard to pass by any opportunity for a train photo. I took the presence of a train as a good omen for the day, which I think it turned out to be.


Steve and Todd were both in Verndale when I arrived. We didn't have much time to make introductions before we were rudely interrupted by a westbound stack train led by-you guessed it-a set of GE's. Here's my shot of this train:


I believe this next train is the Laurel-bound intermodal that plies the Staples Sub. This short train would be the perfect prototype for a modeler who can't quite afford an intermodal fleet consisting of spine cars and well cars numbering in the dozens. (That would be me).


And here's another lovely scene for the model railroader-a pair of SD70MAC's in charge of an empty coal train that looks like it was put together by throwing every aluminum coal gon BN or BNSF ever owned into a bag and having a blindfolded person randomly select cars from the bag. I love these trains!


And finally, another coal load DPU, just like the photo I opened this post with. Only this time the pusher is a GE, and the loaded coal train is on Main One instead of Main Two, the dispatcher having crossed him over at Wadena. Since he's bound for the Brainerd Sub, the crossover had to happen relatively soon anyway.


Hopefully, I'll free up some time soon for the rest of the Verndale Rail shots I have. Until then, I've got a few more posts in the hopper that will hopefully help remind everyone I haven't completely been swallowed up into a black hole.

Jim

Verndale Rail 2009

The first thing to say about the railfan get-together at Verndale on June 20 is "thanks". Thanks to Christopher Muller, who not only was a driving force behind getting it going, but also took the logistical lead in making sure there was food, beverage, and a grill for cooking. Thanks to everyone who attended and made this a fantastic experience for all who were able to be there. Thanks to BNSF for running trains on the Staples Sub while railfans were present. Thanks to Mother Nature for giving us great weather for the event. And thanks to the City of Verndale for providing a great location. In my opinion, and I think in the opinion of everyone who attended, it was a great success and will lead to other similar get-togethers in the future.

So what went on at this gathering? Well, here is a "taste" of the event:


As you can see the trains weren't the only thing that got attention. MN Chris did a bang-up job with the grill and there was food aplenty. I also have to give a shout-out to Mrs. L4T who baked some chocolate chip cookies for me to bring. They must have been good as none of them came home with me, and I didn't eat all of them myself.

Door prizes were distributed, and appropriately, the youngest attendees, along with some of the older ones, were winners.

What else do I remember? Well, I was chastised (in good nature, and I have to admit, only after insinuating that since this was my "home territory", I might have to charge for photography permits for interlopers) for not tending to my vegetation contol duties along the right of way.

I remember being reminded how old I actually am, since in the process of trying to start something with a St. Louis Cardinal fan and bringing up the subject of the 1987 World Series, it came to light that the person I was engaging in debate was only 5 at that time, compared to me having been in my late 20's.

I was put in my place as a Pentax owner, when a herd of Nikonians descended on Verndale in a clicking frenzy.

I heard stories about how NOT to clean the sensor on a DSLR, including what cleaning solutions and tools are a bad idea, and why it's important to know how long the mirror will stay up while you are doing this. That last story, involving a q-tip and no sense of timing, was enough to send chills up your spine.

We watched some spectacular video from end of LTV, when 5 F units were bringing reclaimed pellets from the dock in Taconite Harbor back to the plant site. Chris does a great job on those videos and they helped to entertain us during the times when there were no trains.


I remember the way people were gathered around the computer trying to interpret the ATCS display, and the speculation that maybe, just maybe, a coal empty from Superior might show up and surprise us all.

From my perspective, the best part of Verndale Rail 2009 wasn't the opportunity to take train pictures. It was the chance to meet people who I have corresponded with via email in the past, or who I have met briefly out along the tracks. While the internet lets us find people who share out interests more easily than in the past, there is still no substitute for meeting someone face to face and spending time with a group of people who participate in those activities that we enjoy. Getting to spend time with this group of people yesterday reminded me of that, and for me at least, put rail photography in second place for a day. It was fun to see and shoot trains but the real enjoyment came from sharing experiences and stories with people who could understand and identify with you.

That's not to say it wasn't fun to grab some train photos-and I learned the appropriate way to announce the appearance of a headlight in the distance. "Hot rail!"


I got a few decent shots, that I will be sharing over the next couple of posts. I learned a few photography facts, that hopefully will help me in the future.

So again, thanks to all involved for making this a success. It was one of the highlights of my railfanning career, and it left me looking forward to doing something similar again. Hopefully some of you who weren't able to make it this time will be able to attend the next one.

Jim

First One from Verndale

 

Well, I made it to Verndale and the first train just went by. This intermodal had a pair of consecutively numbered new ES44DC's up front, trailed by a pair of Dash 9's. The photo suffers from high sun and lack of processing, but it's hot off the camera!

Jim