New Trip Report – Sumpter Valley Photographers’ Weekend 2014

Continuing with my effort to get through a number of my old photos from the past decade and do something useful with them, I’ve gotten the 2014 Sumpter Valley Railway Photographers’ Weekend shots processed and up. This was the end of the big fall trip in October 2014 that started on the Chelatchie Prairie and then the Oregon Coast Scenic. The SVRy’s Photographers’ Weekend that year was October 18-19, which landed perfectly after the other two charters. So many of us took it in as a bonus for the trip.

Here’s the trip report page. Enjoy!

Our photo train at sunrise, out near the Hawley spur.

New Trip Report – Chelatchie Prairie 2014

I have nearly fifteen years of photography to get through that I haven’t edited, sorted, or published. Since 2020 is the official year of never leaving the house, I’ve had some time to devote to picking out and editing some of the good stuff and getting it online. So there’s going to be a small torrent of trip reports as some of this finally makes it to the web. Plus moving from the old www.drgw.net trip report system to WordPress on my personal site makes it a lot easier to work on a little bit at a time.

Today’s addition is from another Pacific Northwest Pete Lerro charter back in October 2014. This is the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad, a short tourist line operating the end of a former Northern Pacific branch between Lucia Falls, Yacolt, and Chelatchie, WA. Power for this trip will be Crossett Western Lumber #10, a 1929 Alco 2-8-2T.

Here’s the link you’re looking for…

Heading north towards Yacolt, just out of the Moulton Falls tunnel.

Steam on the Oregon Coast – 2014 & 2018

I’ve finally gotten around to editing and posting photos from two trips out to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad (the former SP Tillamook Branch) for Lerro photo charters. The first is from back in October 2014, and the second is from October 2018. You can find the full trip report here.

McCloud River 25 leads past the “Three Graces” – the large eroded rock structures in the bay – at Barview, OR

Of Shipwrecks and Smelly Rocks

This is the story of a lowly, smelly rock that now sits on a shelf in my living room, and the tale it can tell. It’s a tangible link to a tale that spans 120 years, telling a story that weaves together American industry and capitalism at the dawn of the 20th century, an isolated ore-hauling railroad in Alaska, shipwrecks and piracy on the high seas, salvage rights, and reality television into one single narrative.

Huh? Just go ahead and pause until your brain works through that last sentence. Then read on.

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New Trip Report – Two Trips to the Texas State RR

In an effort to do literally anything that wasn’t software development or a meeting this evening, I decided to dust off a couple trips I made down to the Texas State Railroad for a pair of photo trains – one in May 2012 while American Heritage Railways (the Durango & Silverton’s parent) was running the line, and another in May 2015 shortly after Iowa Pacific Holdings had taken over and returned some of the equipment to a more historic appearance. I’ve also included a brief history of the route, for anyone curious.

If you’re interested, here’s the page you’re looking for.

Sunset at Palestine, May 2, 2015

A WiFi-Enabled Searchlight Signal Controller

Since 2020 has been the year of “stuck at home, all day every day”, earlier this summer I finished restoring and installing my Union Switch & Signal H-2 searchlight in my back yard. I still didn’t have a good way to control it, however. When Iowa Scaled Engineering was sending off another set of circuit boards for fabrication, I decided to add a fun project to the order in addition to all the various new product ideas we were working on. What project? A WiFi-enabled searchlight signal controller, of course!

If you’ve ever wanted to control your 80+ year old railroad signals with your smartphone, have I got the project for you.

The Story of 20 Year Old Film

When I cleaned out my garage in January, I found a box of stuff that probably hadn’t been touched since my ex and I bought this place 15 years ago. At the bottom was a small Ziploc bag with eight rolls of color print film in it, shot but never developed. Now given that I stopped shooting film in early 2001, that gives you a minimum possible age for this stuff. Could there be any hope for this stuff? Back when I still shot film, heat was pretty much enemy #1 and I was extremely careful about keeping film cold if it wasn’t in the camera. This stuff, on the other hand, had been in a box in a hot garage for nearly two decades.

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New Trip Report – Moving D&RGW 029 to Granby

UP 3902 and 8484 pull derrick 029 west at Crescent, CO.

Two years and change ago, on April 14, 2018, Union Pacific moved former Rio Grande derrick 029 from the Forney Museum in Denver up to the new Moffat Road Museum in Granby, CO. The crane is a 120-ton steam-powered wrecking derrick built for the Denver & Salt Lake as their 10300 back in April 1913, and is still largely original. It was active on the Rio Grande until the mergers, and was never converted to diesel or electric.

Having not done any railfanning in over a year at that point, I thought it was time to pick up the camera and capture this “last run over home rails” event. The results of that trip are posted here.

New Trip Report – Isle of Man Railways

The Manx Electric Railway.

Back in 2017, I had a week to kill between meetings in Birmingham (England) and Paris, so I decided to visit somewhere I’d always wanted to go – the Isle of Man. It’s a tiny self-governing British dependency in the middle of the Irish Sea, about halfway between England and Nothern Ireland. It’s also filled with historic railways.

The new trip report with dozens of photos of all the island’s operating heritage railways is posted over here.

Insulators on a Plane!

Well, at least it’s not snakes. Then we’d need Samuel L. Jackson. Fortunately, for carrying insulators, all we need is a quality case and some foam.

Getting back into insulator collecting in 2016, I quickly started traveling to shows all over the US. Since I still have a day job (have to pay for all the glass somehow, you know), frequently the only way to get to shows on the east and west coasts in a timely manner is to fly. Unfortunately fragile century-old glass artifacts and airline baggage systems aren’t exactly a good match. So, before flying to my first Springfield, Ohio, show, I designed a carrying case to safely transport ~18 insulators as airline baggage and still stay under the 50 pound weight limit.

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