Hiked along a section of LIRR mainline that has you walking in the gauge next to the 3rd rail, or along the ballast slope in brush.
Get up an hour before first light, drive to a favorite railfan location in a snowstorm, wait till dawn, and snap the shutter from an elevated vantage point: Or, hike along a slick precipice; on mossy, icy rocks, and climb down the face of a sheer cliff to bag a last light shot: Or, hike 2.2 miles one way in knee-to-waist-deep-snow up a trail that gains 1200 feet of elevation, to a cold, windy perch on a icy rock, to bag a manifest: How about doing those last 2 in one day?
hmmmm, craziest, just one? hehehe.... well one time left my spot at Woodford in the Tehachapi's, and just after getting back on Hwy.58 I saw a SP train in the hole at Walong, and Marcel. So I made a U turn on the highway! There is a part of 58 that has a concreted sloped ditch in the middle, so I took advantage of it!:teeth: Railfan law...leave your spot and you will see trains in the rear view mirror! Thom
A buddy of mine and I used some highway cones borrowed from his work to close one lane of a 4 lane bridge so we would have a place to park and shoot the N&W 611 one time. Worked very well and no one seemed to notice it wasn't a real closure.
Outside of chasing 3985 over Sherman Hill while wearing scrubs from working the night shift just previously, I can't say I've done much of anything crazy.
opening the vestibule door of a commuter train traveling at 70mph to try and get a good photo of #261 whenever she would be in town. Since I was a brakeman/conductor at the time, I could get away with it but it was rather dicey! CT
My my you guys make a tuff act to follow Yes I looked both ways and moved off the right of way as soon as I got my photo. And I was thinking the whole time those guys on train board always tell me to stay off the right of way. But....but... look at the shot I got. You will have to go to my album to get the rest of the story. Photo album
Probably the craziest is about two summers ago Hemi and I thought it would be great camp out so we could get those first light shots. Problem was the ONLY place for our tent was 28' from the tracks. Neither one of us got a wink of sleep that night. Just as we would start to fall asleep another train would go by. If we only could have had as many trains this past weekend as we did that night! Hemi, correct me if I am wrong, the pictures taken at T30 weren't that great after all that we went through to get them!
I was saving this for you, Mike! No warning with EB's at this location... Note the half-folded tent in the corner of the photo: Were we nuts? Prolly......
About 3 years ago I chased UP 3985 coming to Houston. About 50 miles NW of Houston, I waited trackside along with many others. When it came by I took some pics. I decided to pass it and get some more photos. But some fool was running side by side to shoot video from his car. A long line of cars were behind him on a 2 lane secondary highway. I got into the oncoming lane of traffic and passed about 50 cars hitting 90mph. I got ahead of 3985 and stopped for more photos. It was very dangerous and I don't think I'd do it again.
Crazy, no- odd, perhaps, but consider the following: On my hitch in Cheyenne, I headed west on Lincolnway to a highway crossing west of the C&S overpass, and stopped in the left-turn lane to get out, aim my camera back behind me, and shoop a pic of a northbound BNSF train crossing above the UP main and Lincolnway. The fact I was able to stop literally in the middle of the street was due to a slow-moving eastbound UP freight, which had blocked the road crossing I was going to turn left onto. I'm sure that looking at this blue van with Texas tags, the locals thought I was no doubt a bit bonkers.......
