A teaser, now that I have the trip photos loaded... Tunnel 17 is directly below me, as a WB coal empty attacks the grade: Our first shot of the day, and not a bad one!
I just went through all of Hemiadda2d new pictures. It is well worth a visit to his RailImages album. There are a lot of new pictures there. I was mostly impressed by the weather conditions in some of them...a lot of snow.
Alaska GP49 and I battled fog and snow all day Monday. It was a rough day. We ended up getting so socked in with fog at one point, we were in South Draw, and could hear a train (a coal load with midtrain and tail end DPUs) negotiating the Draw, flange squeal and all, but all we could see was white soup. The worst weather we had seen on the mountain netted some neat shots, and some creative hiking allowed some new angles, too.
The trip report begins: The first shot of the day was a grab shot, as we were in a dead run on the trail to get to this location upon hearing the prime movers in South Draw. After we got into position, the fog rolled in. Thick fog. About the time Amtrak came along with #5 westbound, the shots Mike and I had chosen were nearly gone. I bagged the fog shot anyways. The camera had a whale of a time focusing! Tunnel 13: Tunnel 14: And across the hill I was on, was this shot looking back on a rock cut that I wanted to hike onto (was I nuts?!?):
The fog continues to roll in.... After Amtrak cleared the block, this UP North Yard-Roper Yard manifest grinds by on the slick rails: The tail end, framing the intermediate signals just east of Tunnel 17 between the bulkheads:
Shortly after this train passed thru Tunnel 17, the fog rolled in and completely obliterated any hope of any further shots in South Draw. So we bit the bullet, and hiked out. We saw Tunnel 18 was mostly clear, so we set up for a westbound. Here's Tunnel 18's EP: And Tunnel 17's WP; this is the view looking thru 1730' of tunnel. Check out the wavy rails! About the time the fog killed South Draw completely, it then proceeded west to give us fits again. I got fed up with it, and hiked back up the hill atop Tunnel 18. Then it started snowing. And hard. I swear, in 14 trips to the Moffat, I have not seen such a hard snowfall at this location ever before! About the time it started snowing, an ominous thunder was heard coming from the Draw.... There was some snow on the ground, but the more the moments ticked by, the harder the snow fell. In the 10 or so minutes the train took to negotiate the tortuous curvature of South Draw, the ground was blanketed by fresh powder.... ...and the camera had a whale of a time focusing on the train, with all the snow! Only after the train got to that point, could I tell it was a BNSF M-DENSTO. Here's the Denver-Stockton manifest approaching Tunnel 18:
Jeremiah,please mate,find a publisher & put an all colour book together! No one has done a modern pictorial on this fantastic rr,I'm sure it would be a winner! Btw,please include some up-to-date pic's on th TP (esp. Belden)
A rare (for the Moffat) SD70MAC was shoving hard on the rear, but by that time I put the camera away, since it was snowing hard as ever. Mike did get a shot, however! (oooohhh, Miiiiiikkkeeee????) Anywho, I dislike taking all my shots fromt he same vantage points, so I departed for that shot overlooking the S-curve and rocky cut just west of Tunnel 18. In the process of finding a suitable shot, a train sneaked by me. I forget if it was EB or WB. At any rate, the snow continued to fall heavily. In the process, from my vantage point, I could see a train pulling to a stop at Gross Dam Rd, at Crescent. Here's the ~504mm tele of that train, just short of the crossing: The train, a BNSF manifest, had pulled to about here, in this shot taken in a previous trip: http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/629/jazz_train_crescent_1.jpg With a train stopped short, fouling the main at West Crescent, we knew a WB has to be close. Here's an empty coalie, bound for the Craig Branch, between Tunnel 18, and East Crescent: After the WB coalie entered the block, the BNSF M-STODEN pulled into the siding. Once the main was clear again, the manifest slowly eased downgrade:
Jason, I appreciate your comments--I still have a few gaps I need to fill (Tunnel 23-27), but having Alaska GP49 co-author it with me would fix most of those gaps. He has several shots I am envious of. Mike has a great eye for a shot.
After the BNSF cleared my position, I took for the hills again, looking for a new angle. I hiked around, looked at the prospective shot, and declared it bad (usually due to too many trees fouling the train), then repeated. I repeated this for about a quarter-mile, before I found a shot on Tunnel 18's WP I hadn't seen done before. So I set up for my shot, and prepared a hot MRE for lunch. Before long, another WB UP empty coal train charged out of the 238' bore: The matched aluminum hoppers following out of the tunnel:
I echo Jason, please do a book. You put in the effort to get the great shots,not just pulling up to a grade crossing and snapping a photo. Jeff
Jeff, There's so much more to this part of the Moffat that you cannot see by only visiting the grade crossings at Plainview, Crescent, Cliff, Rollins, Tolland and East Portal. You simply have to hike a while to see what normal railfans only dream of seeing!
You are so right Hemi, I do video and I hiked 2 miles Friday to the Broad River Trestle on the old Clinchfield line for an upcoming video production. Its a great bridge at 180' high and 1360' long. I also did a longer{not sure how longrobably 6 miles total} hike into the Nolichucky Gorge in Tennesse, also on the old Clinchfield. The footage I shot there can be seen on T&W Productions video CSX Blueridge Sub Volume 1 and includes fall colors. Also covered in the video is the loops section of the line which has about 18 tunnels in 20 miles. The Clinchfield shared some common threads with DRGW in this area. Jeff
Come on down Hemi and I'll gladly show you around. The Clinchfield as you probably know bought 6 Challengers from the DRGW, I sure would have loved to have seen those run! Hey, how is layout coming? Jeff
After that coalie cleared the block, we were certain the MOW window was opened, so we hiked back in to South Draw, again. This time, as we hiked neat Tunnel 17's WP, we heard, and verified a tie machine heading east. We then took our time hiking into the Draw, and I showed Mike a new place I wanted to try to shoot from. It was quite a bit lower than the point that overlooks Old Tunnel 17, and a good piece further south as well. Here's the view that we got (you look into the Draw, seeing T14-15, and old T17 as well), after the fog cleared: But the shots don't end there--there's new angles on several tunnels! Tunnel 12-14 looks great, even though that huge bank of fog threatens seeing anything in the Draw later in the afternoon: This is the view on T12-13, zoomed in a bit more:
I forgot to mention, shortly after we arrived in South Draw, the fog completely obliterated South Draw... These shots were bagged only after the sun burned away some of the fog. In fact, an EB coal load sneaked by us during that time. We had no idea what its power was, except that it had DPUs midtrain and on the tail. Another new view on Tunnel 13-14: Tunnels 14 and 15 are seen from a new angle as well: Here's a new view on the S-cuve exiting Tunnel 16 and Old Tunnel 17: You could stitch those all together from that one overall shot at the top of the last post. What a view it was! But the fog played cat & mouse with us all afternoon...
After a while of the sun fooling with us, and clearing the fog, the winds would blow it back in... It seemed all hope was lost... Until a certain kind of thunder emananted from the canyon... A BNSF manifest (#3 today!) was laboring upgrade, barely making 10 MPH on the slick rails. Here's the head end exiting Tunnel 12, simultaneously as the fog rolls back in: The shots at Tunnel 13-15 were fogged in completely, so none there on the head end. In the time this train took to pass our position, Mike video'd it. 9.5 minutes of video for just this train! After the fog cleared a bit, I bagged a block of tankers at Tunnel 12-14: And a few coal hoppers between Tunnel 14 and 15: The rear DPU, shoving hard out of Tunnel 12:
The head-end was just coming out of Tunnel 16, so I readied for the S-curve shot seen above a few posts ago: And the whole train in the Draw: Tankers in Old T17, with a teaser of sunlight thru the fog:
