January 2004: New River Gorge, West Virginia

CSX westbound empty hopper train in the New River Gorge.

My first big trip with a digital SLR camera was a weekend in West Virginia's New River Gorge at the end of January 2004. Even though I had taken several train rides through the gorge as a child, I didn't "discover" its photographic potential until I started looking at Kevin Scanlon's photographs of the region. I was intrigued by the high-angle possibilities, a rarity in the dense forests of the eastern U.S., but at first I thought the trains appeared too small and too far away. Something about Kevin's work kept me coming back to those images, though, and eventually I realized that the trains were just the right size. These are photos about the land, and the railroad's relationship to it.

The New River Gorge can be a difficult place to photograph. In the short days of winter, the tracks only see sunlight for a few hours. It's 9:55 a.m. in the above view from Kaymoor, and shadows still cover part of the river and the entire southwestern wall. The two main tracks of CSX's New River Subdivision run on opposite banks of the river here, built to serve coal mines on both sides. (You can see the extant conveyor of the Nuttalburg tipple at far left.) Most vantages require a hike and only afford a view of one track. There's little advance warning on the trains, so usually I just pick a spot and wait. Sometimes everything runs on the track that I can't see, or nothing runs at all. But the river speaks to me, the hawks and buzzards keep me company, and sometimes it all comes together.

January 2004: Berea, Ohio

Norfolk Southern eastbound freight train on the Rocky River Bridge in Berea, Ohio.

On a snowy Saturday in January, I took ventured southwest of Cleveland to Berea, Ohio, in search of a wintry scene on the Rocky River Bridge. There I found a Norfolk Southern eastbound mixed freight train stopped in a perfect position to try several angles. I'm looking at the north side of the bridge here, which never catches sunlight in the winter, making an overcast day favorable.

December 2003: Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad "Polar Express" passenger train with Alco C420 no. 365 stopping at the depot in Peninsula, Ohio, on the evening of December 18, 2003.

Digital photography for me began in earnest on December 18, 2003. That was the day that I came home from work and found the box that contained the grand prize from the 2003 Trains Magazine and Canon Photography Contest: a Canon EOS 10D and 24-85 lens. One of the first things I wanted to test was the camera's low-light capabilities, having heard good reviews of its performance at high ISOs. After shooting some Christmas decorations in downtown Cleveland, I headed south into the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to photograph the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad's Polar Express train at the "North Pole" (Peninsula, Ohio).

Editing and Organizing Photographs

I think that editing your own photography collection is one of the most difficult, and important, activities for a photographer to undertake. We can have so much emotional connection to our photographs, so well aware of all the situational details that went into each and every image. I can look at one of my photos from a decade ago, and so clearly recall the crispness in the fall air and the elation I felt when composition, light, and subject matter coincided just the way I had hoped they would. The temptation is to save everything, and ever-larger hard drives make this technologically feasible. Some day, to some one, each and every one of those photos might prove interesting or valuable.

A long-term, practical view might suggest otherwise, especially if you want your photography collection to outlive you. I started dabbling in digital photography in 2002, and I have photographed almost exclusively with digital cameras since mid-2004, a period of over seven years. In that time, I have amassed nearly a terabyte of digital images in tens of thousands of files. To make matters worse, I have not been diligent in assigning metadata to my photos. My "organizational system" consists of dumping all the photos from each outing into a file folder named for the general location and date. If something happens to me before I go back and change that, the reality is that very, very few (if any) of my photos will ever be used again, by anyone.

In 2008, at the Center for Railroad Photography & Art's annual conference (which I help organize), photographer and writer Jeff Brouws made a presentation on organizing your archive. The most salient point of his presentation, to me, was this (and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's close): as amateur or semi-professional photographers, the vast majority of us are only going to create a very limited number of photographs (perhaps 10, or maybe 50) that have real lasting value. With that point in my mind, I want to go back through my own archive, whittle away at its size, and begin to identify my very best images and describe them as carefully and as accurately as possible.

My plan for tackling this project is to get up early on most mornings and go through one file folder each day, and blog about it here.

Shut Up & Love the Rain

Former Souther Pacific wood chip car on the Portland & Western's Toledo Hauler near Eddyville, Oregon.

'Nuf said.

Wi-Fi on the Train? Why Yes!

Wi-Fi notification sticker in window of Amtrak Cascades train.

Research for an upcoming article took me to the Tacoma library today, with all travel accomplished by Amtrak Cascades service and some walking. Amtrak has been touting its new Wi-Fi service aboard the Cascades and I'm pleased to note that it worked very well on both trains 500 and 509. It also meant that I could both take today's photo and publish it to my blog without so much as needing to leave my seat. Interestingly enough, the service supposedly works much better in the coaches than it does in the bistro or dining car, and that's by design. Northwesterners accustomed to long computer stints in area coffee shops were staying too long in the bistro and dining cars' limited seating, to the point that passengers actually wanting to eat something didn't have a place to sit.

The day itself has been very satisfactory. The research was less than I'd hoped for, but I did turn up a couple of useful nuggets. Best of all was the way I traveled today -- walking a mile from home to the Amtrak station in Oregon City, riding the train to Tacoma, walking the two miles from the Tacoma station to the library with a stop lunch, walking back with a stop for coffee, and now riding the train home. It reminds me of Japan, and the surprising discovery of freedom in travel without a car.

Coast Range

Portland & Western's Toledo Hauler running along the Yaquina River near Toledo, Oregon.

Just four years ago, three active railroads traversed western Oregon's Coast Range. Today, there is only one: the Portland & Western's Toledo Branch, which runs from Albany to a Georgia Pacific kraft paper mill at Toledo, on Yaquina Bay. The floods of November 2007 wiped out the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad to the north, while to the south the line from Eugene to Coos Bay currently awaits a new operator. For now, only the Toledo Hauler crosses Oregon's Coast Range. The mill generates enough traffic for service five days a week, and a small lumber mill in Toledo also ships a few carloads.

I photographed the Toledo branch heavily during the two years that Maureen and I lived in Corvallis, so this morning's outing was like returning to an old friend (the homecoming was made all the sweeter by having another friend at the throttle of this train).The lushness of the Coast Range reminds me more of Appalachia than other landscape I've encountered in the west, so I find a comfortable familiarity in the thickly forested mountains, and today's misty weather is by far my favorite for photographing this part of Oregon. I'll have to come back again soon.

The Japanese Engineer

Japanese train driver in Sapporo station, June 20, 2007.

Between September 2005 and July 2007, I traveled in China for almost three months, spent two weeks in Vietnam, and lived in Japan for 19 months. Since returning to the U.S., I frequently field the question, “What are the people there like?”

For three years I answered by underscoring the differences, feeling comfortably smug in my firsthand knowledge of the cultural nuances distinguishing groups of people that many Americans simply lump together as “Asians.” And then last spring I finally saw the folly of that approach.

In China, I traveled with Ronald Olsen, a fellow American photographer and train-lover whose experience and knowledge of Mandarin enriched my trip far more than I ever could have imagined. Of the past 14 years, Ronald has cumulatively spent more than three of them in China. Last spring, an interviewer asked both of us about the people there. I listened, while Ronald answered.

“They’re just like us. They want a good job. They want a nice roof over their head. They want to spend time with their families. And they want to have a laugh and a beer now and again. They’re a lot more like us than you realize.”

That brings me to today’s photo. Of course I did not take it today. I captured this view of a Japanese train driver in the Sapporo station on Wednesday, June 20, 2007. It was 5:12 p.m., departure time for the luxurious overnight sleeper train Hokutousei for Tokyo. His center-cab DD51 diesel hydraulic locomotive is nothing like any passenger engine in the U.S., and you won’t find very many American engineers wearing such crisp white shirts and black hats. But just like any American engineer all the way back to the days of steam, he looks at the ground when he starts his train.

And just like any American engineer or European driver, he hopes for a fast, safe run, and an on-time arrival at the end of his territory. And right now, if he still works the Hokutousei out of Sapporo, he hopes for the day when his country has returned to normal enough that his train can again depart. This train travels along the east coast of Japan’s Tohoku region, and much of its tracks were crippled and swept away by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Japanese Disaster Relief Funds:

Mercy Corps

American Red Cross

Small Trains

Amtrak train no. 28 crossing the Willamette River at North Portland, Oregon.

I'm back, at least for now, and I hope to add some other recent photos, backdated to the appropriate day. For now, I'll start by revisiting an old theme. My friend, mentor, and fellow photographer Kevin Scanlon and I used to have a running "competition" of sorts: making the train as small as possible in a photo that was still a "railroad photo." It was Kevin's photos from the New River Gorge in my home state of West Virginia that first warmed me to this notion. I had previously been frustrated by the gorge -- in my traditional notion of railroad photography, I couldn't find a way to photograph a train and still depict the essence of the place: the depth of the canyon and vastness of the hills. Kevin showed me that the train doesn't need to fill the frame, or even a significant portion of it, to still have its place in the composition. I've since made these kinds of photos a signature part of my photography.

This afternoon, when the sky opened gloriously above Portland, I headed to my favorite overlook of BNSF's Willamette River drawbridge, where I was treated to three Amtrak trains in the span of 20 minutes. I had photographed here before, but today for the first time I noticed the barren tree just down the hillside, with sweeping branches that would provide an excellent frame. I had to use a very wide lens -- 20mm -- to incorporate all of them, which would render the train quite small, indeed, but I remembered my "small train" photos with Kevin and hoped for the best.

St. Patrick's Rainbow

Union Pacific freight train on the "gauntlet" in Portland, Oregon's near-eastside.

(Written on March 23.) The luck of the Irish was with me and fellow photographer Kyle Weismann-Yee on St. Patrick's Day, as Union Pacific's daily Portland to Roseville freight train, the QPDRV, threaded the gauntlet of grade crossings on Portland's near-eastside while the remnants of a rainbow hung in the eastern sky. If only it had managed to drag itself out of Albina Yard and through the 15-degree reverse curves of East Portland Junction a little faster, we might have caught it beneath the double rainbow that had appeared a few minutes earlier.

The Dark Mill

The now-closed Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City.

(Written on March 23.) One night while walking with Maureen along the bluff in Oregon City, I was struck by how dark and quiet the hulking forms of the Blue Heron paper mill appeared since its closure on February 25. I since have gone back through my photos of its operations and identified several to re-photograph for a before-and-after project. This is one of the "after" views that I especially like: the graceful curve of the tracks between the dark, angular forms of the loading docks and wood chip facility, with just a hint of the bright town still in the background, a subtle reminder that time marches on.

The Last Switch

Union Pacific's OC Switcher pulls the last car out of the Blue Heron paper mill in downtown Oregon City.

On Wednesday, with no prior warning, the Blue Heron Paper Company announced that its mill in Oregon City was closing. The last day for hourly employees would be just two days later. The mill ceased production on Friday afternoon, and for the first time since 1829, the hum of industry fell silent on the east bank of Willamette Falls. There was one empty boxcar remaining in the mill when the closing announcement was made. Fittingly, that car had brought in a load of recycled paper earlier in the week -- the chief raw material used at the mill, and reason for its closure. Increased demand in China has driven the price of recycled paper above what the mill can afford. Just after midnight on Saturday morning, Union Pacific's OC Switcher came into the mill and retrieved that car. Several ex-mill workers, most who had worked their final shift in the previous 24 hours, were watching from 505 Tavern (note the sign on the sidewalk). One even stepped outside to toast the train, shouting, "One more time" as the two SW1500s pulled across state highway 99E. No less than six railroad photographers were on hand to document the end of this era.

The Last Shift

Southbound train of empty centerbeam cars passing the Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City.

(Written on March 23.) This afternoon was the final shift at the Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City, a clear and cold winter day that produced billowing clouds of steam at sunrise, looking for all the world like the very symbol of corporate health. I was surprised to hear a southbound train approaching in the early afternoon, an unusual time of day for rail activity on the main line, but it turned out to be an extra train of 75 empty centerbeam flatcars heading south -- cars that had been in storage due to the depressed demand for lumber during the recession ... somehow fitting as one the last trains to pass the mill while it was still in operation. When I came back outside three hours later, everything was quiet. Later, while photographing the OC Switcher's last work in the mill with several friends that night, we wondered whether there was simply some big, overriding on-off switch somewhere inside the mill. More seriously, I did wonder who was working that last shift, and who had the tasks of shutting things down for the last time, and what they were thinking.

Snow in the Valley

Amtrak Cascades train no. 500 running along the Willamette River in Oregon City.

(Written on March 23.) I had planned to sleep late after a long night of photographing the Blue Heron mill and the OC Switcher, but when Maureen woke up at 6:30, looked outside and saw an inch of fresh snow, I was up quickly. Snow is rare in the lower elevations of Willamette Valley, and snow photos in general have eluded me in the northwest (ask me sometime about my many failed attempts to photograph railroads in fresh snow in the Cascade Mountains). Amtrak no. 500 was the only train in the vicinity, and so we walked down to this overlook by the river (Maureen's work was canceled for the day, as Marylhurst University closed due to the weather.) Behind me, route 99E was serenely quiet in what was a heavily subdued morning commute. Within two hours, the snow had turned to rain and nearly every trace was gone, although freezing rain mixed with flurries returned in the afternoon.

On a side note, the OC Switcher had visited the mill in the previous night, pulling all the way in and even coupling onto the last car remaining on the property. For some unknown reason, they then uncoupled from that car, leaving it in the mill and returning light engine to Clackamas. On this night, they did not even venture to Oregon City, setting the stage for the last switch in the mill on Friday night, which was documented by no less than six photographers.

Mill Closing

Union Pacific's Hinkle to Roseville freight train passing the Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City.

(Written on March 23.) I emerged sooner than expected from my hiatus to document the final days of operations at the Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City. Its closure was announced on this day, with the final shift scheduled for Friday, only two days hence. The mill had been in bankruptcy since 2009 and its future was always on shaky ground, but I never expected its closure to happen so quickly. Most mills give 60 days notice, as was the case with the International Paper company mill in Millersburg that closed in December 2009. 

I first heard the news of Blue Heron from one of the email list serves that covers railroad operations in the area. The subject line was simply "Another Mill Closing," and I never expected it meant the Blue Heron mill. A flurry of activity followed this afternoon, and within an hour I had received closure announcements from no less than four different sources. Thanks to the unusually cold weather, the mill went out with stacks blazing towering columns of steam into the winter sky, seen here on its second-to-last nigh of operation as the QHKRV hustles by on the main line. 

Second Hiatus

I'm going on hiatus again. Too much Web and writing work right now, on top of planning the Center's conference, to photograph everyday, but that's a good problem to have...

Sunset on the Columbia

Westbound Union Pacific intermodal train at Bridal Veil, Oregon.

Heading back to Portland following an afternoon of hiking in the Columbia Gorge, Maureen and I stopped at Bridal Veil to enjoy the sunset, where I photographed this westbound Union Pacific container train at twilight. When my mind wandered to photography today during our hike, I often considered the differences between content-driven and emotion-driven photographs. I've enjoyed working in both throughout my almost 12 years of photography, although the pendulum usually swings more to one side than the other. When I started in 1999, content or perhaps documentary photography was my primary aim, then around late 2003 or 2004, conveying emotion became increasingly more important to me as a photographer. Over the last couple of years, I feel that I've gravitated back towards content-driven photographs, although hopefully with a heightened sense of formalism and greater care in composition. Still, I have hardly abandoned emotion in my photographs.

After spending most of Friday afternoon in documentary mode, I felt a strong urge to attempt something more emotional this Saturday evening, especially as I saw the western sky flaring up at sunset. This train came too late for peak color in the sky, but the darker scene allowed for other emotional effects, like the soft glow of the lead locomotive's headlights in front of the train, and a slight blur to the traffic on I-84. I feel an inner tension between content and emotion in my photography, and I often wonder which is more important to me. Many of my own favorite photos achieve elements of both.

East Portland Branch

Oregon Pacific freight train bound for Milwaukie, Oregon, seen from the Ross Island Bridge

The Oregon Pacific Railroad's Molalla and East Portland branches served as bookends to my week, starting on the Molalla branch in Canby on Monday morning and ending on the East Portland branch in Milwaukie on Friday afternoon. Locomotive no. 100, an SW1 from 1952, took four refrigerated boxcars to the interchange near OMSI and returned to Milwaukie with two cars. The 100 has spent nearly its entire life on the East Portland line, always clad in the orange and black of her original owner, the Portland Traction Company.

Stormy Weather

Roseville to Hinkle freight train seen from the bluff in Oregon City.

A late winter storm system is blowing through the Pacific Northwest right now, creating dramatic skies in the valley, low-elevation snowfall, and heavy snows in the mountains. Snow can wreck havoc on railroad operations, as extra crews are required to run special trains to keep the line open. Union Pacific is already running short on crews due to an extensive track maintenance project in the area (requiring extra crews for work trains), so this storm has compounded the problem. The train seen here is nominally the Roseville (California) to Hinkle (Oregon) train running several hours later than usual, although its length (108 cars) and the presence of many lumber loads indicate that it's been combined with the Eugene to Hinkle train. The move frees up a crew and set of power to work elsewhere (or perhaps relieves a shortage of one or both). Given that both of these trains are running somewhat short right now due to the weak lumber market, I'm a little surprised that combining them isn't a more common practice.

Freight by the Falls

Hinkle to Roseville freight train passing Willamette Falls.

Between showers this afternoon, the sun emerged spectacularly, as it often does this time of year in the Willamette Valley. Union Pacific's daily Hinkle to Roseville (QHKRV) freight train was running early, making for a timely appearance along the river at Willamette Falls. Its rear locomotives (operating in distributed power mode) are shown here, behind a car of Canadian wheat, a staple commodity on the QHKRV. I've posted nocturnal photos from this location, but this is my first daytime view from here.