It's only a little over an hour from sunrise on a beautiful morning in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The railroad is bustling with traffic on a serene morning. CSX has sent along one of their northbound trains from New Orleans in the form of Q526. The 526 has just completed a huge set out for the Port Bienville Railroad a few miles south in Ansley, Mississippi, and is now headed towards Mobile. It's low tide at the junction of Saint Louis Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. This creates small, but incredibly photogenic waveforms along the coast. One such wave is seen here forming a perfect frame for the northbound freight. A few more miles up the road in Long Beach 526 will stop again for two more trains to pass before finally getting a light to head into town. It really is hard to top a morning down on the beach watching the trains roll by in pristine weather.

Pass Christian, Ms. 2021.

A couple of canuck visitors fly south at nearly 60mph down the M&M Sub near the town of Atmore, Alabama, yesterday. The big ET44AH motors were on the head end of CSX X800-08 going back to the CN in New Orleans after their reopening of Nola. 1/6th of a second on the shutter speed lets us peer into the woods and capture the blur at 57mph on the nose.

The eastbound Georgia Central railroad road freight is just minutes ahead of a fast moving storm front as the train approaches Orland, Georgia. Shortly after the train passed this location they would be held up for hours as a large tree fell across the main and blocked their passage. In recent years Georgia Central has acquired a fleet of secondhand General Electric B32-8 locomotives. These old -8's may not be the high hood U23B's of a decade ago, but they sure sound close... It's great to see older GE power make a return to GC even if it is in orange...

Thanks for looking!

Randomly walking in the garden during vacation. Since I don't have a macro lens, I used my 85mm f/1.8 lens and a bit of cropping. Quite happy with the result! Tell me what you think!

CSX loaded grain train G659 winds its way through Huntdale, North Carolina, deep in the mountains along the Toe River. The train is rolling through some of the most scenic railroading anywhere deep in the North Carolina Mountains.

This was a great way to start 10 days in the mountains for my annual fall trip up. Thanks to Noah Johnson for your hospitality this trip!

I tried a different view of the old yard bell at Old Dubbo Gaol. Dubbo NSW

Norfolk Southern Railroad sends their 12Z northbound through the jaw dropping fields of Rural Retreat, VA. The short mixed freight is headed to Binghamton, NY, where it will arrive a few days from now. Fall colors were at near peak in the lower Shenandoah Valley on this gorgeous early fall morning.

Tested the in camera HDR. Using NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S on Nikon Z6 II.

A male Northern Pintail in Piper Spit at Burnaby Lake.

A home rails duo of Illinois Central SD70s glide slowly across the Manchac Pass in the fading light of a Saturday evening. RTC desk five in Homewood was having issues with the bascule bridge here and delayed the A419 and 420's meet almost a bit too long for the light. The shadow from the nearby bridges was nearly clipping the bottom of the wheelsets on the locomotives, but we won out in the end. As is typical on this end of the IC main the 420 has rocketed south through the southern half of Mississippi and North Louisiana to sit and wait for a near equal amount of time for clearance into Destrehan yard around the corner from Kenner, LA. Getting Illinois Central power on the IC main anywhere south of Memphis has been hard to do until late. Getting a matching set over at Manchac was a great item to check off the bucket list.

Thanks for looking!

Nikon Z6II / megadap MTZ11 / Pentax FA77

Cockadoodle Doo!

Another northbound at Big Hormady Cut. No more than 10 minutes after M780 blasted through headed up the mountain empty auto train Q210 howled up the hill. The lead YN2 AC4400 was a nice bonus. With CSX’s CM44AC rebuild program in full swing it won’t be long until the YN2 scheme fades into the past. The cuts on Cumberland mountain help ease the already intense grade to the summit near Cowan, TN.

224c 6 - Z62_2721 - lr-ps

Taken about 6AM.

Blue Eyed Grass at Santa Teresa County Park near San Jose, California.

Lights on and Ready to Roll

Signaling it's almost time to go...

The engineer on this northbound empty grain train is impatient to get going after a meet with a Florida-bound slop freight. 60mph of moving steel is gliding past in a blur of color on the mainline to his right. In about 30 seconds the signal will flip medium clear for the empty man and the engineer will scream out of town. It's a humid evening for December and the clouds overhead indicate rain incoming soon. After all it is the south, and we've had days well into the 70s on Chirstmas. Staving off winter for just a bit more down here...

Thanks for looking and enjoy!

KCS 1 and company haul the CPKC Holiday Express southbound over the massive Morganza spillway bridge just north of Morganza, Louisiana. Road foreman Smith and engineer Lendermon have the train well in hand as they head for the 1600 display at Montegut siding in Laplace, Louisiana. Morganza was one of the must haves on the sprint from Shreveport to Laplace on a clear December morning. The Morganza spillway is a giant flood control project that can divert the Mississippi River away from the populous of Baton Rouge, and eventually New Orleans, by diverting water towards the Atchafalaya basin when the Mississippi floods bad enough to warrant the opening of the massive floodgates located here. The KCS New Orleans subdivision and Louisiana highway one fly over the top of the spillway as seen here.

Hopefully this year we can have a repeat performance of this train before it's all said and done.

Thanks for looking!

Tied to a fence outside the Cancer Clinic at Richmond Hospital, Richmond BC.

Another one flic.kr/p/2oq2pk2

Zollernschloss und Wasserturm

Chania harbour in the sunset.

An english tourist makes the photo of the day. I saw it!

With about 2 minutes of useable light left KCS I180 flies through Dequincy, Louisiana, towards their next crew change at Beaumont, Texas, just down the road. The I180 was on duty at noon in Shreveport, and outside of flagging one crossing, didn't stop for anything until they crew swapped in Beaumont... A dead KCS main did allow for this excellent shot at the immaculately restored KCS Station in Dequincy. The clean KCS 4603 was great to have as opposed to their other power these days...

Thanks for looking!

Pickens Railroad U18B's 9502 and 9508 have a healthy train from the Greenville and Western Railway in tow as they enter Anderson, SC. The longer train was giving the old 1800 HP U18B's a run for their money as they gave everything they had to lift the train into town. The Pickens Railroad is the last holdout for operating U18B locomotives in the country. U18B's were one of General Electric's less successful models with only 150 engines ordered. The engines here are former Seaboard Coast Line, and then CSX motors. It's nice to see Pickens still using their old U18's even after picking up newer B40's from CSX...

Thanks for looking!

Dusk at Shawsville.

Norfolk Southern Norfolk-Louisville, Ky, intermodal 22a is seen in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains in a beautiful dusky scene. The long train is crawling up the Christiansburg mountain grade just at sunset. A little last glimpse of sunlight can be seen reflecting off of the mountains overhead. The town of Shawsville is often shot by railroad photographers in the area, and it's not hard to see why... Plenty of beautiful angles with the mountains and farmlands that surround.

Thanks for looking and enjoy!

Sunrise over Einsiedel and the Swabian Alb

Norfolk Southern through freight train 154 is rolling downgrade into Toccoa, Georgia, on a moody summer evening. Storms from the day are starting to die down with the sunset. We are looking across the valley at the famous Wells Viaduct on the Atlanta, GA, to Washington, DC, mainline. On this moody evening the UP motors up front were a welcome relief from the black and white NS paint that wouldn't have stood out very well against the mountains. Wells is a sweet view at the edge of the Blue Ridge mountains along the Piedmont.

Thanks for looking and enjoy!

A few more of the shots from my UK trip. First visit in Liverpool and I really enjoyed it.

Black guillemots on the rocks in Penobscot Bay near Vinalhaven, Maine.

We've had a Wafer Ash in the garden for almost 20 years, specifically for this butterfly and this is the first time we've ever seen one.

Kadunce River Cascades

Way north of Duluth, Minnesota, along MN Highway 61 is the Kadunce River State Wayside. This little highway pull-off offers a great view of Lake Superior which has paralleled the road for 119 miles out of Duluth. Less known, and much more spectacular, is the little trail that leads off into the woods across the highway. Along the steep trail the Kadunce River cascades down a series of waterfalls, and through a legitimate slot canyon to reach Lake Superior in a little under a mile. These cascades are the beginning of a highly scenic stretch of the river that begins at this point along the trail. I'll have a few more angles posted at some point soon from our October trip to the north country.

Thanks for looking!

The Falls of Caney Creek.

We are deep in the woods away from any civilization at Caney Creek Falls in northwest Alabama's Bankhead National Forest. Caney Creek Falls sits in an amphitheater of rock deep in the woodland. The amphitheater style waterfall is plentiful in Bankhead National Forest, and as such creates a wonderful setting for landscape photography. Caney Creek is perhaps the most noted falls in an area known as "land of a thousand waterfalls". The large cascade here puts out a high volume of water in what is one of the most peaceful settings in the state. This is a late afternoon view taken last week. We hiked three of the many falls in the area, and I'm sure we will return again soon for more.

Thanks for looking and enjoy!

Sunset over Silver Bay.

A beautiful sunset takes place over Silver Bay, Minnesota, on a beautiful fall evening. Here we are on the western face of Palisade Head looking back along the lake. The pastel colors of the sunset fade to the west with the lake they call "Gitchee Gumme". Lake Superior's shores stretch to the horizon ablaze with the beautiful yellow hues of fall along the cliffs of the lakeside. The vibrant colors dotting the lakeshore have a few days left before they fall, and they provide a wonderful spark of vibrant color to the scene.

Thank you for looking!

If anyone needs pictures of Venetian side canals with bridges and parked boats (and washing hanging out to dry) I now have dozens of them... :-)

Single Red Arrow Hawk T1 after its cross over with an oncoming aircraft at Southport Airshow 2022

There are two wetlands at the bottom of my hill, and the turtles often cross a quiet road between them. I gently coaxed him or her off the pavement.

Starts over the observatory on the peak of Haleakala in Maui, Hawaii.

Due north at Midnight in the Blackwater River State Forest. 15 minute exposure among the pines along the lake.

Thanks for looking!

Having a rest