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Three CSX EMD GP40-2's howl up the steep Cumberland Mountain grade in southeast Tennessee with the M780 local in tow. 780 is bound for home base in Tullahoma with 39 loads of limestone on the drawbars from Anderson, Alabama, at the base of the grade. This version of the local is so heavy that the Cowan, TN, based helper engines have been called over the mountain to shove the train up the incredibly steep east grade to the top at Cumberland Mountain tunnel. Even with helper on the rear, and all 17,000 combined horsepower wide open uphill, this train is barely clearing 15mph on the climb. The grade here exceeds 2% climbing up the east face of the mountain. The Nashville Chattanooga and Saint Louis railroad blasted several huge rock cuts through ridgelines that stood in their way towards the summit during construction. These cuts are some of the tightest, and most impressive on any class one railroad in the east. Getting here is not something anyone should attempt alone, and I'm grateful I had the opportunity to experience it firsthand. The roar of a loaded train ascending the grade is a deafening, but awesome experience to take in here...
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A buzzard (Buteo buteo) defends its food from an approaching red kite (Milvus milvus). Taken from a hide in Wiltshire
Tired Norfolk Southern C44-9W 9424 leads empty coal train S0N over the Trace Fork trestle in Amanote, VA. With mere moments of sunlight left the empty Weller, VA, bound coal bucket cruised downhill over the massive Norfolk and Western built trestle in beautiful golden sun. This bridge flies the NS Dry Fork branch to Iager, West Virginia, from Richland VA, way above the tiny Trace Fork creek. The remote branch line the train is seen running on gets a handful of trains per month these days. A far cry from a few years ago when daily 8-10 movements would ply these rails ferrying Appalachia coal in all directions.
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It's a beautiful afternoon out at Manchac Pass in Akers, LA. The daily thunderstorms are building out over Lake Ponchatrain, and the Canadian National mainline is bursting at the seams with the usual afternoon rush of rail traffic. In this view daily Geismar, La, to Memphis, Tn, train A419 is cruising north over the Manchac Pass Bridge. Two beefy SD70M-2 locomotives are in charge of nearly 16,000 tons of heavy northbound chemical loads. At 9900 feet long nothing much would be getting in 419s way north of the Mississippi border. For now though they cruise north at track speed through the swamps of Louisiana...
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The low hanging sun illuminates the flanks of an early returning KCS local train along the Bonnet Carre spillway in Norco, La. The consecutively numbered KCS SD40-2's 3205 and 3206 held this job down for the better part of a calendar year here. A healthy train of west yard bound cars trails the power on a bitterly cold afternoon along the Mississippi River Valley. The permanent ten mph restriction for trains on this bridge will be done away with soon as CPKC plans to build a brand new structure across the length of the floodway here. In years of heavy flooding this normally dry and wildlife filled lowland will be flooded with excess Mississippi River floodwaters that will find a new home in Lake Ponchatrain, and an additional later exit through the Rigolets Pass into the Gulf of Mexico. On this beautiful winter day it is business as usual however as the KCS Baton Rouge turn heads for an early quit in New Orleans just ahead.
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KCS 1 Rich Mountain, Arkansas.
We are deep in the Ouachita Mountain range as KCS 1, and the combination CPKC business train roar up the famed Rich Mountain grade on a moody morning. The southbound B-KCLR is 38 minutes into a multi-day run that will see it inspecting the KCS Main line all the way from origination in Kansas City, MO, to the international border crossing in Laredo, Texas. Rich Mountain is the quintessential shot on the KCS main. It's a great shot with sun and normal consists, but is made even better when the streamlined business train is in the picture. KCS' business train harkens back to a time when passenger rail had class, and was a staple in American culture. Trains such as the "Southern Belle" were rolling luxury hotels that whisked people of all ages speedily across the country to their many destinations. After the Amtrak takeover in 1971 scenes like that were almost eliminated from the railroad landscape. The KCS Southern Belle business train stands as one of the few streamlined passenger consists still around, and it stands to either fall, or face significant changes should the merger with the Canadian Pacific Railroad be approved by the end of the year. Thanks to Dave David Perkins for all the driving and work at this shot the day prior!
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A calm, cloudy, fall evening at Sleepy Hollow Farm in Pomfret, VT. Fall is just around the corner and scenes like this will be commonplace again in the Appalachian Region. The fall of 2022 was particularly vibrant in this region of Vermont with some of the most saturated colors I've ever seen dotting the hills and peaks of the Green Mountain Range. Sleepy Hollow is an idyllic scene that has been captured for years by photographers passing through the state of Vermont. Fortunately, last year after social media sent masses of people up the small road to the farm, destroying property and roadway, local police shut access to the road, and allowed property owners some peace during the fall season. I'm glad I had the chance to capture this area from a safe distance while it was undisturbed.
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I thought on this night I’d give the nifty fifty a go, and decided against my better judgement to shoot an arch of the galaxy, beginning at the zenith and shooting down to the horizon. I was very very lucky this night as my buddies had already finished their shoot and were waiting on me finishing the arch and as I was packing my gear hastily into the car I forgot my tripod and geared head, which was standing next to the car.
Luckily we were shooting two locations that night so when we got to the next location no tripod! My mate had a spare so I used his heavy duty wildlife tripod then after the second shoot we drove back an hour to pickup my tripod which luckily was still there, otherwise it would’ve been a very expensive night’s Astro !
EXIF
The image is an 82 shot panorama all at f/2.2 5s ISO6400 50mm.
Camera Nikon Z6ii
Lens Nikkor 1.8S 50mm
A male Wood Duck resting in a tree around Piper Spit at Burnaby Lake on a sunny afternoon following a morning of rain.
KCS 3205 and 3206 have been the usual power for the Baton Rouge turn on the KCS New Orleans Subdivision this year. I've probably shot more trains at this location in the past two years than anywhere else, but last Friday was easily the best shot in 2023, and it barely made it. After getting skunked by an awful consist on Canadian National freight A420 up at Manchac Pass to the north we flew down towards the returning KCS LL60 job thinking for sure the train was already almost into New Orleans after rolling up a track warrant nearly 20 minutes ahead of our arrival. To my surprise they were just stepping onto the 10mph spillway bridge as we pulled up... With about 5 minutes to spare before the light left they crept across to the east end of the spillway bridge in perfect golden light... A top moment of the year!
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The fourth to last General Electric ET44AH produced for CSX leads Eastman Chemical empties through Natural Tunnel, Va, on their way to load at JRL Coal's Creech loadout in Merna, VA. The train is operating as NS KH01 on trackage rights before they reach home rails at Big Stone Gap, VA, a few miles up the road. This coal train makes a few round trips a week ferrying coal from Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia coal mines to Eastman Chemical's giant facility in Kingsport, Tennessee, just over the state line to the south.
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Georgia Central L782 is westbound over the Oconee River in Dublin, Georgia, as they slowly head west to tie down for the day on the west end of town. The railroad on this particular day was a total mess after storms brought down several trees that blocked the main over the course of the previous two days. Thankfully the sun played nice after a day of both sun and clouds starting out.
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CSX Eastman Coal Gas coal loads roll compass east, but railroad north, through the fields of Olinger, Virginia. These coal loads are the bread and butter of rail traffic on the far east end of the former Louisville and Nashville Railroad's sprawling Cumberland Valley subdivision and associated branch lines.
The C090 pictured here is shuffling the second half of a 90 car loaded train over to Kingsport for unloading later in the day. This segment of the CV main was hosting well over a dozen moves a day even into the mid 2000s. A precipitable drop soon followed and now the train count averages 2-4 a day, which incredibly, is up from the once a week traffic totals from a few years ago.
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Matched KCS SD40-2's bring CPKC train LL60 across the Bonnet Carre' Spillway, and into Norco, LA, on a sunny summers evening. After years of being assigned a pair of KCS SD70macs the New Orleans to Baton Rouge turn drew a pair of SD40-2s, and consecutively numbered ones at that. KCS 3205 and 3206 have 29 inbound New Orleans cars well in hand as they crawl across the massive, wooden, spillway bridge at 10mph. The spillway is usually dry, but in dire circumstances is opened to allow Mississippi River water to flow into Lake Ponchatrain, a few miles to the north. After a stormy afternoon threatened sun it was nice to see it pop out for their appearance. Years after their disappearance it is nice to see the old KCS 40-2's getting out on the road once again.
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Dawn begins to break in Central Louisiana as the KCS Christmas train races south at 50mph through the small hamlet of Gilgal, Louisiana. The vintage trainset is flying south along the former route of the Southern Belle through the state towards New Orleans looking just like the train would have decades ago. This was the first real look at what would be a fun, but difficult, chase through the state to LaPlace later in the afternoon.
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A westbound Norfolk Southern freight is photographed crawling up Christiansburg grade in Shawsville, VA, on a beautiful fall evening. I'm at the often-photographed location of Shawsville taking in a busy afternoon for the NS in the area. This scene is well-represented by many area photographers, but I was glad to get a look at it. The westbound here is working out of Roanoke for a crew change at Bluefield, WV, down the line. The Christiansburg district is one of NS' two heavy haul mains in the area into Roanoke. While this train was working west 5 other eastbound trains were taking the parallel former Virginian mainline into Roanoke on the easier grade.
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A fresh CSX in-house SD70 rebuild framed through the woods at 1/10th of a second. This engine was only a month out of rebuild in Huntington, Wv, at the time, and looked fresh on the point here.
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It is a frosty late December night in Gulfport, Ms. There is no such thing as a global pandemic, and Keith Creel of CP has yet to ask Pat Ottensmeyer of Kansas City Southern out to the lunch that would get the merger ball rolling. KCS 3162, a former Seaboard Coast Line SD45 Big Jack, is sitting idle after an all day run to Hattiesburg, MS, and back. The big SD45 is wearing week old paint at the time; and was one of many new "Belle" repaints coming out of Deramus Shops in Shreveport, LA. Stablemate 2957 is a former Milwaukee Road GP40 long since removed from its predecessor owner. The GP40 is idling after an easy day out working around Gulfport and the Dupont Line west of town. When I photographed this scene I knew I was getting a glimpse behind the curtain of the last best place on this, or really any, class one railroad. GP40/38s and SD45's/40-2s were, and for the time being, still are the sole motive power on this island of a KCS mainline. This night the future seemed bright, and all was right in the world. Soon afterword Covid would run amok, and merger talks would begin. 9 months later when I was finally able to return change was afoot. I am incredibly grateful for all I was able to document of this last holdout for the old and outdated on KCS....
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CSX 8383 leads G933 up the former Atlantic Coast Line Main to Montgomery, Alabama, on a spotless early spring afternoon. This rare SD40 leader was a great surprise coming north. We had followed a train down to the siding in Dillard, Alabama, from Montgomery most of the day, and when this appeared on the other side of the southbound we were ecstatic. This shot is just south of the town of Brundidge, Alabama. With no meets in the way until Scott siding some ways north G933 would make a perfect target all the way thru sunset...
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CN Hotshot train Z194 is southbound over the Pass Manchac Drawbridge after a nasty storm passed through the area. The sun is attempting to poke through the clouds, and provided an interesting, filtered, lighting of the very early Z making its way south towards Nola. Getting Z194 this far south in daytime is quite unusual, and it was a nice bonus train to end what was a busy 7 train afternoon out at Manchac Pass.
It's not classic U23B's at this location, but it's still pretty nice. Georgia Central L782 west rolls along towards Macon quite quickly at the popular Snows Pond shot with the usual trio of hand-me-down B32-8s leading the way. This days train was absolutely massive and you never worried about hearing the train sneaking up on you. The B32 trio was barking with every small hill trying to keep track speed up towards Macon.
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