WCfan
East Bound and Down
Four repainted UP SD70Ms lead LDG-88 east through Ellsworth on it's return trip to Salina. For fun, lets just imagine they're meeting an empty coal train here...but make no mistake, trains on the KP are slim pickins. What a shame too, this route has so many great spots.
By some miracle, the sun popped out here. This may be surprising looking at the shot. So let me clarify; it was clear to the south...it was clear to the west...it was clear to the north...heck it was clear above our damn heads! But you wanna know where it wasn't clear? Right in front of the damn sun...why?!?!?!?! It truly never ceases to amaze me what circumstances can arise to screw you.
What would have made the cloud screwing extra painful is that we had already dumped a lot of time and energy into this train for very little payout up to this point. We left Pueblo late on the promise of 3 repainted UP SD70Ms and an 0800 crew. Jerry Reed's East Bound and Down will forever be etched into my memory when looking at this photo, as we drove through eastern Colorado and Kansas at the dead of night running on Twizzlers and Red Bull.
We tied up, got a few hours of sleep, and awoke at 0700 to a message..."Train has left"...WTF! Time to try and play catchup...we walked away with something but damn...this was supposed to be so so much better. Outside of the CoPac, the trains were quite rude. At this point, unbeknownst to us at the time, we were going to end the trip exactly the same way it started...the symmetry would be beautiful if it were not at our expense.
East Bound and Down
Four repainted UP SD70Ms lead LDG-88 east through Ellsworth on it's return trip to Salina. For fun, lets just imagine they're meeting an empty coal train here...but make no mistake, trains on the KP are slim pickins. What a shame too, this route has so many great spots.
By some miracle, the sun popped out here. This may be surprising looking at the shot. So let me clarify; it was clear to the south...it was clear to the west...it was clear to the north...heck it was clear above our damn heads! But you wanna know where it wasn't clear? Right in front of the damn sun...why?!?!?!?! It truly never ceases to amaze me what circumstances can arise to screw you.
What would have made the cloud screwing extra painful is that we had already dumped a lot of time and energy into this train for very little payout up to this point. We left Pueblo late on the promise of 3 repainted UP SD70Ms and an 0800 crew. Jerry Reed's East Bound and Down will forever be etched into my memory when looking at this photo, as we drove through eastern Colorado and Kansas at the dead of night running on Twizzlers and Red Bull.
We tied up, got a few hours of sleep, and awoke at 0700 to a message..."Train has left"...WTF! Time to try and play catchup...we walked away with something but damn...this was supposed to be so so much better. Outside of the CoPac, the trains were quite rude. At this point, unbeknownst to us at the time, we were going to end the trip exactly the same way it started...the symmetry would be beautiful if it were not at our expense.