13
May
May 2010
Hello Again. I have been busy lately and have not had much time to work on this page. I had some minor flooding in the layout room. No damage was sustained, it was just a headache to keep ahead of the water. The layout room is cleaned up and I have settled back down to working on the layout and some projects. I have also ordered a decal set and plan to paint some rolling stock for the Appalachian Northern. I will post some more pictures as the progress moves along.
I have also edited the model railroad page regarding the fictional history of my model railroad, the Appalachian Northern. Check out the changes.
I have not been track-side much either. CSX runs up near here and the traffic during the daylight hours has been light. There is more traffic at night, but this is not conducive to photography. Besides, I have been spoiled by my trips to western Pennsylvania over the years with all the traffic down there, it hardly seems worth the effort to spend a whole day track-side in New England and see maybe 6-8 trains vs. that same number of trains in 1-2 hours in Western PA.
Hang in there and please come back to visit. If you need to contact me about wanting to use some pictures, please email me at ajgemp@gmail.com. I apologize if you tried to contact after this past October. I switched internet providers and forgot to update the email settings on this page.
A.J.
30
Aug
Pennsylvania Gallery Update
I made two trips to Pennsylvania in 2009. I went in May and again in August. The May trip was cloudy and overcast on my only free day, but I was able to get some new shots around Portage, PA and Altoona to Tyrone. My second trip in August did not leave much time for watching trains. I did get some shots in the Pittsburgh area, but my memory card failed and I lost some good early morning shots around the old Homestead Works. I will be back there in the fall so maybe I will get lucky. The good news is that with a new memory card, I stopped in Cresson and caught a heavy east-bound manifest with a switcher in the consist. I took a couple of shots of him in Cresson and beat him to Gallitzin, where I got him going by the old “AR” Tower and dropping down the slide. I also took a couple of pictures on Horseshoe Curve.
A couple of sad things to report about Horseshoe Curve. It is overgrown again. If you want to visit there, and see the trains, I would go from late fall, when the leaves are gone to early spring when the buds are just starting. It’s just too overgrown for any other time. The other sad thing is that the Pennsy style signal bridges are falling. The most visible one for the curve may already be down as I write this. When I was there on August 20th 2009 the new mast had been erected. So if you are to get there this year, forget the curve. Instead, you should go to places like Lilly, Summer Hill and Tipton (McFarlands) and see if those signal bridges are still up. Get your pictures of them while you can.
18
Oct
Fall in New England
This past week the fall colors have been at their peak in eastern Massachusetts. With that in mind I went to three different locations. On October 10, I spent some time at Westborough, Massachusetts and was able to snag Q437. The colors were not at peak. A few days later, I went out to Charlton Hill and got a couple of shots of Q168 coming up Charlton Hill through the S curve at Gauthier Road. I then headed west and spent a few hours at a classic New England railfan site, the mill at West Warren, Massachusetts. These photos are in the New England Gallery. I hope you enjoy.
A.J.
28
Sep
More Railfan and MRR Pictures Added
I have slowly been going through and organizing the pictures I have taken over the years. So I have added a lot more pictures to the New England Trains Gallery. Some photos are as recent as August of 2008. Others go back to the mid 90’s or earlier.
I also wanted to show some progress of my model railroad. I have been building the New River Mine by Walthers. I have been taking my time with it. Sometimes I may only get a piece or too glued a night, but there is progress. Anyway there are some shots of this progress in the Model Railroad Gallery. You will see two interior shots of the New River Mine.
A.J.
21
Sep
Railfanning Gets Public Attention
I have a feeling this is attention that we do not want. I don’t know what possessed that teenage railfan to come forward and admit to the press that he may have been sending text messages to his engineer friend who was killed in the recent Metro-link crash. He probably figured he may have been found out sooner or later. So I guess you can’t blame the kid. Did this have anything to do with the accident. It is possible the engineer was replying back at station stops. I am sure the investigators will find out.
What does this mean to the average railfan? Maybe we will not be viewed as terrorists, but I am sure we will be considered more of a nuisance. Some local ordinances may appear, and be challenged. Crews may turn in railfans more instead of a turning a blind eye. Only time will tell.
Some commuter agencies out in the western part of the country said that is now illegal to photograph the operation of a train. What constitutes operation vs. just standing there? I am thinking that you better not use a video camera there. The official said it is OK to take a picture of a train just standing there, but if you take specific pictures of the locomotive, the wheels, the locomotive moving back and forth, you would be breaking the law. So I guess if you want to get detail shots for the model you are doing, you may be in trouble.
Personally, it has become harder to railfan since 9/11. Before 9/11 nobody thought differently if you hung out near the tracks, in one spot, for a long period of time taking pictures. Now you will get a look or two. Some people might even report you. So I have found that I do not like to stay in one place too long. It’s as if you feel compelled to get your shots and move on to another location. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it forces you to plan your strategy, consider the train movements and the sun angle when you get to your location.
As for being friendly with the crews. Well I look at it like this. Railroad crews are out there doing there job. I don’t bother them on their job, they don’t bother me while I do mine. Some people I know will approach a crew while they are sitting at a signal. I won’t. In all my years railfanning I have never met a crew that has needed a ride to the head-end. I don’t know if I would offer them a ride or not. I am not being a jerk about this, but maybe the crew needs to walk the train. If a crew is in the siding for a long time and there is a food joint nearby, I might offer some assistance. Then again, you might meet an unfriendly crew.
It is not like even in the 90’s where my buddy once helped a Conrail crew by driving the conductor back to the head end, and taking another crew member over to sub shop to get food. I am afraid times have changed and it is not for the better, if you are a railfan.
7
Sep
Memphis
I just added another gallery. These are trains I shot in Memphis in the spring of 2007, while I was there on a business trip. There are only about 6 or 7 trains there but, I caught them on a midweek evening from about 6:15 pm to just about 8 pm. Enjoy.
A.J.
6
Sep
Gallery Update
I believe I have finished my Pennsylvania Gallery for now. I added some shots from 2007 as well as some others from 2008. These are not all the shots I took, but they are a good representative of what I took and saw on those trips. I put the pictures in a rough geographic order. I haven’t ruled out adding more.
29
Aug
A Couple of Local Trips
August 22nd.
On August 22nd and August 29 I ventured out on to the CSX Boston Subdivision, or what I like to call the B&A for the old Boston & Albany. (Sorry BAR fans.) On the 22nd, I made it out to Palmer. I got a late start because I stayed up too late the night before. Anyway as I was driving west on the Mass Pike near Worcester, I heard the dispatcher talking to one train I missed. This was not because I was late, but it was because this train was about two hours earlier than I expected.
Anyway I made it to Palmer where I caught a westbound, and the local. I missed an earlier eastbound by just minutes. I met up with my friend Jack and we waited for a bit and then decided to look for better spots east. We found one where we caught an eastbound TOFC train coming through West Warren, Mass. We then decided to head off towards his house. While at his house, we heard the Mass Central local go by. We decided to give chase and caught him doing some switching and then caught him again heading back to Palmer.
August 29th.
I met up with another contributor to the Observation Car Group on Yahoo, Phil. I was late morning but, I decided that Charlton Hill would be a good spot to try, near the curve at mp56. No sooner had we pulled in when we heard the dynamic whine of a downgrade east bound. We got out our cameras and fired a few shots. Unfortunately nothing was fleeted on this single track stretch and we waited almost another 90 minutes before we caught another eastbound. It was Q168 loaded with lots of UPS trailers. Unfortunately, my buddy Phil had to catch a late afternoon flight back to northern California. So we packed up, I showed him a couple what used to be nice photo spots and then we left.
I will add this. I miss Conrail. I don’t ever recall these lines being so overgrown with brush and weeds as they are now with CSX. Some serious weed and brush control needs to be taken. If you have not visited this area in a few years, be advised that you may not get the same unobstructed view that you got in the past.
There are a couple of pictures of my August 22nd shots in the New England Trains page. I hope to be adding more in a couple of days.
21
Aug
August 21, 2007
Well I have good news. My video editing computer seems to be working now. When I get some time I will start going through my video. In the meantime, if the weather holds out, I plan to be trackside on the eastern and middle parts of the CSX Boston Subdivison or whatever the call the old B&A or Conrail’s Boston Line. Hopefully the trains will cooperate along with the weather.
