Tag Archives: #Tehachapi

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Long Hood First

The General Motors EMD model SD45 remains among my favorite diesels.

During my years in California, I exposed countless color slides of SD45s in action on both Southern Pacific and Santa Fe.

This Kodachrome is a memorable image that shows an SP SD45E in near silhouette as it leads a light helper set downgrade in the Tehachapis near Marcel, Calif. This view emphasizes the locomotive’s characteristic flared radiator intakes, which are among the SD45’s noteworthy external features.

I like the geometric play of the signal code lines and the soft background of tapered hills fading into the morning mist.

Nikon F3T with f4.0 200mm Nikkor telephoto. Exposed on March 29, 1992.

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Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Unit Grain Train at the Loop—Eight Years Ago

It was a sun-drenched day in the California Tehachapis on this day eight years ago, when I focused on BNSF Railway’s X-FRSRUF9-05G ascending Union Pacific’s former Southern Pacific line at Walong.

Better known as the ‘Tehachapi Loop,’ this place is world-famous for its sinuous trackage, where the railroad’s compete helix is just part of a series of reverse curves necessary to maintain a steady uphill gradient.

What isn’t always evident in photos is the raw verticality of the mountains. This is tough rugged territory interspersed with rolling hills covered by golden grass.

Another element of the place that isn’t conveyed in photos is that the golden grass bears sharp pointy seeds that find their way into your socks and annoy your ankles. But, it’s a small price to pay for enjoying freight trains hard at work.

August 6, 2016.
August 6, 2016.
August 6, 2016.

Exposed using my FujiFilm XT-1 with 18-135mm lens.

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photography, Tips and Technique

Union Pacific SD70ACe-the Dark Side.

Over the last few days I’ve been reviewing thousands of my photos of Union Pacific trains for consideration in a book that I’m completing on the railroad. Consider the photo below:

Six years ago, I was poised at Woodford, California along the former Southern Pacific in the Tehachapis to photograph an ascending Union Pacific freight heading toward Tehachapi Summit.

Leading was a clean SD70ACe with UP’s bold wings painted on the front.

I made a sequence of images as the train passed. This one caught my eye because it really shows the sharp angles of this powerful diesel-electric at work.

The contrast between the sunlit locomotive nose and the inky shadows along the side the locomotive combined with a little telephoto compression helped make for a more dramatic image.

Exposed using a FujiFilm XT1 with a Fujinon X-series 18-135mm lens.

Would an evenly lit photo have the same effect?

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Smoky Sunrise Caliente

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Four years ago fires in the hills around California’s Central Valley contributed to the high level of particulates in the air.

This made for a stunning smoky sunrise at the Caliente horseshoe on the former Southern Pacific crossing of the Tehachapis.

I was set up near the crossing of Cal Bodfish Road to make this backlit view of a northward BNSF intermodal, one of three, that were threading their way toward Bakersfield.

Exposed with my FujiFilm XT1 digital camera with 18-135mm Fujinon lens.

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