Washington DC Photos

Hi, Our guide in Viet Nam, and now friend, Tran was visiting last week and Wednesday and Thursday was spent showing him the sights in Washington, DC. I took a point and shoot along on Wednesday. I gave myself the assignment of pretending to be a tourist and shoot as if I were just visiting. Here are some of the results with comments only where I feel necessary.


The next 3 photos are the relatively new WWII memorial.



For me the Viet Nam Memorial is the saddest place in the US, and possibly the world.


I feel people making rubbings of names on the wall symbolizes what it is all about.





I had never visited the Korean War Memorial. The realism of the soldiers who seem to be on patrol was stark.

There was a wall across a path next to the memorial that had images of service people. It also was very smooth, and therefore reflective. I attempted to get the reflection of the statue in the foreground on the wall in the photo below.


Here again reflections of the statues and the images on the wall.


The following 5 images are from the Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial.



One part of the memorial is given over to water flowing over rocks. I have no idea why this was included but I was intrigued by the textures and play of light.


Finally, my political commentary. There has been much said and written by strict constructionists of our Constitution about how we need to interpret it as our founders wrote it. However, here in the Jefferson Memorial is a quote from one our founders that I think disputes the claims of the strict constructionist.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. Bob

Railfanning - F unit weekend, Part - 2

Hi, Sunday, June 5, was the reason Jim and I went to Scranton, PA. A short trip was operated that morning by the Anthracite Railroad Historical Society behind a pair of F3s just repainted from a tangerine and blue Central RR of New Jersey paint scheme into a Delaware Lackawanna & Western freight paint scheme. Number 664 is owned by the ARHS while number 663 is owned by the Tri-State Chaper of the NRHS. During the early afternoon the ARHS's RS-3, freshly painted in CNJ green, operated on the Steamtown shuttle.

There were may opportunities to photograph the F3s at a number of different locations. The train was stopped for awhile at each photo stop so still photographers could get multiple angles and photo runs were made at some of them for the videographers.

The first photo is at Tower 6 as our train heads for the Steamtown loading platform.

We had a brief amount of time at the loading platform.

After boarding our train we headed east about a 1/4 mile. We then unloaded at our first photo stop, a tower just east of the former Lackawanna station, now a Radisson Hotel.

From there we headed to the east portal of Nay Aug tunnel.


Winton siding, between Elmhurst and Dunmore, PA was as far as the train went. A signal bridge just west of the siding provided a photo prop for the train headed both east and west. The photo below shows the train headed east.

After the locomotives ran around the train a photo run was made headed east.

Finally the train posed under the signal bridge. The highway in the background is I-380.


On our way back to Steamtown we once again stopped at the tower west of Lackawanna station.

Our train spent awhile at the Steamtown platform allowing a variety of shots,

including this one of both our train and the Steamtown shuttle.

While the shuttle was waiting for its second run of the day the F3s were put away. The Reading FP7s rest in the background.

As the weather was not very good we only photographed 2 runs of the shuttle. It is shown here at its loading area,

from the foot bridge from Steamtown into the mall, and

at Tower 60.


Finally, a shot of the Reading FP7s and the DL&W F3s side by side.


I hope you enjoyed the photos. I had a great time with Jim on the trip.

Railfanning - F unit weekend, Part 1

Hi, Friend Jim Kleeman and I had an F unit weekend from June 3 to June 5, 2011. Our railfanning began at Port Royal PA where we set up to photograph an eastbound NS Office Car Special. However, our first train was an eastbound manifest.

The OCS was a few minutes behind the manifest.

We gave chase and were able to photograph the train at Cove,

at Marysville,

and again on the Rockville Bridge.

While crews changed in Harrisburg we went to the south end of the former Reading bridge across the Susquehanna River.

At this point we let the train go and headed north. Checking out the Reading and Northern seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, we could not seem to locate a train until about 4:00 PM. We could hear 3 trains but could not find them until the train shown below left Tamaqua and headed for Port Clinton. We had sought information at Port Clinton earlier but the receptionist refused to bother the dispatcher.

We were able to beat the train to New Ringgold but could not get into position for another shot, thus ending our day.

Saturday dawned cloudy and did not improve until the very end of the day. Our first stop was at Tower 6o in Scranton to try and get some information from the Delaware Lackawanna dispatcher. Unlike previous visits there was a traffic cone across the stairwell and a 2 x 4 wedged between the railings. So we headed for the shop to see if we could obtain some info there. While there we photographed the power sitting out and learned there would be only one job working that day. It would work only locally and had a unit in dip red paint with no markings.


We had learned from another fan the previous day that there would be a CP train heading north with ICE/DME power so we decided to look for it. We eventually found an intermodal train with an ICE/DME leader and a Soo SD60 in candy apple red trailing making a pickup at the north end of Taylor Yard. So we headed out to Nicholson, PA to get a shot on Tunkhannock Viaduct.

Well, we waited about 3 hours before giving up. We had talked to some locals who had been walking the track and they never saw a train. After lunch in Nicholson we headed back to Scranton where we encountered a manifest heading north. We turned around and raced back to the viaduct, beating the train by about 5 minutes.


We then chased the train getting shots along US 11,

south of New Milford, and

north of New Milford.

Shortly after we took the photo above the train went into a siding and the crew was relieved. As we were very close to Binghamton at this point we decided to look around there. A couple of former TP&W GP20s were in the Susquehanna yard along with 2 of their 3 SD70s and some other units.

At the south end of CP's Conklin Yard an incoming train was yarding its cars while an outbound with an ICE/DME SD40 sat awaiting departure.

The second and final installment will cover the first runs of the F3s owned by the Anthracite Railroad Historical Society and the Tri State Chapter of the NRHS that have just been repainted into the Delaware Lackawanna and Western freight scheme and the ARHS RS-3 in CNJ.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. Thanks for looking.