Yosemite and More

I took a vacation and my first visit was the Nevada Northern Railway. One of the main attractions of the Railway are the three steam engines. Unfortunately for me they were all out of service and in parts in the shop. The Nevada Northern came to being after the Kennecot Copper mine in nearby Ruth shut down. The rolling stock (railroad engines, etc) yard and equipment  were donated and the Nevada Northern Railway came to fruition. Almost everything at the Railway are original to the mine and it's operation. Diesel engines aren't a big draw for me but they did have one show stopper. The original mine at Ruth was reopened and named the Robertson Mine.  When I visited it many years ago, before the reopening, the pile of excavated rock was about up to the second tier you see now. I found the various colors intriguing Being a male dominated business I'm guessing this sign is fairly new. I changed a lot of the photos to Sepia and Black and White to  give more of an old timey fee...

 Recently took a trip to the eastside of the Sierra's with Friedhelm and Nancy. One of the highlights for me was the Laws Museum in Bishop California. It markets itself  as a railroad museum but is much more than that. It's a frontier town, agricultural museum, mining museum, wagon museum, rock museum and much, much more.  I changed many of the photos to Sepia, hope you enjoy. Go, See, Enjoy, Stay Safe and Photograph Dave 

 My brother Jim took me on a little tour of the North State beginning with the little town of Hornbrook. It's a former major stop for the Southern Pacific Railroad before the Siskiyou Summit. As with most rural areas there are some interesting uses of materials. Before the advent of automatic crossing guards men would stay safe from the weather in one of these waiting to stop traffic from an approaching train. I'm sure without automatic crossing guards or someone controlling the crossing this would work to stop the train. Four dams were removed from the Klamath River. Restoration work is continuing, but for the time being the former reservoirs look  like this. It's recently been reported that a few salmon have returned. Go, See, Enjoy, be Safe and Photograph Dave

Friedhelm knew I like to visit railroads and as a birthday gift, I'm 364 days older than him, he took me to this museum. A great choice. Any suggestions on where I should take him, even if he is younger. Most of the railroads I've been to are steam or diesel powered, the Western Railway Museum is almost entirely electrical . The trains are powered by overhead electric lines and are historically used for commuter traffic, they're often called 'trolly's'. We were lucky that it was a slow day. We were the only ones aboard for the 11am run. Our conductor and the engineer were extremely accommodating and knowledgeable. I'm sorry I didn't get better photos of them. We had a great and informative trip. Here's the 'trolly' we rode on. Self contained, no other engine required. She's a butte isn't she. Looking out the open front window. Overhead lines for power, track lines for a road. If y...

I had to go to Sacramento for my job (the semi part of semi-retired). Since I was done early I decided to visit Old Sacramento.  But first a little story. Since I had spilled some chemical down my pant leg and it looked ...um... unseemly,  I went out and bought a pair of shorts and some socks, and was ready to go. I'm a member of the California Railroad Museum and therefore got in free. It wasn't a disappointment from a railroad fan point of view. I was however disappointed from a  photographers point of view. The museum was quite dark, no tripods allowed,  and most of the exhibits were under glass. I did get a couple of inside shots I liked. This is the water injector that put the water in the boiler, a very mundane function but in yesteryear an opportunity to shine. An this is one of the most famous color schemes. It's the Santa Fe's War Bonnet colors.  A modified version is used today by the Atchison Topeka and Santa...

I recently had to go to Seattle Washington on a business trip. It started out that I would work a couple of days and take a few off. Well work turned out to take a little longer. But that was Okay since it rained almost the whole time I was up there. I did take the time to go to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The day was such that I could only shoot in the inside of the museum. That posed the problem of lots of busy things in your and your cameras sight-line. So closeups or looking up seemed the order of the day. I don't know if this is a distinction to be proud of but apparently the Italians were the first to use aircraft in combat during a war with Turkey. And the first to develop a fighter plane the Beriot. On one of my days off the weather report was cloudy but only a 5% chance of rain. I headed out to a Railroad Museum south of Seattle. Before it started to rain real hard I snapped a few shots, but not many. ...