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Tuesday
6 Nov: First train near Java, CA taken with the 400mm Blunderbuss |
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Second
train is a stacker loaded with MSC containers |
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And
lastly, an unusual load of parts for wind turbines. Well that's
not a bad way to start the day |
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A
little further west... |
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Squiggly
trains cross at the Java loops |
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More
of the same. This is quite a neat spot |
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As
the railroad heads down to the Colorado River, it passes through
an interesting moonscape |
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On
the Arizona side, approaching the Colorado River |
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Taken
from the same spot, the
above train can be seen in the distance as an eastbound comes
across the river |
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Darryl
finally gives Kingman a shot, Its certainly easy to get to... |
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This
was to be the only decent spot the sun would let me have in
Kingman. Yet so many people rave about the place. |
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A
little closer to Kingman |
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And
to wrap up the afternoon, a grab
shot past the nicest smelling sewerage ponds ever. In Kingman,
their shite don't stink. |
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What
better way to finish the day than at the Sportsman's Bar in
Kingman. The awful wine is tempered by the BNSF mainline being
right across the road |
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The
next day I was up a little later and moving a little more
carefully than usual. Things were also running a little slowly
for the railroad this morning, as it took forever for this to come by.
I filled in the time by identifying 7 different calibers of
bullet cases. |
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Back
at the river again |
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And
again |
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And
again |
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And
again - awesome captions dude |
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Near
Park Moabi road |
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Boing.
You wouldn't want to see one of things with a hangover |
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The
KCS Southern Belle was a pusher for the stack train pictured
above |
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Just
west of the Colorado river I went for a wee climb up the hills
to get a few shots in the strange scenery. |
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The
same train for some non-variety |
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The
view looking east. Decent from this spot was by way of a
controlled slide to the bottom. And in a first, I didn't fall
over... |
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A
BNSF manifest climbs up from the Colorado River. As viewed
through the 600+mm of the Blunderbuss on the 40D. With all that
excitement over, it was time to visit Oatman. |
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In
this picture, our hero grimaces as he has just backed into one
of those cactuses |
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Cruising
the old Route 66 |
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Oatman
was a bit touristy for my liking, with its burros walking the
streets and pooping everywhere, although they did have a nice
pub, which was wallpapered in one dollar bills. The scenery on
the climb to Sitgreaves Pass (between Oatman to Kingman) at
sunset was nothing short of spectacular. And what a road!
Serious windy driving material. |
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Burro on
Sitgreaves Pass - old Route 66 |
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Next
morning saw me heading east to
the Crookton overpass to capture this fine set of local power |
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Just
down the road, another eastbound leaves Seligman behind |
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And
then it was back toward the west. An uncropped version of this
pic is here |
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Pica
in awful heat haze. Must come back another time when its cooler |
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More
Pica |
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Can
never have too much Pica |
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OK,
that's enough Pica |
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Just
west of Pica and up the hill a little bit, I took about 5 trains
that look like this. I think we could call that a waste of an
afternoon. |
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Mmmm,
warbonnet |
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Pica
from the west end |
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And
again as the sun sets |
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Day
4 is a bit of a washout. I chased some blue sky east from
Seligman for a few hours without catching it before stumbling upon the impressive Canyon Diablo
and its bridge. |
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Luckily,
the skies gave a little light |
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And
plenty of trains in the hour I was there |
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And
that was that. The Meteor Crater up the road was worth a visit.
Winslow less so, but at least I can say I was briefly Standing on a
corner in Winslow Arizona... |
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Saturday
Nov 10 is Crozier Day and the decision to stay an extra day is
rewarded with SUN!!! |
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Crozier
is such an amazing place to go for a walk |
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The
same train - ah the beauty of having two camera bodies |
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And
what a day for it |
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Trains
and fall color |
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Autoracks
east |
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The
cutting at the west end |
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Then
it was time to go climbing |
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Wheee! |
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Damn
eastbounds |
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Love
the view from up here |
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Machines
in nature |
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A
nice Ntrak module for someone |
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Crozier
from the canyon rim |
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Coming
through the canyon in the later afternoon |
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Darryl
gets screwed by too many trains for the third time |
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Last
train to wrap up an almost perfect day |
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