Astro, Rails, and Fish

Three fun topics, one easy post!

I had today off from work. So I went the neighbor to a lake about an hour north of the twin cities to do some ice fishing.  The lake is about a mile and a half east of the BNSF Hinckley subdivision. So after a half hour or so of fishing, I heard the wonderfull sound of a train horn off in the distance.  We kept fishing til after dark.  After we finished and were packing up, I looked up and saw Orion rising in the east, and the milky way overhead coursing from Auriga and Perseus down to Cygnus on the wester horizion.  All in all, a pretty successfull trip, and three cool things in one post!

Did I mention I like trains?

Big?  Check
Fast? Check
Loud? Double Check

Here the UP Challenger 3985 pounds the rails through Platteville Colorado, with almost a mile of tools cars, burbling GE's, and circus train in tow.  How someone cannot be impressed by this is beyond me.

POTD 12/11/11

This one could also be called "Hey there big guy!"  CP 8828 leads a short northbound train on a cool Thanksgiving day.  We are just a couple of miles north of Hasting MN, where the line crosses under Highway 61 in the background.  This was one of my first shots with a vibration reducing lens, and the results seemed pretty promising.  The shot was 1/160th at f5.6 ISO 200.  Normally those setting for me result in a nice chunk of blur.

CP 8828 Thanksgiving Day 2010