Every time I am on the road to or from work and I see a
train crossing the highway, I think to myself that I should get out and do a
little railfanning. Usually schedule,
procrastination, and weather collude against such trips. On a recent weekend though, things came
together and I struck while the iron was hot.
I wanted a change of scenery as well. Part of my doldrums have come from going to
the same spots around town too often.
While these spots have plenty of trains rolling through, they are far
from scenic. I had been to the depot in
Wayzata before, and while scenic, is kind of a gamble on train count. But I wanted another shot at this location. There
are about 10-15 trains a day rolling through, which is about 1 every 2 hours or
so. If they clump up, there is a good
chance of being skunked if one can only stay for an hour or two.
Fortunately there was
plenty of things to keep my camera busy.
The location is the former Great Northern depot along the north shore of
Lake Minnetonka, in the city of Wayzata.
The line used to be part of the original northern transcontinental
railroad, built by rail magnate James J Hill.
Lake Minnetonka is a very popular lake on the western side of Minneapolis. There is a lot of wealth in the area, so
there are also a lot of nice boats and interesting people to see there.
The shot I wanted / needed would be of a westbound
train. This was dictated by the low sun
in the west. When I got there, I had an
hour or two max to get my picture before the sun went down. My other goal for the trip was to just use my
50mm f1.8 lens, I won a few battles with this lens, and the lens taught me that I still have some practice to do with it. I’ll explain more about
that in a later post.
A view of the lake from the west end of the depot grounds. If I got a shot, this is where it would come
from. There was very little chance of a train sneaking up in this area. There are several crossings in the area, and with heavy vehicle and foot traffic at the crossings, train crews make liberal use of the horn. So I set about exploring the area. There are a few fishing piers and docks within walking distance, so I went for a walk.
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| View to the east |
I walked along some of the docks to look at the boats. Most of the boats at
the docks were covered up, but this boat was
showing a little more than her neighbors. With the 50 f.18, you can't zoom in our out, so to get more or less in the frame you have to back your body up. I ran out of room to back up, one more step and I would be in the drink!
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| Something Marie... |
There were still no trains at this point, so I walked down a
ways to some piers at the east end of the area to see what the sight lines were
from there. My original location was better, but there was a little more boat traffic here.
This boat had a beautiful sound as it idled away waiting for
it’s upcoming trip. Someone was going to
have a good time, as the coolers were loaded to the hilt with choice
beverages.
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| She sounded nice! |
American flag flying from the stern.
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| Flying the Red, White, and Blue |
Abeautiful wood boat, maybe a Chris Craft?
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| What am I? |
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| Lots of beautiful wood and chrome |
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| Dials and Levers |
But there were still no trains though. I thought that I was going to get skunked as
I was rapidly running out of daylight.
While I was waiting, I saw a couple snapping pics of each other with
their iPhones. I went down and offered
to take a few of them together. They
were in town from California for a wedding, and were appreciative of getting
their picture together.
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| The couple on the bench |
Now I don’t think the railroad dispatches trains with karma
in mind. At this point there was only a
few minutes of daylight left, and I was feeling good about the trip even
without getting a train shot. I saw some
cool boats, talked with a few fishermen, and did a good deed for some
tourists. I had the camera packed up,
and was ready to walk back to the car when the horn sounded across the lake.
My train had arrived, and from the proper direction! I got the camera back out and framed my
shot. I metered the scene for good
exposure, and waited for him to roll into view.
With fall just around the corner, the need for grain cars out west is
starting to pick up. A westbound train
of empties was on this evening’s menu. A
couple of big GE’s were barely turning over moving this one along a nice flat
stretch of the line. The people that
will occupy the large development that sprouted behind the train will get this view
several times a day, lucky bastards!
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| Success! |
