Fail #1: I Feel Bad For All The Other Railfans There. I went to University Junction in St. Paul, Minnesota to see what i could catch, and that’s the beginning of epic fail number one… I saw headlights coming out of Northtown yard and headlights coming into Northtown and soon enough, two BNSF freights met. But then i heard a GEVO horn and wondered what that was. IT WAS THE NORFOLK HERITAGE UNIT. 2 trains blocked my camera and i couldn’t even get a glimpse on camera!
Fail #2: I was at Pig’s Eye Yard next to the cement plant in St. Paul, and i saw a IC&E SD40-2 and a yellow CEFX SD45 coming. I had just arrived and quickly turned on my camera. Then it died. I finally got it working and ran as fast as i can to get alongside the IC&E. (Don’t worry, i didn’t even go near the train tracks.) I got crappy video…
Fail #3:I was alongside the Paynesville Sub trying to catch Soo Line Job H41 and after waiting for 2 Hours, I saw headlights. It was a Hi-Rail.
Fail #4: All Minnesota Railfans Know This One!!! While railfanning Milwaukee 261 pulling out of Minneapolis junction, a BNSF taconite train pulled up right in front of it.
Wrong Settings on Camera, yielding speed blurry shots.
Following a unit focusing & then triggering as that awesome Oak tree gets a great picture!
Say did that Leased unit look like the UP unit in this pic? At the time it was still under construction, & has yet to be weathered. Mine is a CITX exUP SD45, as an SD40-3 internally (#3633).
My epic fail story. This was last year, I was trying to get some photos of the Oil Refinery near Denver.
There are public roads that intersect with private property in the refinery. I thought I was ok?
Epic fail #1 Security spots me as I get out of my car. I quickly take some pics, then he yells at me. Tells me I can’t take photos, and I need to leave.
Epic fail #2 I drive around and find another spot, thought I was hidden. Rolled down the window, snapped some pics, and the same dang security guy spots me! Oh crap. He was pissed. He threatened to call the police this time.
Epic fail #3 I finally leave, as I’m leaving, I see a cop behind me. Uh ohhhhhh. He pulls me over. He has no idea I was at the refinery or anything. But writes me a ticket for expired plates. $150 fine.
Needles to say, I’ve never been near that refinery again. LOL
My biggest fail? In April 2003 I drove 600 miles from Maryland to Michigan for an annual gathering of the Railroad Industries SIG. One of the meet hosts arranged an excursion cruise on the Detroit River, and I went thru 6 rolls of 36-exposure film. I got some spectacular shots of an ore bridge (traveling overhead crane) that I wanted to scratchbuild a model of.
Got back to Maryland, and I brought my rolls of film to Walmart’s photo center to be developed. Went back the following day, the woman handed me 5 bags of color prints. “But I brought in six..?” I insisted. She found a drop-off bag I had filled out, the film cannister was in there with a few feet of transparent film sticking out of it. “What’s going on with this one?” I asked. “Oh…somebody on last night’s shift thought it was a different speed of film so they accidentally erased it.” As murphy’s Law would have it, this was the one with all my ore bridge shots on it. The woman must have seen my face and neck turning purple as I tried to suppress my rage. “Don’t worry sir,” she said, “We’ll give you a fresh new roll of film and develop it for you free of charge!”
A local friend who had gone on the same Detroit trip, let me copy some of his photos to use for my ore bridge modeling project. Not the same as having my own, though…[sigh]
Stopped at a railroad crossing while chasing a steam fantrip. Thought I got ahead of it, until I heard the whistle over the hill. Was actually standing alongside an abandoned line.
While riding the Great Smokey Mountain Railroad a few years back, I took photos of the equipment before departure, the beautiful scenery along the way, more photos at the turn around, and even more photos of the scenery on the return trip. Then it happened, the car ahead of us derailed. We didn’t even feel it, but I suspected something unusual had happened as there was no reason to stop out in the middle of nowhere. Then they made an announcement about the derail and instructed everyone in the rear cars to move forward as they were just going to uncouple the effected cars and leave them there. I managed to place myself in a position to get good photos as we pulled away, and then… you guessed it. DEAD BATTERIES. I don’t have even 1 photo of this, at least for me, once in a lifetime event.
EDIT - Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Where I railfan there are 3 main tracks and we see quite a few meets at this location. What I’ve never understood is why it’s always a double stack intermodal on the closest track that completely hides the more interesting trains on the far tracks. I don’t even want to think about all of the great things I’m sure I missed.
Our second day in Athens was a “no planned (pre-paid) activities” day but they offered an extra fare bus tour to Corinth. I opted out of the expensive canned bus tour and went on my own on the Peloponnese narrow-gauge train to Corinth- even though I wouldn’t been able to take any pictures. My camera shutter had jammed the day before.
I believe I was the only non-Greek on the train. Fairly conspicuous. That day our train met at least seven military trains of troops out on some sort of maneuvers. The country was under some kind of strong military rule at the time. I don’t know how I could have explained “knowing” how to be on that train at that time with a camera to collect intelligence on their operations.
Never was a railfan photo fail such an accident success for me!
I’ve had some bad times railfanning and not railfanning. My first memorable experience was when my mom was taking me somewhere. We were near the line going through west end of Lethbridge, Alberta, when the Empress steam locomotive CP 2816 was passing with the Rocky Mountain Express. Thinking I’d catch it next time, I was so wrong. When E. Hunter Harrison became CP’s CEO, he had declared 2816 won’t run while he was in office. Such luck. My next experience was when I was out railfanning. I waited two hours near the Lethbridge Viaduct to catch a train. But none showed. I was heading back home on a transit bus when I caught a glimpse of a train crossing the viaduct. Not just any train though. It was a CP mixed freight with intermodal freight and autoracks, supposedly on detour because of the 2013 June Floods in Southern Alberta. These trains SO very rarely come on this line because there is no loading terminals along it. I was so shocked and sad, I almost threw up. Then later on, I was heading home from Waterton Lakes National Park with family. We had just passed Pincher Creek, when we came over a hill, where you can get a close view of the line. Well just passing was the Royal Canadian Pacific excursion train. No time to pull out my camera. Bummed for the rest of the week. Finally, I was watching switching moves at the Lethbridge Yard near Kipp, Alberta, when I saw a BNSF coal coming in. It had a BNSF unit behind the leading CP AC44, so I took a few shots. When I saw the rear DPU approaching, a CP ES44AC, I thought I could get a few roof shots for reference if I ever wanted one for the layout. Thinking I was snapping photos, I was dead wrong. The camera died as soon as turned it on for the GEVO. I’ve had my ups and downs, but its been still awesome. Catching CN units with BNSF coal trains on CP doesn’t happen a lot. Or snapping a once in a life time shot of CN units on the CP Lethbridge Viaduct. That picture will be on the September issue of Canadian Railway Observations. I’ve been t
A rare (and now probably impossible) chance to tour the Soo Line (now CN) shops in Fond du Lac WI, shooting 35 Kodachrome like crazy, and when the tour ended it occurred to me I had shot way more than 36 shots but had never had to change film. Hmmm. That’s right: I loaded the film wrong and now the bus was leaving …
Standard Friday night railfanning but it was dark and cloudy and I decided to leave my camera at home and so did my buddy. The Schnable car with huge load appeared and rumbled slowly past.
A variant. A guest editorial in Trains magazine said we are all spending too much time watching trains through the viewfinder. Forget your camera and just watch trains with your eyes. Did so that Saturday morning and walked to the nearby C&NW tracks. The normal freight came through – with an Alco from the Huron District dead in tow.
We won’t mention some auto-focus regrets.
Madly chasing C&NW 1385 as it headed south from Milwaukee to Kenosha and then into Illinois. After getting our shots in Kenosha we headed out of town at speed. we were heading north …
Not my fail thank heavens but when UP sent 844 up to Milwaukee as a PR gesture, it was running on the former C&NW “new line” sometimes called the freight line. On the way we saw a lot of fans with cameras a d tripods patiently waiting and staking out spots along the former CNW “old line” where they were not going to see anything much less 844 and its passenger cars.
I grew up in the 1950’s and early 1960’s next to the CB&Q mainline through suburbs of Chicago.
I had plenty of chances to photograph trains, but unfortunately I could not always be carrying a camera.
In 1960, I had one of those days when I wished I had my camera. CB&Q donated its famous Pioneer Zephyr to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Prior to transferring the train to the museum, Burlington performed some work on the train at its Aurora car shops. Upon completion of the work, the Pioneer Zephyr was coupled to the rear of suburban passenger train for hauling it to Chicago.
I saw the Pioneer Zephyr coupled to the rear of a suburban passenger train. The regular train was an E8 or E9 with a pair of Budd bi-levels and a power generator coach. I wish I took a picture of it.
