I spent a productive day on Thursday hiking to some favorite mountaintop vantagepoints overlooking the CSX in the Hudson Valley, NY near Bear Mountain and caught decent train action with Fall colors as a backdrop. I have added 21 pictures to my Flickr account documenting some highlights of the day. These newest group of pics are located at the top of the album. Take a peek here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30144616@N04/?saved=1
Nice catches Dave. I might be heading up that way tomorrow and hopefully will see a few things.
Enjoyed your newest photos Dave…Very nice.
Some of them are a little too high for my liking but all in all very nice…
Thanks for sharing…
BTW how do you find train pics on Flikr? I looked under trains and railroads and it told me “NO Matches” found
Thanks, Modelcar…the shots from the Mountaintop above the East Shore were taken from atop Anthony’s Nose Mountain…It requires a 40-45 minute hike up the mountain from road level via a marked foot trail…It has become my favorite vantagepoint in the area…One can see a six mile stretch of the CSX mainline from up top there…which means that I can shoot the same train multiple times as it travels below me…It is like looking down on a model train layout…The afternoon shots of the Metro-North and CSX Q118 activity were taken from the opposite side of the river on the West Shore atop Bear Mountain…that overlook can be either hiked to, or driven to…Although the view is splendid from that overlook as well, I enjoy the Anthony’s Nose location more because I have to ‘work for it’…meaning hiking as there is no road access to the top of Anthony’s Nose, and I usually find solitude there, in comparison to the afternoon spot atop Bear Mountain, where carloads of sightseers often crowd in around me…During the Winter months,from December until early April, the road that leads up to the overlook on Bear Mountain is closed to vehicular traffic, so the only way to get up top then is to hike the Appalachian trail…which I do during those months as I enjoy the exercise.
I have never done a search on Flickr so don’t know how or if that part works…I have only utilized Flickr to upload and share my pics thus far…Dave W.
We had alot of wind and rain this evening, but it is supposed to be sunny and in the 60’s on Sunday…Unfortunately, I have to work tomorrow, so I won’t be trackside…I am hoping to get out sometime midweek this week for another full day of railfanning around Bear Mountain if the weather cooperates then…Dave W.
Dave:
Thanks again for the link to your fine photos of Bear Mountain area. It is always a pleasure to look at your fine work of that area.
I listen in on Fostoria web based scanner and several of the trains are common to Fostoria. In fact I believe the Q118 you shot passed thru Fostoria at 1026pm on Oct 22. It is scheduled for 1045pm and was a little early.
The Q169 is scheduled thru Fostoria at 0215. While I didnt hear the train you shot (Q169-23), the following day’s Q169 was also early at 0133pm.
Ah, technology allows us to railfan in ways we never dreamed of 10 years ago.
ed
Thanks for the positive feedback…I only discovered the East Shore Anthony’s Nose overlook earlier this year after doing a bunch of online research…One day, I was railfanning at ground level and looked up at that mountain and thought to myself “That would be a neat vantagepoint to watch trains from up there…I wonder if there is a way up there?” So I researched on line and discovered that a trail was opened to the public back in 1993 after some land that the trail is on was sold to NY State by the neighboring Camp Smith National Guard Installation who originally put the trail in for training purposes when that parcel of land belonged to the military…Since January, I have hiked to the top about a dozen times already…Dave W.
Thanks for the (almost) memories, Dave,
The last time I saw two trains passing where you caught Amtrak in the act, the southbound was behind a J-3 and the northbound had a Niagara… At that time, the West Shore was already dieselized, with RS-3s, as I recall.
My, how time flies when you’re having fun!
I love the photos, but I’m a continent away, so I’ll just appreciate the scene vicariosly.
Chuck (native New Yorker, long removed)
Great photos. It looks to me as if the fall colors have either reached their peak or they have nearly reached their peak in the Hudson Valley. How difficult is it to climb the trail to Anthony’s Nose? How “treed in” is the view of the east bank of the Hudson River from the top of Bear Mountain?
Thanks for the great photos.
The day that I was up there on Thursday, there was still alot of green on the trees…the colors were focused in the area immediately around and just to the North of the Bear Mountain Bridge…To the South of the Bridge, green still predominated…If you look at my shot taken in the afternoon closer to ground level of the two dark future units pulling a Northbound across the Iona trestle, the foliage in the background appeares mostly green…I hope to be back up one day later this week if the weather is nice to see if things have peaked any further…As far as hiking up Anthony’s Nose, figure about 45 minutes to an hour for someone that has never done it before, or is not used to the exertion…I have it knocked down to about 35 minutes, but that is after a dozen of these hikes so far this year and also after losing 25 pounds with a combination of dieting and alot of this sort of hiking…The trail is marked with painted blue blazes from road level to the top…My access to the trail is from a pulloff along Rte 202 about a mile South of the East end of the Bear Mountain Bridge…After 202 swings past a scenic pulloff parking area where a hotdog vendor often can be found in nicer weather, it will twist a time or two and then will make a hard horseshoe curve turn to the right…On the left side of this horseshoe is a gravel parking area on the mountain-side of the road in a wooded shaded area…From there, hike in toward the left following the blue blazes…the trail alternates between level and steep, so it will be a good workout as it climbs over small rocks and rock formations from time to time. Once you reach t
The view from the top of Bear Mountain itself is fairly unobstructed…If you mean how much of the East shore Hudson Line can you see itself without obstructions along the East Shore river bank, you can see a great deal, you can shoot the Hudson Line from just North of the Bear Mountain Bridge all the way down to near Peekskill…there are some locations in between where there are trees , tunnels or sharp curves and rockcuts that block the view, but you’ll still have plenty of view to shoot them…Dave W.
Dave,
Lovely shots. I really like how you’ve used the area to your advantage to put the trains in their environment. Nicely done!
Thanks…that is one big reason why I enjoy the high vantagepoints above the railroad…as one can watch and photograph the trains in relation to their overall surroundings…some other benefits are getting advance warning of approaching trains simply by being able to see so far…but scanner reception is another benefit…often easily being able to hear crews and defect detectors 30 miles to the North and another 30 miles to the South…so I can get a 60 mile range overall while up top.
Managed to make it there Sunday, a little flooded by the river area but still could get around. Actually it was a beautiful day all around and got a few Metro North shots from across the river , CSX only showed up with one train and I got one shot, but not the place I wanted. But got a lot of pics of various foliage and river activity. It was just a grerat day to be in the mountains, and the towns along the Hudson are always a nice place to visit.
By the way, Dave, do you know if anything still uses that freight line through the lower end of Beacon, NY? It’s not abandoned but obviously hasn’t seen a train in a while and is intact. I believe Conrail ran a train on it to bypass the Hudson or New Haven line at one time. I would appreciate any info you might have on it.
There was a hatful of rain and wind on Saturday, plus it might have also been high tide when you were there…I was at work on Sunday, but on another webgroup, a railfan visiting from Connecticut reported the same curious lack of trains that morning…The one train that showed up around Midday was a Northbound CSX Q702 empty trashtrain, powered by a pair of SD40-2’s…It did pick up in the afternoon, according to his report…By 5PM, he had witnessed 7 trains total on the Riverline, all from Noon onward…with a few more heard on the scanner as he was departing the area as darkness was approaching…During the week, especially from mid-week onward, a morning parade of intermodals usually occurs…I often catch as many as 8 trains by Noontime on a good day there if I’m trackside by 7AM or so…On some good days earlier in the Summer, I was tallying as many as 15-17 trains on the Riverline between 7AM and 7PM…As far as the Beacon Railline, I don’t know anything about that, but I can see if I can find anything out about it…Dave W.