Traffic in Portland, Oregon was a mess due to the Rose Festival, so I decided to avoid Interstate 5. Instead I decided to head out to the Columbia River Gorge via Interstate 205 and Interstate 84 in order to shoot some railroad footage in Corbett.
After heading east on I-84 for about 70 miles, I crossed the Columbia River at Hood River in order to get some railroad footage on the Washington side.
While traveling west on State Route 14 I picked up some interesting light effects as I passed through a series of tunnels. It was almost like the effects in the movies where someone sees the light. Hence the title of the video.
Outside of the tunnels I was bummed out. I did not run into any trains until I hit the town of Washougal, Washington about which is about 55 miles west of the Hood River toll bridge. However, when I reached Vancouver, Washington I was able to catch footage of a couple of trash trains.
This tunnel footage was the highlight of the trip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKLhy02-EBY&feature=plcp
…Tunnel footage neat. Back east, you could get similar footage on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the difference being, tunnels much longer, and of course further apart. But they are lit up inside rather well too. There used to be 7 tunnels on original east / west part of it, but some have been abandoned and a new bypass route around them. All bypasses, not going above the 3% grade for the Turnpike, as was the original route.
I’ll be darned. Sounds interesting, I might have to head back east sometime.
Longview Railfan:
Pull up “Pennsylvania Turnpike” on the internet, and you can see lots of photos of what I’m relating to…
By the way…The basic ROW was originally created for “The SouthPenn RR”…That was back in the early 1880s, but never finished. It’s a long story. The Penn Turnpike road construction was more or less a project back in the mid 30’s to put people to work, and use the long abandoned ROW across the Allegheny Mountains.
And it quickly become a very busy “modern” way across the mountains. Of course, it’s now part of the interstate system. And a very busy part…