CB1100 Monthly Photo Challenge

[pdedse]

1. Park bike near tracks.
2. Wait for train
3. Take pictures

Our freight trains are usually festooned with graffiti, so I wanted to catch one. This was a big-un, all stacked containers, taking about ten minutes to pass, with two sets of multiple locomotives.




I also wanted to catch a passenger train. This is the Metrolink, our commuter train service that connects Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. This is the train I used to take from my town to Union Station in Downtown L.A. when I worked there daily.

BNSF, 3rd foto...My brother and his son both work for BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) in Topeka, Kansas. Those locomotives very likely have their fingerprints on them.

Along the Columbia River, BNSF runs along the north bank in Washington, while Union Pacific owns the south bank rail line on the Oregon side of the river.

While at the Bonneville Dam a few days ago, the UP train rolled by, but a little difficult to spot with all the other things going on in the photo: the locks of the dam, fall leaves, powerlines, the skeletal remains of the burned trunks...and of course, the CB1100...


That upper forest used to be as green as the middle line of trees until a youngin' of 15 years thought shooting bottle-rockets into the forest at the height of the dry season would be fun (Sept, 2017). The fire that resulted would consume 48,000 acres, shut down a 30 mile length of interstate 84, and wouldn't be fully contained for 3 months. A couple of days after the fire started, about an 1/8" of ash covered our house, deck, cars...fun cleanup.

The boy was fined 36 million dollars (can be "collected" after 10 years, good luck there), and he was given 1920 hours of community service with the Forest Service. So many beautiful hiking trails were destroyed, some will never re-open. A sad tale all around

But, things starting to grow back after five years. It will just be another hundred and five till the forest looks similar. Whoops, off topic.