Trackside with Trains

I entered another "Trackside with Trains" reader favorites poll from Trains magazine. The theme for this installment was Trains Along the Water. I took this picture in Alviso, a small formerly unincorporated area of San Jose. It was a cool, still, March morning. The water was undisturbed except for the faint steps of a few waterfowl. Their mirrored reflections can be seen in the lower left corner of the picture. Last time I submitted a picture to "Trackside with Trains" back in March it garnered enough votes for a respectable third place showing. I'm crossing my fingers for a slightly better showing this time. I'll update and link when I hear the results.

It's been quite some time since I've been out anywhere taking pictures of trains (or anything other than grand kids). I will have to remedy that situation very soon. I need some ferroequinology paparazzo therapy. Update - 6/1/2012 Well this is rather disappointing. I didn't even make the cut. There were three reader submissions, none of which were mine. There's always the next one!

Trains Magazine Contribution

Recently I submitted one of my pictures to Trains Magazine for their "Trackside with Trains" feature. It's a 'vote for your favorite' kind of feature. The theme was titled "Yellow". The idea is to submit a rail related photo that has something to do with the color yellow. I went through my portfolio and narrowed it down to a couple of pictures. After agonizing over the decision (well, not really) I chose a picture I took in Alviso. My entry tallied enough votes for a respectable third place.

Back in the mid to late 1800's Alviso was destined to be a port city. Shipping from San Francisco and beyond would arrive in Alviso for distribution throughout the south San Francisco bay area. At the time the area was a large agricultural region. However, the hopes of it becoming a booming port city were dashed when the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad bypassed Alviso. The growth in transporting commodities by rail was the death knell for Alviso. The building captured in the image is the former Laine's Grocery in the late 1800's. The building was in use up until major flooding caused severe damage in 1983.

Cool Morning Sunrise

Westbound Amtrak Capitol Corridor #523
Originally uploaded by sharkzƒan

Just wanted to share a sunrise with folks because I have really been neglectful of my blog as of late. We have a grandson on the way so we've been pretty busy with baby shower preparations and just general grandparent stuff. That sounds really wierd to be speaking of myself as a grandparent! Ack!

Remiss In My Duties

It's been 10 days since I posted. I've been on vacation so I guess I really have no valid excuse. I will say that I have the Christmas tree finally completed. Now it's a battle to keep the cat from destroying it.





I haven't been completely devoid of doing anything meaningful. Sunday 12/7 Mrs. Farfromgruvin and I went down to the Santa Clara CalTrain station to see the holiday train. It was a nice change of pace.





The station was open so families had their kids inside looking at the model railroad display in the historic building. Coffee, hot chocolate and cider were for sale. The Salvation Army had carolers and a band playing. Toys For Tots had a big toy drive going on.







Wide eyed kids all over the place. They were expending energy at a phenominal rate of speed. It's been awhile since we've been around a cluster of young'uns like that.



It was just brisk enough to have a wintery feel to it. It has been uncommonly mild this December (NOT due to global warming). I will definitely be placing this activity on my annual Christmas event schedule. More importantly, we have dibs on the grandbaby!! Probably not this next year since he will only be about seven months old. But Christmas 2010...

"A Little Help From My Friends"

A picture of something not seen too often. Usually the Coast Starlight is headed by two Amtrak GE P42DC locomotives. Apparently one had some trouble. Union Pacific loaned Amtrak an EMD SD70M to possibly complete the trip to LA or to get to the next location that had available Amtrak motive power. They obviously would not want the Starlight to be stranded on their mainline interrupting their flow of freight traffic.

Aloha! Part II

I took the above shot in the Iao Valley Park. I'm not sure what kind of flower but it's beautiful, eh? We are in the middle of seven glorious days on Maui. So far we have been to the Haleakala Crater,




the Iao Valley.



the Sugar Cane Train in Lahaina (Lahaina, Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad),



The engineer that operated this steam locomotive was a twenty-something woman!

Just Messin' Around

My new camera has movie capabilities and I was just trying it out. I just wish it had sound as well. I took this video at the Santa Clara CalTrain station. I was about 10 feet from the track steadying myself on a wooden fence. You can still see the movement as the wind "hits" me when the locomotive passes.

California High Speed Rail

Here's a page that has some very cool conceptual animations of the proposed California High Speed Rail system. I think we are certainly ripe for this as a state. Gas is becoming ridiculously expensive and airlines are cutting back on flights and increasing fares due to fuel prices. I think it's definitely an idea whose time is long overdue.

Hired For My Dream Job

Well, sort of.

(edit 7/22/08) The title link takes you to an article by a fellow blogger, railfan, photographer and general rabel rouser that has been in the same situation regarding jobs.

For roughly the last 10 months I have rekindled my interest in all things railroads. Around February I had actually put in an application at the Union Pacific Railroad website. There were openings for "Train Crew Service" in Watsonville, Milpitas and Oakland. I had applied for all three to see what would transpire. I received an invitation to a reading comprehension test in April. I took the test scoring eighty five percent. It was a twenty question test to be completed in thirty minutes. Essentially you read from the freight handlers manual and then chose the appropriate answer. It was an interesting experience since this was a completely foreign area of knowledge for me.

A couple of weeks after I took the test I received an invitation to a hiring session at the Santa Cruz/Scott's Valley Hilton. They gave the lowdown on what the job was all about. Even though I had applied for specific locations, the job actually was a position in the Roseville service area. The geographic points of this service area stretched from Klamath at the Oregon border on the north side down to San Luis Obispo in the south and east to Winnemucca, Nevada. Once your training was over after about 8 weeks, you "mark up". You then bid with your seniority on open positions. Since you have little to no seniority, you may wind up bidding on a slot in Winnemucca, Nevada. You have 48 hours to report (on your own dime, I might add) to the location and find a place to stay. Admittedly, our HR rep doing the information session said a lot of folks sleep in their cars when they first arrive at their new location. However, there is a caveat. You could be on the way to this Winnemucca location and your cell phone could ring. It's the Crewmaster telling you you've been bumped off your newlty aquired position. Time to find a new job to bid on. You find an open shift in Bakersfield. Nine hours into your drive to get there, your phone rings again. Guess what? You've been bumped again. The process starts over. To top things off, you haven't even worked yet so you are not getting paid for any of this. The example is a worst case scenario but it could happen.

There is also a chance that once your training is over you could be furloughed because there are no open positions available. Accarding to the HR rep, thirty percent of the Union Pacific workforce is retiring in the next five years. That would seem to be good odds for moving up in seniority rather quickly. That doesn't mean that the service area you apply for has openings already. They may be hiring to prepare for future retirements.

The discussion also involved benefits. They spoke of co-pays for medical and prescriptions. Currently mine are infinitesmal compared to the described benefits of UP. The kicker was the vacation accrual. After two years you get a week. Nothing out of the ordinary. Four years, two weeks. Nine years, three weeks. Seventeen years for four weeks. Last but not least, twenty-five years years before you get five weeks. This may sound like a good deal to some. To me it was the straw that broke the camels back. I thought long and hard about taking a pay cut. I figured I could do it. I thought about the co-pays for doctor visits and prescriptions. That would hurt a lot. The vacation schedule put a nail in the coffin of my dream job. With the inconvieniences and disruptions in your life and that of your family, the adjustment I would have to make to accept my dream job offer was more than I could handle.

At least I can say I got hired for my dream job! I'll have to keep my part-time "job" as a foamer for now!

Lawsuits Are The Answer

It always amazes me that when trouble strikes the first on the scene are the lawyers. We wonder why goods and services are so expensive. The million dollar scalding cup of coffee incident at McDonald's is a good example.

This article on CalTrain having found some hairline cracks near the wheel assemblies of their passenger cars amazes me. The fourth sentence of the article talks about CalTrain officials "looking into their legal options after the flaws were discovered". Talk of a lawsuit is thrown around before any mention of discussions with the manufacturer of the equipment. The assumption is there was negligence involved in these cracks appearing in the wheel assemblies? Any reputable manufacturer would be anxious to correct a problem with their equipment to maintain their customers' satisfaction.

My hope is that the politicians running The Peninsula Joint Powers Board are not looking to help bridge the gap in their upcoming 2009 budget shortfall. They are politicians so I'm not holding my breath.

Amtrak Capitol Corridor

Amtrak Capitol Corridor, originally uploaded by sharkzƒan.

I took this in Alviso on a calm morning. The lack of a breeze provided a great reflective surface on the water.

Connections

Through my Flickr page I've been corresponding with folks all over the country (and the world for that matter) who have the same interest in railfanning. I was contacted by an individual who wanted to use one of my pictures for their blog. I was quite honored that they would think highly enough of it to want to display it to their readers. I gave him permission to use it. Come to find out he's a conductor for Amtrak and does the Capitol Corridor run from Sacramento to San Jose. He may very well have been on the the train in the image in my last post. I haven't heard from him confirming that, but we'll see. It seems like a consistantly smaller and smaller world as we barrel headlong into the communications and social networking era. Here's a link to his blog "Bad Iron"

I Think It's "The One"

You would only understand this term if you were an enthusiast. So this is "the one", at least until another, grander one comes along. You can also view it large on my Flickr page

The Gimp 2 Photo Editor

I really have fun using the various "filters" that are provided with the program. The Gimp 2 isn't always easy to use and there are processes that are way over my amateur head, but I still have fun with the things I have figured out how to use. You need to see the image above in it's largest size to appreciate the effect.



This is another filter in the Gimp 2. It's called "Emboss". Here's the photo's Flickr page.

UP7777 at Sunrise

UP7777 at Sunrise
Originally uploaded by sharkzfan

A favorite shot of the same motive power that's in the picture below.

Union Pacific C45ACCTE number 7777

Union Pacific C45ACCTE number 7777 and Scotch-Brite!
Originally uploaded by sharkzfan

This is one of my latest favorites. I took this outside the NUMMI plant in Fremont just before dawn.

Here's another Scotch-Brite image. This is a "patched" Southern Pacific SD40 which has been renumbered to UP2712. Some say that the Union Pacific and the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) railroads have swallowed up all the competition and become monopolies. You can also find this picture on my Flickr page


I have this this image posted on my Flickr page. I've title the picture "phosphorous" because of the intensity of the sunrise coming through the overcast. Even though there is some "burn" that seeps into the other areas of the picture, I think the overall effect is very interesting

Here's a link to the page on my Flickr account

Scotch-Brite Wedgie

Scotch-Brite Wedgie
Originally uploaded by sharkzfan

The "wedgie" that I refer to is the 1/3 angle shot such as this one. It's definitely the most common composition angle with railfans. I really love this reflector tape photography. I enjoy it so much I've created a Flickr Group called "Railroad Scotch-Brite"

http://flickr.com/groups/railroad_scotchbrite/

She's not just for TV anymore!

She's not just for TV anymore!
Originally uploaded by sd45hogger

Oprah has most of the money in the western hemisphere and some of the east's yet she can still find it in her portfolio to diversify into Canadian Pacific gondola cars. Amazing!

Actually, if you were fooled, it's really a great graffiti job. The gondola really should say "CP Rail" on the side but has been altered to say OPRaH.

It kind of takes something out of the humor when you have to explain it but I thought if I didn't, most folks would be saying to themselves "uhh, what?"

Found on sd45hogger's Flickr page

Amtrak through Alviso

This shot didn't quite turn out the way I would have liked. I was trying to get a fair amount of the bridge and the reeds from the slough in the picture. However, in doing so I cropped the top of the picture just close enough to where the top of the locomotive is nearly out of the picture. It almost looks like a mistake which I guess in my book it IS! I like the early morning lighting and the soft color it lends to the picture.


This shot is from El Dorado St. near the curve where it becomes Moffat St. The roadway is about 12 feet or so below the track level so it gives an interesting perspective.


This is the end of that same train sporting cab car number 6965. On the eastbound return trip this car will be the head end of the train.


Here's another early morning shot with a nice warm hue to it. Unfortunately my digital camera is not the most up to date so in lower light situations I get some blur in the pictures. I'm hoping to remedy that siruation this coming Christmas (hint, hint).