Oh June, the places we’ve been…

Penetrating through a deteriorating cloud deck and resting on the shoulders of the western Rockies, a June sun illuminates prairie lands of rural Colorado just outside of Trinidad. Pointed toward La Junta, a northbound Federal Railroad Administration geometry train trails Amtrak’s Southwest Chief into the remnants of a Kansas-bound thunderstorm. The skies are wide open – as with the throttle of the two-car passenger train. Track speeds are good for 60 MPH on this stretch of BNSF Railway’s Raton Subdivision and the Trinidad –based train crew is doing their best to get the on-board FRA inspectors to a hotel in La Junta by a decent hour. A section of road that parallels the right-of-way allows for some pacing action at dusk. A few clicks of the shutter just before the sun dips behind the Rockies. The rails fall silent and there won’t be any more trains until tomorrow morning. But there’s been enough adrenaline for a day’s worth in just those few moments.

It’s June 8 and I’m wrapping up a two-week trip into Colorado and New Mexico with a friend from West Virginia. The trip has taken me to all corners of Colorado and well into the high desert of New Mexico photographing active semaphores along Raton. The weather has been great; we’ve had thunderstorms, lightning, great sunsets, clear skies, and star-filled desert nights. June is my railroad photography month. And while it started out as a coincidence years ago, June has evolved into an annual tradition that takes me into the most obscure hollows of West Virginia for night photography to the sunny beaches of San Diego, and most recently, into the boroughs of New York City. June is my way of detoxing from a fast-paced college schedule and full time employment. Whether it’s a series of weekends or an extended, week or week-and-a-half trip, I always look forward to where my curiosity and camera takes me.

I started noticing it in 2009 when I was just learning night photography. As soon as school ended for the year, I would plunge into the woods of West Virginia at sundown in search of Chesapeake & Ohio signals. June always yields humid nights and those conditions create for great backdrops. There were nights where I would spend four or five consecutive evenings doing ambient night photography in some of the most isolated valleys of West Virginia. Some days, I would not get home until sunrise. To this day, those are still some of my fondest memories. The signals are gone, some of the friends have drifted out of contact or moved away, and we all know the railroad culture in West Virginia has changed a lot since 2009.

In 2014, June took me west. A trip that started in Nevada and extended into the waters of the Pacific Ocean at San Clemente before following the Santa Fe all the way to Valentine, Arizona. It was the week of the summer solstice and while the sun was high as ever, we found ways to take advantage of the low light in the early morning and late evening hours. It was a really amazing trip and contrasting the railroad landscape of the west with memories back home made me view things differently.

Last year, I sat on the red rocks of Echo Canyon as I celebrated my 20^th birthday northeast of Salt Lake City. I spent much of that beautiful, crisp morning watching trains descend Union Pacific’s mainline. We had followed the Class I railroad from Cheyenne, Wyo., the day prior and we were doing a fatiguing loop from Denver to Salt Lake City and return. It was a fabulous trip that yielded such a variety of landscapes. It started in Denver, followed the prairies into Wyoming before dropping into the red rocks of Echo. Salt Lake City was a gorgeous city and after a couple days in the city, our journey continued toward Moab, Utah and back east to Denver along the Rio Grande. Some of it was new terrain for me, but the trip was just short enough that it left my appetite craving for more.

I had that opportunity to rekindle my relationship with the Rockies a few weeks ago. For the first leg of the trip, I escorted the Colorado Rails tour sponsored by Trains. We visited every tourist railroad in the state and I got to meet several really great people in that process. As the tour concluded, we headed south for some Class I and passenger rail action. Five more days in the New Mexico desert and Colorado prairie lands brought days of entertainment for two West Virginians.

As I boarded my flight home from Denver two weeks ago, I was reflecting on a productive month and found myself already curious to what June 2017 had up its sleeve. I arrived home for a few days and as the weekend rolled around, I took off for a two-day jaunt to New York City. It was a really quick trip and the culture of life in the big city was a startling contrast to what I had experienced in the desert just weeks before. I tried my hand at a little transit action on the MTA New York City Transit subway, too. Perched on the elevated platform of the agency’s 40^th Street station, I watched a beautiful sunset highlight the elegant architecture of the city’s tallest buildings. Several New Yorkers joined to capture the beauty. Amid the chaos of the city, I found peacefulness for a brief moment on that platform. It was humbling.

Since returning home, I haven’t stopped. Work has been busy and a series of online summer classes are fast approaching. There’s one week left of June and summer is well on its way. I took some time, yesterday, on my 21^st birthday, to reflect on all of the fulfilling experiences June has offered – and the last 10 years of my life. This year marks one decade of railroad photography for me. It’s been a decade of new people, experiences, and travels. And I couldn’t have done it without you, June.

 Happy weekend… - Chase G.