This is a sequence of a coal train heading east through Lombard, Montana in the late evening. (click to view larger)
I'll be sharing at least one photo of my trip every week until I head out to Montana once again. I guess I look at it like my way of holding a protest, or going on strike, until I get my way and I depart for Big Sky Country. Along the way, I will try to give everyone some information and other tidbits about each photograph. So come along and join me in my protest! We just got done photographing the windmill train in gorgeous low evening light at one of my favorite places on the planet. What a great way to cap off the day! We didn't know of anything else that would be through before dark, so it was time to think about where we would stay the night. I've been going to Montana every year (at least once) ever since 1990. I've driven, taken the train, and flown, but with high gas prices and limited vacation time, I've been flying the past several years. I live more than 1,300 miles from Lombard, so the most sensible way for me to get out here is to jump on a bird. Trust me, I would much rather drive or take the Amtrak's Empire Builder than get on a stuffy, overcrowded airplane. With that said, I've always been fond of camping. But when you fly, it's hard to take all of the gear you need, plus camera equipment, without getting shafted by luggage fees. Luckily for me, I have a friend that decided to join us, and since he was driving, he was willing to bring the basics needed to camp. I could think of no better place to camp than the Lombard area. This was my first night camping in a while, and it began splendidly. The glow from the sunset was still visible to the west as the full moon made an appearance over the mountain ridge to the east. The air was calm, and the temperature was still warm from the heat of the day. I looked up at the incredible craggy cliffs bathed in moonlight and considered what it must have been like here at this very spot 100 years ago. That was when Lombard was more then just a siding on a main route. Back then, it was a small town like many others in the west. In Lombard, you could find a railroad maintenance shop, two depots, a hotel, a post office, a general store, and many other buildings. But to a railfan, Lombard was much more than that. Lombard hosted both the Northern Pacific and the Milwaukee Road main lines.Unfortunately, only one of them still has rail today. The Milwaukee was pulled up through here in the early 1980s. Today, all that remains in Lombard is the Milwaukee Road right-of-way, including the bridges over Sixteen Mile Creek and the Missouri River, a couple of rusty old cars, some building foundations, and the MRL main line and siding. Even the MRL Lombard sign that stood between the main and the siding is gone. Although I can only imagine how incredible it must have been, I think Lombard is still one wicked-cool place. I don't drool too often, but I may have been right then. But no time for that now. We noticed that the signal at the east end of Lombard was green indicating we had an eastbound coming. Why not try some time exposures, I figured. So many times while out photographing trains on a trip, we would head back to our hotel room when the sun went down after a long day of shooting. Well, not this evening. Since we were camping, I had little choice than to pay attention to the railroad after dark. I'm glad I did. Even without the images I came home with, that evening will be permanently engraved in my memory. The first train we photographed was an empty coal train. And since I envision this as a sequence, I'll be showing three photos. The first one shows the front end coming towards the old abandoned Milwaukee Road bridge over the Missouri with the glow of the sunset still visible. Then we have the front portion of the coal train going away, and finally the rear-end DPU going away. The DPU happened to be a Canadian National SD70M-2. Newer Canadian National locomotives are equipped with two red marker lights (just one on the front) for use during DPU operations. Those and the dimmed rear headlight streak as the coal train fades into the Montana night. We caught a couple more that night before getting some sleep. I'll show you one of those trains next time.
Galleries:
Tom's Montana Protest Facebook Gallery
Tom's Montana Protest Flickr Set
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