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[Bergie]

This week's installment of Trackside with Erik and Mike is now live within the Railroading section on the Trains.com home page. Please read this week's column and then vote for your favorite photo below. Click here to read Trackside with Erik and Mike Vol. 37.

[Anonymous]

WOW! Am i the first persn to leave feedback? Cool!

I had to choose Mike's photo this week. Despite the poor lighting, I thought the tank car train was very impressive, and even more impressive, Mike was able photo the WHOLE train. Very cool.

Being from Illinois my self, I enjoyed Eric's photo of the IC units too.

You guys are both very talented photographers!

I also saw and photographed the Heritage SD70 on saturday, August 21st. It was at the Union Pacific's Proviso yards and locomotive shop. Wanna know why???
It split a traction motor in half!!!

It was a very cool and impressive unit, can't wait t see it on the road.

Hmmmm, i wonder if the U.P. will keep these heritage things clean, or if they will let them rot like the rest of the fleet?
Only time will tell...

Happy railfanning to all!

[Anonymous]

I had to go with Erik's this week. If Mike had used the UP tank train shot I would have voted for that easily, but the CP train just didn't catch my eye that much. And with Erik's fallen flags, just had to go for it.

Thanks for the great installment and I'll look forward for the results next week!

[Anonymous]

Both were very excellent and I really liked Erik's photo. However, my vote had to go to Mike. It is just such a unique picture! It isn't often that you'd get an opportunity to take a photo such as this one.

[Noah Hofrichter]

I had to go with Mike's this time. I'm not used to a unit tank car train in Wisconsin, so it's an interesting catch from my point of veiw.

And Erik, you mentioned about having fun loading those tank cars. The same thing can be had by talking to any engineer who's loaded ballast on the Wisconsin and Southern at Rock Springs, WI. The Hertzog cars they use take four dumps a car, and the dumps are some where in the range of two minutes a peice. The process was discribed to me by a former employee. Usually the engineer just sits there spaced out in the chair, and about every few minutes he hears the "twenty Feet" come over the radio from the conductor. Then it's, release the air, add the throttle, count to four, add the air, and usually right about that time comes that "That'll do" from the conductor. Then it's time to sit again. Now repeat this four times a car for about 50 cars or so, and well, you get a boring process if I ever heard one......

Noah

[LVJJJ]

The photo that catches my eye is Mike's, it's just different, and I like it even tho the lighting is not that good. Eric's is nice but rather mundane.

[lhtalbot]

Very nice photos guys! Had to go with Mike, his shot shows a little more train & the compressing effect of the telephoto is great. Erik's telephoto (300) is almost twice that of Mikes (155). but doesn' appear to have the same compressing effect. Angle is slightly different & I suspect the actual distance to subject is different. Who cares about technical data......they are nice photos both.
Larry
Wauwatosa

[jimitimi]

Both nice photos, but I like Mike's because he got the whole train in it!!

[Anonymous]

Ok Erik, you have my vote. I always love watching a train pull from a siding.

[wcnut]

Mike won me over this week. I think technically both photos were top notch quality. So for me, it came down to uniqeness of the shot. Mike, playing with the dark side of the sun, really took a chance and in my opinion scored a successful shot! Truely hard this week as I am usually a fan of Erik's low light shots. Kudos to both.

Greg
"wcnut"

[fuzzybroken]

I normally prefer Mike's photos [}:)], but Erik's really caught my eye this time. If the locomotives are black, it doesn't matter if they're in a shadow!

-Mark
www.fuzzyworld3.com

[broarthur]

I enjoyed both pictures, but the clairity in Mike's picture really caught my eye.

[Anonymous]

Erik's shot is very nice, but had to go with Mike--and I think the against-the-sun lighting adds to it rather than takes away. But it looks to me like the telephoto effect is more than just 155...?

[Anonymous]

I had to go with Mike's shot for this week..... like he said.. somewhat dark.. brooding... dreary drudge work for the day... not too often you see a consist of all the same cars. (not counting the auto-trains or stack-trains) Well shot!

[Anonymous]

I voted for Mike today, the shot was very good and very clean looking, well done. I enjoy seeing photos without the clutter of power lines and so fourth.