Searching for the perfect image of autumn

A BNSF Railway intermodal rolls down the east slope of Marias Pass. Photo by Justin Franz.

I took a drive this past weekend up Marias Pass, site of the Great Northern Railway’s legendary mountain crossing along Glacier National Park. It was cold and rainy (and snowy in some places) and not exactly an ideal day to go trackside.

Even when the weather is less than perfect though, I push myself out of bed with the idea that railroading is a 24-hour business and trains don’t just run on sunny days. If you want to document the industry in its entirety, you have go out on the bad days too. But there was another reason I got up early on Sunday morning and headed out the door: it’s September.

In this part of the country, September heralds the beginning of the fall foliage season and as I drove east Sunday morning – passing well-known locations like Essex, Goat Lick Trestle, and Blacktail – I could see that the leaves were just starting to change. Within a few weeks, the mountains along Glacier Park should be aflame with autumn’s glory. That means the most stressful time of the year to be a railfan is upon us.

For me, the last few weeks of September and the first half of October can host some of the most productive railfanning of the year. For as long as I can remember, my father has always taken the first or second week of October off to go railfanning (my mom never plans a family vacation in October, a lesson she learned the hard way when their 1986 honeymoon was spent chasing Green Mountain RS-1s in Vermont).

Every fall as a kid, my dad would let me skip school for a few days and we’d hit the road. Some years, we’d put all of our eggs in one basket and plan a long trip weeks or months in advance hoping the color would be just right when we got there. Other years, we’d stay closer to our home in Maine and let the weather and foliage reports guide our travel plans (SmokyMountains.com has a fantastic foliage prediction map if you’re looking to do the same).

Perhaps what I love most about railfanning in the fall is how fleeting it is. As the days get colder and the leaves stop producing Chlorophyll, it’s only a matter of time before the hills come alive with color. And once the foliage hits peak, it won’t be long before it’s all brown and bare. The window to photograph foliage at its peak is painfully small; when you add factors like weather, rail traffic and real life (you know, that pesky thing called a job), it can take a Herculean effort to come away with that perfect image.

This year, I’ll be sticking close to home, in-part, because my parents are visiting from Maine and my Dad has his heart set on doing some railfanning on Marias Pass. That’s fine by me though, because if this past weekend’s trip up “the hill” proved anything it’s that it could be a great year for foliage on Marias Pass.

In fact, as I write this on Tuesday, I’m already checking the weather for Saturday, hoping that the stars align for that perfect image of autumn.