Night railfanning

[chad thomas]

I especially enjoy railfanning at night and in bad weather too. I attribute this to the fact that picture taking for the most part gets put aside (but not always). When the camera goes back in the bag trainwatching takes on a more simple and innocent ora. Without the distraction of worrying about composition and lighting and such, for me anyway, the simple act of just enjoying the trains becomes more pleasurable.

Many of nights after work I would throw my sleeping bag and scanner in the car and head for Cajon pass or sometimes Tehachappi and find a spot to enjoy the action. As stated earlier in the thread Cajon pass at night is a place like no other. There are a few places where you can get away from the highway noise enough to hear the distant chant of diesel engines a long time before you see them. Sometimes it's just a hint, so slight that you might write it off as imagination. Then blaming it on imagination goes out the window as a very distinct sound of a train in the distance is heard. Then you have to ask yourself where is it. At night in the cool crisp air sound more readily reverberates off the mountainsides leaving the illusions of false direction and distances. This leaves your imagination to wonder. And for me at least it always seems closer than it is putting me on the edge of suspense. Minuets seem like hours as the throbbing of diesels get louder and quieter as the train snakes its way up the canyon ducking behind sound blocking canyon walls and rock formations. Occasional increases in volume as the wind carrys the sound waves through the air give your mind clues as to where in the darkness that distant train is. Snaking its way steadily twards you. To a moment in the future you know is going to happen. The moment you can first see the headlights that tell you the approaching encounter is near.

This anticipation brings the otherwise dark and still night to life. You strain your ears to hear the slightest changes of volume and tone. You strain your eyes to see the first hint of headlight glare down where the train will emerge from deep cut in the earth. All the while smelling the desert smells mingleing with the smell of creasote, and feeling the cool breeze of the night air. Everything happening under a canopy of bright stars that make this big hill look so small.

Then the darkness is chased away in one small point in this vast formerly unlit scene as the searchlight comes to life with its green glow. A glow that says the time is almost upon you. Then as if the train were exiting a distant tunnel it gets unmistakably louder. And louder. And you begin to see, or do you, the faint glow of reflections from the headlight. Then with a gust of wind the sound gets louder at the same time you can tell for shure that distant glow is in fact comming from a locomotive headlight. Oh the exitement. Now all else just fades away. Its just you and the train.

Then your heart skips a beat as the jewel of light pops out from around the corner in that deep cut. Its still over a mile away though. And no doubt crawling along at a snails pace. Now there is no more guessing, no more wondering if its hours away or minuets away. You can clearly see its almost here. The light gets brighter as it points in your direction. Then gets dimmer as the train completes the sweeping turn it made. Now with a good eye and mabee a little help from some moonlight you can see the train, or at least its shadow punctuated by a few stairway lights on the engines or the light of the numberboards.

The train gets closer and louder. Eventually you can feel the ground shake, and hear the high pitched singing as the sound of flanges scraping on rail travel ahead of the train. And it gets louder. Then the BLLAAAAAHHHHHH from the horn reaches to the very depths of your soul. Now all you see is a blinding corona of light. The noise of the diesel engines become a symphony of a hundred different noises a locomotive makes with the exhaust almost overpowering everything. The corona fades and through the glow you start to see the outline of the cab becoming clearer and clearer till the front end passes you and your eyes adjust back to the dark. The locomotive sounds peek with every passing unit untill the last one passes and the throb of raw diesel power is replaced with the wining and clanging & banging of passing freight cars.

Oh those freight car noises. The sound of steel wheel on steel rail. The sound of squeeky springs contorting as the cars rock back and forth creaking and groaning as the carbodies make there own sounds. The faint sound of air leaking through a hundred little leaks throughout the train. The rythmic thunder of the occasional flat spot passing by, thud...thud...Thud...THud...THUD...THUD...Thud...Thud...thud...ud...d. And the faint schrill of a few noisey wheel bearings. Then the sound of the locomotives fade away in the distance more and more untill all you hear is the final sounds of the final cars.

As the last car goes by there always seems to be one last flat spot to punctuate the sight of fred slowly vanishing in the darkness. Just before the train becomes nothing but a memory the red searchlight signal goes dark as if to give this departing train a bit of closure. With the last fading sounds the gentle stir of the wind makes itself heard again between fleeting moments of final distant train noises. And one more train vanishes in the night. But wait, do you hear another train? here we go again.


Am I the only one that digs the **** out of night time railfanning ?

[spbed]

I did it at Riverside CA last year where you can also just be by yourself no major hwys nearby. I found it OK at best. Maybe up in the mountains it is better then on level ground like Riverside is. All the things that you described at Cajon are also at Riverside. Where I was due to the grade crossings proceeding up to the merge there is also the sound of the air horn being blewn miles before the train reaches you which builds up your expectations of a on rushing train. [:o)][:)][:D]

Originally posted by chad thomas

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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