Read Trackside with Erik and Mike Volume 66
Voting for Trackside with Erik and Mike now occures at the top of the Trackside with Erik and Mike section. Click here to vote.
Please add your comments regarding this week's photos here.
Thanks, Erik
....Cast my vote for Erik's corn field scene....Believe both photos are equal in quality.
Choose Eriks photo as it seems to be a bit unusual in content, especially the color of the field and sky combination. {Even with the crooked corn rows, ha].
Quentin
Nice shots, guys!!! Both are very, very good. For me, this was one of the more difficult choices.
I really liked the rural setting of Erik's image; it seems so peaceful, unhurried, and simple, with the train adding a sense of action and urgency...going somewhere while all around remains stationary...very nice. It just sort of seemed like something was missing, but I'm not sure what. Maybe it needed a few clouds.
Mike's image, however, somehow evoked a more dynamic response from me. The fancy, clean locomotive, with the backdrop of the deep-blue cccccold Lake Michigan waters, the white snow, the bare trees......also very nice.
By a margin of barely 1%, I voted for Mike's.
Hi,
In case anyone wants to see more of the Union Pacific Shoreline Subdivision, there are over 160 photos in the Shoreline Sub album on my website. Thanks.
mikeyuhas wrote: Hi,In case anyone wants to see more of the Union Pacific Shoreline Subdivision, there are over 160 photos in the Shoreline Sub album on my website. Thanks.
Mike,
I like your site. Lots of nice images. But what I really liked was the maps showing where the image was captured; that is WAY COOL!!!
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
I agree, both shots are very good again this week. In the end I went with Erik's by a nose (pun intended). Between the snoot nose unit, the corn feild, and the barn, it's a great photo. Mike's is good too, but I like Eriks just slightly better.
Noah
Erik's...
The composition is not only unusual, but works great to draw you eye to the locomotive.
And the background farm buildings against the dark sky add further impact.
23 17 46 11
cherokee woman wrote:Well, couldn't vote, because looks like the voting has ended; but, I "vote" for Erik's photo this week. There's just something about a farm scene, with a train going by, that just gets to this ole country girl. The background just looks so peaceful to me.
Hmmm... that's odd. Voting is open until next Monday.
Bergie
Again, I'm going with Mike's.
It was a hard choice this time, because I have some good memories of pacing freights with a cornfield between us and the tracks (between Rochelle and DeKalb--try it, you'll like it!), but the lake is an influential factor for me, as is the prospect of a train bigger than the single-unit BNSF shot is providing.
You know, of course, that those Alliant Energy cars are lettered EDGX specifically for the Edgewater plant, right? That's the truth.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Dan
Hi guys,
I like both shots. Not sure I can analyze why?? So I will just vote.....it's Erik's this time.
Larry in Wauwatosa
Two fantastic shots. Mike by 50.1% to 49.9%. Corn rows, clouds, cold water, snow, yellow engines, real, real close to chose. Keep up the great work.
Other great shot of the UP consist at the grade crossing.
CShaveRR wrote:You know, of course, that those Alliant Energy cars are lettered EDGX specifically for the Edgewater plant, right? That's the truth.
lhtalbot wrote: Hi guys,I like both shots. Not sure I can analyze why?? So I will just vote.....it's Erik's this time.Larry in Wauwatosa
You guys never make it easy to choose, do you?
Anyway, the reason I chose the Sheboygan shot was that it is from Wisconsin, where as Eric's is from Illinois.
If you are from Wisconsin, you hate "flatlanders," and visa versa.
My best rail fan friend is from Wisconsin, but he lives in Illinois!
We disagree on politics, as well.
Technically, as a photographer, I prefer the Illinois shot. As Eric points out, the total effect of the shot is just damn impressive!
But Mike's shot has Lake Michigan in the background.
I really want to thank you for letting me see what is going on around Milwaukee. I particularly loved when you mentioned Saukville, where I lived until I was in first grade.
If you could start shooting northward, that would suit me fine!
Good job once again, guys. I voted for Bergie's photo for the same reason as others have posted -- the serene setting and a typical scene from rural America. The angle presented in Mike's photo seemed to throw me off a bit.
Hey, have you guys ever considered doing a "On the Road With Erik and Mike"? I'm sure you're aware of Trains publishing a recent issue containing articles on railroading in all 50 states. Maybe you could travel to the top 10 states listed and send us your pictures to vote on from each.While you're at it, mosey on down here to Texas (#17 in the list) to take pictures of railroads in the Lone Star State.(Apologies if this topic has already been visited in a previous forum post.)Greghttp://www.abandonedrails.com
A bit of a history lesson on the shoreline sub.
One of Mike's shots
http://www.mikeyuhas.org/albums/upshorelinesub/20050070.php
is in Fox Point WI (where I happen to live) and as it happens he caught the spot where up to the late 1920s a spur line connected up the track to a line coming from the Milwaukee lakefront depot, so that C&NW passenger trains could head north to Sheboygan
http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=21&pos=112
(and beyond) all the way to Green Bay
http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=21&pos=72
without having to go through Wiscona,
http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=51
an interchange several miles to the west.
From Don Ross's website:
Prior to 1927, the line north from the Milwaukee depot split at Lake Shore Junction which was just south of Capital Drive. One branch went to Wiscona and then up the Fox Valley. The other line went north up the Lake Shore. The trackage from Lake Shore Junction to Fox Point was abandoned, and trains were routed via Wiscona. Dean Segal found this old photo of the station.
http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0001/cnwls.jpg
If you walk the line in the area covered by Mike's photo you can very slightly make out the spot where the lines merged, even though the track was torn up in, I think, 1929 and no trains ran after, I think, 1927. Much of that line went right through what is now a totally residential part of Whitefish Bay WI, a very nice and expensive suburb.
Dave Nelson
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.