JRM 4440 wrote: > > << Jeff Robertson wrote: > > > > Has anybody else experienced something odd or ironic while railfanning? > > >> >
Ed Chapman, a BNSF operating official and accomplished photographer, tells a great story about being a management conductor during a brief trainmen's strike 12-13 years ago. He was working his first run east out of Needles, Calif. It was a hot "Q" train, it left Needles after dark and the engineer was, I think, the road foreman on that line. Ed is fully qualified between Needles and Winslow, but it had been a while since he'd ridden a freight over this line. To quickly refamiliarize himself, Ed had his complete set of track charts open in front of him: anyone who has railfanned with Ed knows that he keeps a set of track charts for every mile of ATSF track and they are full of very detailed notes he's written regarding photo locations, access, and landmarks, along with notes relative to train handling. It was after midnight, and according to the charts, they were in a very remote canyon between Peach Springs and Seligman, AZ. Suddenly the train goes into emergency: Ed looks at his track charts and realizes they're smack dab in the middle of about a 10 mile stretch that he's never reconnoitered before on the ground: bad roads, lots of rattlesnakes, etc., and he never felt like making the walk in to check this area out. So he puts on his jacket and gloves, grabs a radio and gets ready to walk the train looking for a broken air hose. As he climbs down off the lead unit, he hears a weird "crunch" when his foot hits the ballast. In the pitch-black Arizona darkness, Ed shines his Conger trainman's lantern down on the ground and discovers he has just stepped on a Nikon lens cap. And he concludes: "Railfans have been everywhere." --DB -> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs
