My heartbreak story occurred last year. I was on the Royal Gorge route with two other folks (I was the driver) and we were chasing a train eastward toward the gorge. At Cotopaxie I was in the process of changing film when we suddenly decided that the location wasn't lit quite right, so we quickly reversed direction and headed back toward the train, hoping to beat him to a spot we had seen that was better lit. I slammed the back of my Nikon FE2 closed, jumped in the car, did a U-turn and headed back to the train.
We beat him and got a great shot, then were able to drive into the gorge and shoot a down-on shot from the free parking lot near the gorge entrance. We heard a westbound was coming, so we went to Cowboy Bob's (or whatever that tourist trap place is on the way into the gorge), paid $6 to ride their miniature train to their overlook, and nailed the westbound with the suspension bridge overhead. By the time we rode the train out of the overlook and got back to the car and raced ahead, the westbound was already past Texas Creek but we got off several good shots near Hecla Junction and Princeton...where my frame counter hit 36, 37, 38, 39, 40... In the rush to turn around at Cotopaxie for the eastbound I had dropped the film into the camera BUT FAILED TO THREAD IT as I was trying to drive. It is not uncommon for me to lad a camera while driving, but I never close the camera back until everything is set. For some reason, this time I closed the camera back and had forgotten that I not finished the loading process. The following day (my last in Colorado) we saw no eastbounds, and the westbounds we picked up at Texas Creek, so I got some of the lost shots back, but I will never again shoot freights through the Royal Gorge. Sigh.... Steve Barry Railfan & Railroad Newton, NJ -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved
