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Chattanooga Trip with Jim

Chattanooga Trip with Jim

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Well, I guess it’s about time I posted something on my 5 day train chasing trip to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum at Chattanooga, TN and points between!

I’ve been trying to do this trip for a couple months now, but due to the museum having issues with getting their Southern Railway 630 locomotive up and running for the new season, it didn’t happen when I had planned, so the trip got postponed a few times. I finally hit the road on April 26th and got back home to Kentucky on April 30th. I caught a lot of steam action on SR 630 and also on the CSX Chattanooga Subdivision and the Norfolk Southern CNO&TP District. I’ve not really railfanned the Chattanooga Sub much at all and never done so on the CNO&TP District so both were pretty much new territory for me!

On day one I spent making my way from Nashville to Chattanooga, TN on the Chattanooga Sub and thanks to the help of Reed Redding on spots to check out I was able to catch several photos of the line that I’m very happy with. Below are a couple of my favorites from this stretch of the trip. If you’d like to see more from this subdivision then visit this link to my photography website. 

Loaded Coal train CSX 904 passes the old Spanish style depot at Bridgeport, Alabama as it heads south on the CSX Chattanooga Subdivision, on April26th, 2024.
Loaded Coal train CSX 904 passes the old depot at Tullahoma, Tennessee, as it heads south on the CSX Chattanooga Subdivision, on April 26th, 2024.

Then for two days, with fellow railfans Bryan Burton and Dak Dillon, I spent chasing the Southern Railway Steam locomotive 630 and Thomas the Tank Engine on many runs between Grand Junction in West Chattanooga to East Chattanooga and back. It’s not really a very long run, but there’s several good spots to capture these trains in operation, which you can see from the photos below. Here’s also another link where you can view other images from this and past trips to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, which I highly recommend!

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s steam locomotive Southern Railway 630 departs Grand Junction at West Chattanooga as it heads to East Chattanooga, Tennessee with the daily local, on April 27th, 2024.
The Iconic Thomas the Tank Engine leads a passenger train over the Chickamauga Creek Bridge as it heads to Grand Junction at West Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 27th, 2024.

Now, the last part of my trip was along the Norfolk Southern CNO&TP District and this was pretty much all new territory for me. It was a very successful trip thanks to the help of two fellow railfans, Andrew Stephenson and Matt Murphy!

For this leg of the trip I started out on the afternoon of April 28th and railfanned the district till the evening of April 30th, when I made my way home! I think this trip was one of the most successful 3 days of railfanning on Norfolk Southern that I’ve had in a long time, if not forever! An outstanding trip and caught a lot of action in interesting locations! Below are again a couple of my favorites and here’s a link to more!

A trio of Norfolk Southern engines lead NS 168 as they make their way across the New River Bridge northbound on the NS CNO&TP (Rathole) Subdivision at New River, Tennessee. On April 29th, 2024.
Norfolk Southern 890 passes the old mine loadout at Revilo outside Sterns, Kentucky as they head southbound with a load of coal on the NS CNO&TP (Rathole) Subdivision, on April 29th, 2024. The coal was picked up at Warrior Coal mine on the Paducah and Louisville Railway, outside of Nebo, Kentucky and is headed for the TVA power plant at Kingston, Ky under stormy skies.

So, what’s coming up for me down the road? My next planned trip is to southern California to visit friends in September and my plan is to revisit my old stomping grounds in the Cajon Pass and Tehachapi mountains in the central part of the state. Stay tuned!

Chasing My Old Kentucky Dinner Train

Chasing My Old Kentucky Dinner Train

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Waiting on a train at the north wye, on the Buster Pike overpass, north of Danville, Ky on the NS CNO&TP First District, during a day of railfanning will fellow photographers, David Higdon Jr, Bryan Burton, Ryan Scott and a Facebookless, Bill Crecco! A great time by all and a great day of railfanning with friends!

I recently spent the day with four other railfans chasing the RJ Corman Lunch and Dinner train that runs out of Bardstown, Kentucky and also made our way over to Danville, Kentucky to catch a few trains on the Norfolk Southern line that runs through there and splits off to Louisville and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Usually when I go trackside to railfan it’s a solitary event, or at most one other person, but this trip was a bit different with the five of us. They included good friends and fellow railfan photographers, Ryan Scott from Indiana, Bryan Burton from Tennessee, David Higdon Jr. from Illinois and Bill Crecco, who we jokingly call “Facebookless Bill” because he doesn’t have a Facebook account, is also from Indiana.

I started my part of the trip at 4am in the morning where I drove to Henderson, Kentucky and met up with Ryan and Dave, so we could all carpool over to Bardstown together. As most who know me, that’s pretty early for me to be up these days, but it’s not bad as long is it’s only once in awhile! We arrived in Bardstown about 9am local time which gave us time to grab breakfast at Cracker Barrel and figure out or plan of attack for the two runs that day of the train. Bryan, from Tennessee had be up to Bardstown earlier in the month and had pretty much scoped out what he felt were the best spots and we all relied on his judgment, which didn’t disappoint as you can see from the pictures accompanying this post!

RJ Corman’s (RJC) My Old Kentucky Dinner Train with FP7A #1940 and 1941 pulls into Limestone Junction, Ky with a string of dining cars, on the RJC Bardstown Line. This is the turn around point for the train, where the engines run around their train before heading back to Bardstown.  According to the RJC Dinner Train brochure, Limestone Springs Junction is located at MP: 24 and is the final attraction along the route.  This old-English style depot is presently owned by the Jim Beam company, but in the past it reportedly housed numerous famous and wealthy passengers on the second floor of its overnight facilities.  The depot also served as a filming location for the 1981 movie “Stripes” featuring Bill Murray and John Candy.
RJ Corman’s (RJC) My Old Kentucky Dinner Train with FP7A # 1940 leading, 1941 trailing and a string of dining cars, passes the Samuels Bourbon Rickhouses, which are used to store barrels of bourbon, on the RJC Bardstown Line at Deatsville, Kentucky.  The Rickhouses store barrels of bourbon.

While we didn’t ride the lunch or dinner trains this trip, I had before when I worked for The Messenger Newspaper. Reporter Garth Gamblin and I did a series for many years called “Saturday Adventures” and the dinner train was one of the features we did for the Sunday Lifestyles page. The food and two hour trip were great back then and I’m sure nothing has changed since then.

It was a long day, but as you can see from the photographs above and the gallery below we all came away with great photographs and memories of a fun day trackside!

A visit to Cane Ridge Meeting House, Paris, Kentucky

A visit to Cane Ridge Meeting House, Paris, Kentucky

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On June 23rd, 2018 Sis and I made an overnight road trip to Cane Ridge, Kentucky, which is the birthplace of the Disciples of Christ Church movement in the early 1800’s, which we belong to as do many others in our family.

It was interesting to see and walk around the grounds of the Cane Ridge Meeting house and to see how well the site has been preserved!

Below is a video I did from the morning session, I hope you all enjoy.

Meeting up with fellow railfans from Facebook

Meeting up with fellow railfans from Facebook

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From left, Jim, Javid and Ryan waiting to shoot some street running action at La Grange, Ky – Photo by Adam Hill

This past weekend my good friend Ryan Scott from the Ft. Branch, Indiana area and I set-out on a day-long trip to photograph trains between Princeton, Indiana and what started out to be Louisville, Ky, but turned out to be La Grange, Ky. Our plan was to meet up with a fellow railfan friend of ours from Facebook, Javid Beykzadeh. Little did I realize that I’d end up meeting several more friends from Facebook while we were at it including, Adam Hill, Josh Kellerman, and Erik Landrum. 

The railfanning community is actually fairly large, if you take in the world and that’s pretty much what Facebook does for us. I have friends who are railfans from pretty much all over the world and it’s always cool to meetup in person in our travels in search of that perfect train picture! 

All my family already know my obsession with trains and photographing them whenever I can. Even, my nieces and nephews know about my love for trains, and I hope that I’m passing some of that onto them, but I digress.

As railfan trips go, this was a really good one with Ryan and I photographing 5 different railroads before the day was over. Evansville Western Railway, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Indiana Southern Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. As day road trips go for me railfanning, this was a really good one!

Some of our group photographing Southbound with BNSF War Bonnet 791 at La Grange, Ky, – Photo by Jim Pearson

 

Other favorite photos of mine from our day-long trip are posted below.

June 9, 2018 – There’s just something about the lure of street running trains and when you throw in a BNSF War Bonnet, well, it makes it even better. Here we have a southbound CSX Q231-08 as begins to make it’s way through downtown La Grange toward Louisville, Ky. 

June 9, 2018 Norfolk Southern Heritage Unit 8099, “Southern” passes the signal at milepost 209.8, at Jefferson Township, Indiana, as it makes its way west on the NS Southern-East District. This scheme is from the Southern Railway (GE) which originated as the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company in 1827. On Christmas Day, 1830, it put into service the nation’s first regularly scheduled steam passenger train, “The Best Friend of Charleston.” Southern was incorporated in 1894 from the reorganization and consolidation of numerous predecessors, and absorbed another 68 railroad companies over the next six years.

June 9, 2018 – Here we find a crew getting NS Heritage 8099, Southern Unit, ready for pickup by an, Duke Energy coal train, at the NS Yard Office in Princeton, Indiana, after storms passed through the area. We got lots of great photographs, which you’ll see over the days to come and also met-up with several fellow railfans in person that we’ve been friends with on Facebook for sometime!

June 9, 2018 Norfolk Southern Heritage Unit 8099, “Southern” passes the signal at milepost 209.8, at Jefferson Township, Indiana, as it makes its way west on the NS Southern-East District. This scheme is from the Southern Railway (GE) which originated as the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company in 1827. On Christmas Day, 1830, it put into service the nation’s first regularly scheduled steam passenger train, “The Best Friend of Charleston.” Southern was incorporated in 1894 from the reorganization and consolidation of numerous predecessors, and absorbed another 68 railroad companies over the next six years. 

 

Catching up on things for 2018!

Catching up on things for 2018!

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Chrystal, myself and sister April enjoy some Chicago Style Pizza at a local place a few blocks from her apartment. Good stuff, but way too much for the three of us to eat!!

Well, as always, we’ve both been behind on doing our blog posts here!! It’s not that we haven’t been on roadtrips since September, but haven’t taken the time to write about them, so this post will cover a bit!!

My sister April and I both love to travel and even though we’ve been cutting back lately as we’re trying to save up for a trip to Europe in 2019 to visit with my nephew Brad and his family, who’s stationed in the Air Force in Germany. I lived in the Frankfurt, Germany area for 3 years when I was in the Air Force and made many, many more trips back to Europe on photo assignments after I left, until I retired from the Air Force in 1995. I haven’t been back since then and really looking forward to a return trip to some of my old stomping grounds, plus a few new spots I didn’t make it to, such as Ireland!

However, this post is about catching up so here goes!!!

Fall Photography Weekend at Pennyrile and Shutterbug Kids

Jayden was all smiles after picking up his “Best of Show” trophy for the Kids Division at Pennyrile Forest’s Fall Photography Weekend.

In October we took my nephew Jayden (5-year-old Shutterbug Jayden) with us to the Fall Photography Weekend at Pennyrile Resort Park in Dawson Springs, Ky so he could participate in his first photography competition. Sis and I normally go every spring and fall and this year we’ve started taking one of the older kids; the fall was Jayden’s turn and he did outstanding in the kids division! There were about 10 or so kids this fall and one of his pictures won “Best in Show” for the division, and he also picked up a first and second place! We all were so proud of him! 

The category he won Best in Show with was “Water,” where he shot a photograph of canoes being reflected in the water at the boat dock. His 2nd place winner was in the “Close-Up” category with a flower being eaten by bugs. We all had a great time, but I think he had the best, especially when they presented him with his “Best of Show” Trophy. 

Next up will be Xavier when we attend the Spring Photography weekend in a few months. 

Chicago Trip to visit Chrystal

Our ride to Chicago, Illinois!

Our next trip was via Amtrak to visit my niece and my sisters daughter, Chrystal. She works for the EPA  there and we like to visit as often as we can. We took the train up, which of course is a favorite mode of travel in my book. The trip was pretty much centered around a concert by the group “Celtic Thunder” which we all three like a lot. We did a bit of other things such as the Christmas Market in downtown, but they both indulged me and my obsession for trains! The concert was great as was the market and other sights, but I enjoyed photographing and riding the trains of course. 

Railfan trips of Course

Other than the trips above, I’ve been out and about photographing trains of course! I usually try to get out at least once or twice a week somewhere in the tri-state area! Sometimes I link up with fellow railfans such as Ryan Scott or William Crupper, but more often as not it’s me, the scanner and my cameras! Sis doesn’t usually ride along when I’m out chasing trains! She puts up with my obsession on trips, but that’s about it! 

iPhone Black and White Photography Challenge

January 13, 2018 – Day 75 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – Ties and Trees – This stack of railroad ties with the row of interesting trees in the background make for an interesting photograph! When out, always keep an eye out for things that make for good contrasting scenes!! I got the extra width in this photo by taking the picture while I was in video mode with the camera! That’s what that little silver button is for!!!

Another project I’ve been doing is a daily challenge where I shoot and post a black and white photo daily on my website and Facebook. Theme is pretty much anything I feel makes a good picture, which a lot of the time it ends up being the kids! I started this project as part of the week-long black and white challenge that was going around on Facebook this fall. 

I enjoy doing something along these lines from time to time as it forces be to think outside the box and to keep looking for something that makes for what I feel is a good photograph in black and white. I really enjoy black and white photography and while I do one daily as part of my routine for posting train photos, I wanted something different. I think these days black and white photography kinda has been taking a backseat to photography. It seems that the world has been consumed more by color with the advent of the smart phones. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still other folks shooting black and white, but I don’t think there’s as many as there used to be.

Upcoming Trips

This March sis and I are back to Chicago for another concert and to visit Chrystal. This time we’re going to listen to a group called “The High Kings” at the City Winery Chicago. Again we are going up on the train and I’m looking forward to going up in a bit nicer weather than our December trip!

Then in May I’ll be headed to Monticello Railway Museum in Monticello, Illinois with fellow railfans Ryan Scott and Bryan Burton for Southern Rail Productions photography charter with Southern Railway No. 401. This should be a fun trip and we all three are looking forward to the trip.