Day 5: The Nevada Northern Railroad (part 1)

So I come to the first big highlight of my trip: a weekend of intense railfanning on the Nevada Northern Railroad. I've been here once before and was a little underwhelmed… let me tell you know, I have completely changed my tune! This railroad is simply amazing! Lets start at the start.

I arrived at the depot, just around the corner from my motel and checked in. I got my "Michael Adam" name badge (kiwi accents and long distance skype calls do not work well together) and signed a waiver and then I was free to go anywhere I wanted on the railroad.

I wandered around a bit and introduced myself to other camera-toting, suspicious looking characters. Here is our train:

For those who aren't aware, this loco is a little bit special. First off, it obviously isn't a steam loco. Second, it's an Alco RS3. I guess I need to explain. Alco was once one of the great loco builders (Alco = The American Locomotive Company) but never really succeeded with the transition to diesel locos. However they did produce a line of very handsome diesels, the RS3 being one of them. They also have a fantastic sounding engine, almost like a Harley. This was my first encounter with an Alco, and I can tell you I'm not an ALCOholic. I will load some videos up in due course.

So we loaded up into our accommodation for the day, an authentic steel caboose:

… and headed on down the line. First photo stop was on a slight grade with a simply amazing mountain range behind us:

The other reason grown men become ALCOholics? They're famous for smoking like a steam engine. In fact some fans won't describe a smoky loco as smoking like a steam engine; no, they'll say it's doing a mighty good Alco impersonation. So when Mark, our Chief for the day (and director of the railroad) radioed through to the crew to start the runby, he added "and lots of smoke" :-)

 
View from the caboose on the way out / The photo line / Going away shot of our train.

We did a few runbys in each spot so everyone got a chance to try out various shots. Then we'd move onto the next spot. I'm the youngest on the trip, but another of the younger guys, Paulo, and I decided to scale the hillside for the nest photo shoot. Being young and nimble and having good boots can be a great help!

Out little ore train.

Just behind us is a tunnel so we got some great shots there too:

I should mention that the RS3 has a fantastic single-chime horn, it sounds a wee bit like a steam boat horn. Pretty cool echoing off the valleys here.

The next spot was at the end of the line, right by the giant copper mine that is here.

 
The spill pile from the copper mine / A truck dumping fresh dirt on the tailings mountain.

There is a bit of a siding and wye here for turning the trains. We had quite a few runbys here, and there were lots of options for shots.

 

 

On the way back I rode up in the caboose. The caboose is pretty nifty. It has plenty of seating, a stove, and a cupola where you can sit up and watch over the train, keeping an eye out for any stuck brake shoes or hot axle bearings. Or… just enjoy the ride.

 
Looking down the caboose, cupola in the middle / Looking behind the train from the cupola

 
Looking toward the front of the train / The cupola itself

We had one last photo stop and although the light was fading, it was still a fantastic location.

Just look at the cliffs here! We have a couple of geologists on the trip and even they were in awe at the rock formations out here. The West is pretty amazing.

We trundled back into town and hopped off, ready to reconvene as soon as it started getting dark for the night photo shoot, directed by Steve Crise, renowned railroad photographer. That left about… 30 minutes for dinner. I grabbed some Arbys from a drive through (Michael, you sell out!) and it wasn't half bad. Their fries are curly. The whole drive through ordering process isn't really designed to cope with NZ accents though, so while I ordered a bacon cheddar burger, I'm fairly sure what I got was something completely different. It did the job though.

So the night photo shoot. Well. WOW! They had both steam locos out, and in steam, purring away for us under the coaling tower. But first, on my way there I could hear lots of hooting from owls. I looked up, peered very hard at a noisy pine tree and oh my god, it's an owl!

Very blurry sorry, my skills are limited to trains and scenery. Owls aren't really either.

Anyway, two steal locos were set up steaming away, and Steve had set up a bunch of extremely powerful flash units in strategic locations. We'd get a countdown, open the shutter, the flashes would fire a second later, and then we could keep the shutter open for as long as we liked. By varying the aperture and shutter speed, we could exactly control the lighting.

It was pretty hard to go wrong!

 

Even though it was well below freezing I stayed there for hours. With my nice insulated boots, long johns and some gloves I was pretty cozy, and with a shutter release remote, I could fire the camera with my hands in my pocket! Cunning.

Paulo and I were the last to leave, and we caught a beaut shot of our train and the station.

The water tower, illuminated by the smoke and headlights from our locos / Our train and the Ely station at night.

Arrived back at the motel thoroughly exhausted and with over 300 photos to download, and plenty of video too. Went to bed pretty early for the next day of railfanning started at 6am, or even earlier if you so desired. I set the alarm for 5:20am… that's 2:20am NZ time. What a day!