Kingman Canyon Pumpkin Parade

On Sunday, Feb. 20th I set off at the crack of doom for Kingman, Arizona, to spend a few days shooting trains in the canyon. Just as I was approaching Kingman, on Interstate 40, it started to snow, and got quite heavy. As I passed over BNSF, there were headlights to the east, and I got in to position to catch it in heavy snow. A little while later another westbound showed up, and as the power was going out of the frame to the west, eastbound power came in to the frame, a perfect meet! The snow didn't last long, and was gone off the ground quite quickly. A good day, I saw 32 trains in 7 hours. Next day wasn't quite as busy, and the weather wasn't as good, but still a busy day. I did see some westbounds on the normally eastbound number two track though. Next day saw single track working through the canyon, the dispatcher would send 4 or 5 westbounds, then 4 or 5 eastbounds. Another busy day! Most of the power was from GE, I only saw 5 EMD's, plus a pair of GP60M's, still in (shabby) warbonnet on the local out to the steel plant just west of the canyon. Altogether a decent trip!

Back to the Nubble

I go to New England for the last week in January every year to take part in the big railroad show in West Springfield, Massachusetts. When we first moved to Arizona I drove up, but it's a 3 day drive each way, so now I fly. I went on line to check in, and found I'd missed my flight! The airline cheerfully rescheduled me to the date I thought I was going, judging by the invoice that appeared in my inbox they needed a new airplane! I stay with friends in Epping, New Hampshire either side of the show, and one of the things that Bill and I do is drive up the seacoast, ending up at the Nubble light in Maine, then we head back to Epping, stopping on the way for a beer and a chowder. The day I was due to come home, what the media called an "historic storm" rolled through, 13,000 flights, including mine, were cancelled, and I got to stay in New England for an extra couple of days.