Category Archives: Trips

New Trip Report – Chelatchie Prairie 2014

I have nearly fifteen years of photography to get through that I haven’t edited, sorted, or published. Since 2020 is the official year of never leaving the house, I’ve had some time to devote to picking out and editing some of the good stuff and getting it online. So there’s going to be a small torrent of trip reports as some of this finally makes it to the web. Plus moving from the old www.drgw.net trip report system to WordPress on my personal site makes it a lot easier to work on a little bit at a time.

Today’s addition is from another Pacific Northwest Pete Lerro charter back in October 2014. This is the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad, a short tourist line operating the end of a former Northern Pacific branch between Lucia Falls, Yacolt, and Chelatchie, WA. Power for this trip will be Crossett Western Lumber #10, a 1929 Alco 2-8-2T.

Here’s the link you’re looking for…

Heading north towards Yacolt, just out of the Moulton Falls tunnel.

Steam on the Oregon Coast – 2014 & 2018

I’ve finally gotten around to editing and posting photos from two trips out to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad (the former SP Tillamook Branch) for Lerro photo charters. The first is from back in October 2014, and the second is from October 2018. You can find the full trip report here.

McCloud River 25 leads past the “Three Graces” – the large eroded rock structures in the bay – at Barview, OR

New Trip Report – Two Trips to the Texas State RR

In an effort to do literally anything that wasn’t software development or a meeting this evening, I decided to dust off a couple trips I made down to the Texas State Railroad for a pair of photo trains – one in May 2012 while American Heritage Railways (the Durango & Silverton’s parent) was running the line, and another in May 2015 shortly after Iowa Pacific Holdings had taken over and returned some of the equipment to a more historic appearance. I’ve also included a brief history of the route, for anyone curious.

If you’re interested, here’s the page you’re looking for.

Sunset at Palestine, May 2, 2015

New Trip Report – Moving D&RGW 029 to Granby

UP 3902 and 8484 pull derrick 029 west at Crescent, CO.

Two years and change ago, on April 14, 2018, Union Pacific moved former Rio Grande derrick 029 from the Forney Museum in Denver up to the new Moffat Road Museum in Granby, CO. The crane is a 120-ton steam-powered wrecking derrick built for the Denver & Salt Lake as their 10300 back in April 1913, and is still largely original. It was active on the Rio Grande until the mergers, and was never converted to diesel or electric.

Having not done any railfanning in over a year at that point, I thought it was time to pick up the camera and capture this “last run over home rails” event. The results of that trip are posted here.

New Trip Report – Isle of Man Railways

The Manx Electric Railway.

Back in 2017, I had a week to kill between meetings in Birmingham (England) and Paris, so I decided to visit somewhere I’d always wanted to go – the Isle of Man. It’s a tiny self-governing British dependency in the middle of the Irish Sea, about halfway between England and Nothern Ireland. It’s also filled with historic railways.

The new trip report with dozens of photos of all the island’s operating heritage railways is posted over here.

New Trip Report – Mallets in Niles Canyon

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve actually posted any new photography from any railfan trips. Mostly it’s because I just run out of time. By the time I get home from the trip, there’s just enough time to dump all the images into my big storage server, maybe post one or two to Trainorders, and then crash so I can get up and go to work in the morning. And then life happens and I never get back to editing and publishing.

Skookum hauls a short cut of flats eastward over the Farwell bridge. The through truss bridge dates from 1896.

I’ve decided that’s going to improve, and as my first attempt, I give you the Lerro charter that happened on the Niles Canyon Railway out in California two weeks ago. Yes, that’s right, it’s only taken me two weeks to get this thing edited together and posted, and that includes inventing a workflow with WordPress that fits my new website.

The charter happened on Saturday, Feb 8, 2020, and the two stars of the show were Skookum, the only 2-4-4-2 logging Mallet in North America (and one of two anywhere), and Clover Valley Lumber #4, a 2-6-6-2 logging Mallet. After several trips where Skookum didn’t operate, I figured this was my chance – I’d finally see it do more than roll out of the engine house and back in.

I’ll give you a broad swath of the history of both locomotives and the route itself in the trip report. But if you like articulated steam, you’re going to like this one.

Click here to see Mallets in Niles Canyon.