A story to remember when I have bad luck along the tracks: once upon a December morning, I decided to drive to Montevideo, MN to meet up with my friend Jeremiah and see the Twin Cities & Western's West End Job working its way west from Renville. When they arrived in Montevideo, they dropped their train at the east end of town and proceeded west as light power to Appleton. First stroke of luck: they wouldn't be tying down in Appleton, but returning east with some grain loads. Second stroke of luck: the sun looked like it might start breaking through the clouds as we neared Appleton. We started a brief scouting trip along the line to pick out a couple of photo locations. After settling on getting a shot of them crossing the overpass just west of Milan, we headed toward Appleton to see how close the train was to departing. Biggest stroke of luck: as we drive along, we spotted a county highway department plow at one of the crossings. It hadn't snowed out this way for quite some time, so we jokingly said, "Maybe he's plowing the crossing for us!" Sure enough, we saw him start to back up and clear snow off of the crossing again. We didn't think there was any way he could've actually left a ridge across the tracks, but that's exactly what happened. It was like a railfan hijacked a plow and decided to set up the perfect drift busting shot for us. Everything had to line up exactly right. If the plow was 30 minutes earlier, the light power would've busted the drift on their way west. If they were 30 minutes later, it would've been after the train returned back east. And I still don't know what in the world a plow was doing out there clearing snow in the first place! To top it all off, the sun held on just long enough to capture what has to be the luckiest drift busting shot of my life. You can bet there was much rejoicing as we headed back toward Montevideo for a few more pictures and celebratory wings and beer at Duffy's. This is definitely one to remember.
Taking a look at the same train and scene as captured by different photographers. The best way to view will be to sort by photo date so the photos are grouped together.
