Before my flight I managed to head up to Blue Mountain, 20 miles west of Denver. Thanks to a very amenable local resident I was able to get an awesome view of the Big Ten and Little Ten curves taking the UP Moffat Sub up into the Rockie Mountains.

Sunday was mostly spent shopping but I managed to visit both the UP and BNSF yards in Denver.

Today I drove back from Nort Platte to Denver. The weather got more wintery as I made my way west. I followed the UP back to Ogalalla but traffic was scarce. I picked up the BNSF main at Sterling and followed this back to Denver but it got dark well before I got there.

After breakfast I made my way back along the US30 Highway towards North Platte. Traffic had picked up a bit since Tuesday and I got the shock of my life when I passed the George Bush Snr unit UP4141. I quickly turned the car round and got ahead of it though.

In between a two night stay at Grand Island I was fortunate enough to visit Cooperative Farmers United's facility at Bradshaw, Nebraska where there is an active ALCo S2 switcher, RELCO 807. I followed the BNSF main out to Bradshaw and back.

Some say it's straight and boring. Personally, I never tire of it. Nebraskas UP Triple Track mainline stretches 140 miles from O'Fallons, through North Platte to Gibbon Junction. This is my third trip to cover it. On this day however, the US recession was evident as I saw just 40 trains in a period when I might typically see around 100. Just east of Kearney I took the back road to Ravenna to meet the BNSF main. Maintainence was being carried out on Main #1 at St Michaels so traffic was also scarce up there. The upside of this was that I found a queue of stationary trains backed up to Grand Island. There I met the UP main again. After dark I discovered that there was much more to Grand Island than I had thought from my previous two visits. I also managed to find an outlet that sold train horns!

In the morning I started at the east end of Bailey Yard where the US30 passes over the triple track. After picking up my Green Tea Latte from the local Starbucks I visited the new Golden Spike Tower then made my way to O'Fallons where the mainlines to Cheyenne, WY and the Powder River Basin split. In the evening I ended up where I started.

I arrived in Denver on 30th November and drove down to Palmer Lake to meet Ron and Helen Carlisle. Snow aplenty but more than made up for with Helens mean pork and garlic!! I left Rons at 4pm and drove up to North Platte in one hit. After dropping my crap off at the cheap and cheerful Motel 6 I nipped into town for some night shots.

Or final day for this trip was spent trying to keep dry in Chicago. We visited the CN and CP lines around O'Hare Airport. The final pic gave us a reminder that we had to go home.

I started out early leaving Jason to have a lie in at the motel. Glad I did as I happened upon UP1995 in CNW Heritage paint. We left Rochelle, where it was still raining and made our way back to our starting point in Chicago. After some shopping for our friends and family we pitched ourselves at Naperville Metra station for a couple of hours by which time the weather had improved.

Leaving Iowa behind we plodded on along US30 into Illinois ending the day at the railfan park at Rochelle. Appaulling weather made us give up at 4pm and camp out at the local Motel 6. Thank Goodness for free Wifi!!!

Another day mostly spent driving with a few stop-offs. Crossing Iowa in its entirety ending up on the border with Illinois at Clinton.

Long day. We drove 460 in almost one hit. Crawford to Omaha, all the way across Nebraska state. We stopped off briefly at Alliance to see the huge coal staging yard there but the high winds nearly knocked us off our feet so we moved on. Watching the tumbleweed across Western Nebraksa was a strange experience. We came back via North Platte and the Overland route and stuck to taking video footage rather than photography.

Waking up in a log cabin in Crawford, Nebraska with snow on the ground. Lovely. We stayed at Kim & Jeff Lunds 'Ponderosa Ranch' ( www.ponderosaranch.net ) for two nights giving us a full days access to the property surrounding Crawford Hill. I did a bit of hiking but never got to Breezy Point at the top of the hill. I'm going to stay at the ranch in better weather in future. We also headed into downtown Crawford where the manned helpers are based and also made it out to Horn, the crossover where the helpers are attached.

Starting out from Grand Island, Nebraska, we made our way along UP's Overland route to North Platte. With UP Business being on a bit of a downturn at this time of year, 100's of locos were stored around Bailey Yard - leasor SD40's, C40-8's and SD60's mainly. Around mid afternoon we made progress towards Alliance and Crawford.

After a lie in and a late breakfast we left Kansas City in pouring rain. The rain subsided at Lincoln so we stopped by the BNSF yard there before heading up to York to catch an EB coal empty. Clouds made for bad ligt so we got a motel at Grand Island and called it a day.

Once again, I had the opportunity to view another large American layout. This time it was Joe Kaspers N scale BN layout based on the Kansas City to Omaha and Lincoln route, circa 1985. A special operating session was arranged by Joe for myself and Jason. 14 operators were needed to run the layout. We had about 3 hours to operate it, made loads of new friends and gained a new perspective on layout design and operation.

The pics aren't great but it was a bit hectic and basement photography isn't my forte!

We had a full day of railfanning around Kansas City. Catch of the day was a 25 unit light power move originating in oseville California. We stumbled upon it by accident! 84000hp in one long line albeit not all under power.

Galesburg to Kansas City. Cold and windy but at least we had air conditioning. We called in at a couple of places along the way including Burlington and Fort Madison.

And so begins my first 2008 visit. After arriving at Chicago O'Hare i torrential rain we picked up our car and headed for Galesburg. On the way we stopped at Princeton, Illinois so Jason could see his first US train up close. We watched an EB manifest pass through with BNSF 1025 on the point and caught to local Amtraks, one lead by Amtk P42 #31.

My last railfanning day for this visit. A few of us decided to hike across the hills from or tunnel two camp to get a decent shot of tunnel 1. I also managed to get the shot wanted in Ilmon Canyon. Our tunnel 2 camp was visited by a friendly UP cop. Instead of catching the train back from Bakersfield to Oakland, Glenn Hazen offered me a lift back to my cousins in San Ramon. This enabled me to stay a bit longer and have a look round Bakersfield.

This ended my railfanning trip for the summer. I stayed in San Ramon for a couple of days and flew home midweek.

My second day on The Hill. We got word that UP/SP Heritage SD70ACe SP1996 was heading south. I managed to catch it at seven seperate locations between Bena and Mojave.

Picture of the day must surely be my final shots of a BNSF dash9 at Bealville in the evening, lit up by a passing UP northbound.

Tehachapi: The Greatest SHow on Earth as far as railfanning goes. I travelled down from Oakland to Bakersfield on Amtrak and hired a car for a few days on the hill. I had planned to hire a compact and stay in Motels but they gave me a free upgrade to an SUV so I decided to stay in that. I met up with eight other railfans at tunnel 2 that evening. Thanks to Chris Walker and co for the slide show, good food and chat.

... And now for a break from the rails. I got up this morning and decided to go for a walk.

In the afternoon I popped over to Richmond to meet my friend John again at the Richmond Pacific RR. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time there in the future but thats another story.

I opted for a second day in the East Bay. I caught BART to West Oakland and walked alongside the tracks into Jack London Square. In the afternoon I got a call from Ryan 'Espeeboy' Martin in the afternoon - the chase was on for unpatched SP8577!!! We met up with Alex Ramos and company and headed for the Japanese Buffet in Livermore.

After a very good night out in the city I had a lie in before heading out to Oakland and Emeryville. In the evening I met up with my good friend John Cockle ad his buddy Mike at the Pac Bell Park for the Giants game, then more beer, of course!

UP2010 was being geared up for display at LA UPT. Andy and I had a chat with the Hybrid locos designer who was interested to hear the opinions of two engineers from different continents. We then travelled north from LA on the Coast Starlight. Andy managed to get me access to the Pacific Parlour car and I got off at San Jose for a Caltrain service into San Francisco. Andy continued on to Tacoma. I dropped my kit off in my SF Downtown hotel and headed for the pub.

I've gotta say, travelling through LA on the light rail network really put me off the place but on the Sunday I was lucky to have the offer of a guide to take me up to Cajon Pass. Richard Pace of Pomona did the honours and I'm forever grateful to him. Traffic was pretty light on the pass but it wet my appetite for a repeat visit in the future.

Photos from the California Southern Model Railroad Open House event on 19th May 2007. Thanks to Robbie, Tom and the guys for making Andy and myself feel so welcome.

I arrived in Los Angeles for a two night stay. GE Hybrid loco no.2010 was in town on display at Union Station.

A loaded westbound US military train made up mainly of reinforced 89ft flatcars lettered for DODX passes Maine in Northern Arizona on Friday 18th May 2007. I managed not to miss a single car.

Its a shame I left this to my last day in Arizona. I met up with local railfan and excellent photographer, Moe Bertrand. After some early morning shots of the eastbound Chief at Winona, he showed me round some of the 'photospots' west of Flagstaff asfar as Williams.

That evening I booked out of my hotel and caught the westbound Chief to Los Angeles to meet Andy again.

Another early start. I covered Riordon (Arizona Divide Summit), Cosnino, Winona and downtown Flag!

I started out early and made my way to West Winslow to catch an eastbound in the morning sun. Thankfully, this produced a Warbonnet SD75I. I spent a couple of hours mid morning at the Barringer Meteor Crater which was not as interesting as I had thought it would be. After a couple of shots at Cosnino I called into Flagstaff for lunch. In the afternoon I zig zigged between Maine and Winona.

My arrival in Flagstaff, Arizona, was a mere 7 hours late. I managed to miss a whole night in my hotel which was not refundable. As it was 0430 when I got there I opted to stay up for breakfast and photograph the eastbound Chief. I met Sal Allen, another railfan off Trainorders from Pheonix. He'd come up just to photograph both Chiefs, an avid Amtrak fan.

After breakfast (thanks Sal!) I picked up my car and went to my hotel for a shower. Then I set off to Winslow and cover the route back to Flagstaff all day. I finished off the evening by propping up my video camera outside my hotel, right next to the tracks.

I was supposed to arrive in Flagstaff on the Monday evening after a 23 hour trip however things never go to plan on Amtrak. Shortly after leaving KC the train got stuck on the BNSF near Topeka after a coal train broke a knuckle in two places. This incurred a 7 hour delay! I slept throuh it so didn't mond so much. I sat at the rear of the train and got a few shots through the rear door.

After a spin around KC in the morning Andy and I made our way north toward Joliet but time went too quickly and we didn't get that far. We gave up railfanning quite early. I caught The South West Chief to Flagstaff, Arizona that evening.

A visit to Topeka took up most of the day. Me and Andy way our way back to Kansas City via the UP and settled at Mitchell on the BNSF in the evening.

My first full day in Kansas City with my good friend Andy Taylor. We mainly stuck to the Transcontinental Main Line to the east and the west of the city.

I flew on United Airlines from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare and quickly made my way downtown to Union Station. After checking in my bags for the South West Chief I took the long walk south along the tracks towards the Amtrak diesel Shops, passing the Metra Diesel Shops on the way. In the afternoon, I caught the Chief to Kansas City.

My last full day in the US of A.

Myself and Chris took a Caltrain MP36 from Millbrea to San Jose then headed back up to San Francisco to take in a few real ale pubs and see the sights. Chris went back to the hotel early and I stayed out after hooking up with some locals for more beers! I flew out to Heathrow the following day so this ends my railfanning trip.

Cheers
Rugby

Having booked into my hotel near San Francisco Airport at 2am (thanks again, Amtrak!) I got up at 6am to meet our Chris Collins. We then made our way to Oakland for a guided tour of the Amtrak California Diesel Shop. Big thanks go out to Mark Jones and his managers for allowing us to look around.

Chris then introduced me to world of Baseball. We went to see Oakland A's beat their Los Angeles rivals. We also met up there with local railfan Ryan 'Espeeboy' Martin and his work buddies.

Highlight of the evening was teaching Mexicans some Cockney phrases like 'Cor Blimey, Guv'nor!'

Now then! I was supposed to arrive at Emeryville on the California Zephyr at 4.49pm. However, severe slow orders between Salt Lake City, Utah and Winnamucca, Nevada delayed the train by a massive 8 hours. We had left Grand Junction 3 hours late the day before but made up all but 45 minutes of that delay by Salt Lake City. All this delay was down to slow orders and bad dispatching by Union Pacific. I only managed to take one photograph all day. Arrival at Emeryville was 1am on Friday morning!

Having left Omaha the night before on the westbound California Zephyr, I spend the day crossing Colorado on it. Pictures below show our progress through Denver to Glenwood Springs and on to Grand Junction.

I left Andys' and after another short foray around Kansas City I amde my way back to Omaha to drop off the car. Below are pictures at both locations.

Another stonking day! I was given a thorough gudied tour of the BNSF Railway Argentine Diesel Shops in Kansas City. With over 1000 locos assigned to the depot and a dedicated GE maintenance facility there was a lot to see.

After the two hour tour, me and Andy spent the day doing the rounds in the city again.

I consider myself very privileged to have been given a tour of the model railroad pictured in this collection - Rick McClellands Frisco Railroad. Set in the 1970's in HO scale, the layout is stretched over 4000 square feet of basement at Ricks' home in Shawnee, near Kansas City. The basement is 70ft by 75ft at its extremes. It took me a good five minutes to walk the entire length of the layout from start to finish. The layout is currently about one 1/3 complete and the pictures show the rest of the basement beyond the completed parts to show how much space there is down there. Overwhelming! Rick has regular operating sessions. His previous incarnation of the Frisco Railroad appeared in a magazine a few years ago and this one has been refered to in Model Railroader too.

My first full day in Kansas City. I stayed with Andy Taylor, a BNSF Engineer and he gave me a full tour of the citys' railroad hotspots. A visit to the recently improved Santa Fe Junction was made all the more interesting withthe Blue Angels Aerobatic Display Team attending the local airshow and flying right over us for most of the afternoon.

A quiet day for trains. I drove around Lincoln looking in model shops, catching a couple of freights in the area then drove to Kansas City to stay at a friends.

This is the day I got the full Mid-West experience! I left my motel in Crawford and made my way up to Crawford Hill. I didn't go up to the top of the hill as that involved going onto the Pedarosa Ranch. I still managed to get pics of all of the locos in helper service that day though. I then drove south to Alliance and back to North Platte. It was my intention to drive all the way to Kansas City but fate had other ideas.

I put my foot down on the !80 freeway, east and when I approached the east end of the UP triple track at Kearney I realised I was catching up with a huge storm. I detoured of the freeway over to the mainline and positioned myself to get a picture of a westbound coming out of the storm into the sun. Unfortunately there were plenty of eastbounds but nothing heading west. All I managed was a blurred but moody pic of an SD70M going into the storm. Once I'd got the shot I drove up to the crossing and waited for the train to pass. It wasn't until it cleared that I noticed the funnel cloud forming in the adjacent field! As you can imagine, I got out of there pretty fast. You can just see the cloud forming in the picture below (the last but one picture with a train in it).

About a two hours later near York, Nebraska, I ran into a heavy rainstorm and then all of a sudden - BANG! - the car started getting pummled by hail stones the size of golf balls. All the freeway traffic stopped. The locals must've know what was coming so I stopped too. It was pretty scary!

When that storm passed I carried on and then stopped for gas. I went in to pay, came back out and noticed everyone on the forecourt looking north. I turned and saw another tornado about half a mile away. Once again, I felt a sudden need to be somewhere else fast!

Finally, I went into Lincoln and decided to get a nice hotel for the night. It was getting late and the weather was still awful. I didn't fancy the prospect of a further 3 hours drive to Kansas City. I went to a coffee shop and a pub and got stuck in the basement whilst we all hid from another impending tornado!

After that I went up to my hotel room on the 12th floor and took several pictures of the lightning storm at the edge of the city. These pictures can also be seen below.

Enjoy!

I had parked my Chevy overnight on the forecourt of the Scottbluff Chevy dealership so as not to get noticed. It wasn't far from the tracks so my nights sleep was somewhat patchy. I decided to make a move at first light, about 6am and soon found my first train of the day - a BNSF Dash 9 and an SD40 - both in Heritage 1 paint. After that I made my way towards Geurnsey on the BNSF mainline and then into the Powder River Basin. I stayed in the Basin for about 5 hours then after sundown, made my way across the hills toward Newcastle and positioning myself back in Nebraska at Crawford that night.

This is the day I found out exactly how big an operation Union Pacific run in Nebraska. I got up at about 6am and drove just west of Kearney to set up my camera for the first shot of the day. It did not take long for a train to turn up. As soon as it had passed, the headlights of the next one could be seen - and so this continued for the next fourteen hours. This collection shows just a fraction of the photographs that I took this day. I must have seen about 120 trains in daylight alone. I worked my way west to North Platte, drove along both sides of the huge Bailey Yard and through the UP diesel shops then made my way further west to Ogallela. After the light faded I drove for two and a half more hours in the dark to Scottsbluff. During this drive I counted over 50 coal trains coming in or out of the Powder River Basin.

I arrived at Omaha on the Zephyr, still 5 hours late at 11am. I imediately caught a cab to the local airport to pick up my hire car, a 4x4 Chevy Trailblazer - very nice! I headed straight out of the city along the BNSF mainline towards Grand Island and on to the UP main at Gibbon Junction, ending the day at Kearney where I booked myself into a motel for the night. Two days on a train with no shower! I think you know where I'm coming from!

My second day on the Zephyr. We failed to make up any time through Nevada overnight and remained 5 hours late by the time we had gone through Salt Lake City and into Denver, Colorado.

I took the 0915 train from Emeryville to Omaha, the 'California Zephyr'. This is supposed to be a 42 hour trip but by the end of the first day on the train we were already 5 hours late. Photos were taken at Emeryville, Sacramento, Roseville and through the Donner Pass to Reno.

Calrailfans Monthly Meet held at Emeryville Amtrak Station. I met up with a bunch of local railfans and was given a guided tour of the Oakland 'hotspots'. I was even given an impromptu cabride on Amtrak California from Oakland to San Jose and back through to Emeryville.

A day in Oakland, from Jack London Square to Magnolia and into the OIG Yard again in the evening. Whilst I sat in the pub on JLS, two Caltrain F40's came down the street and I missed the pic but I caught up with them on the Amtrak Oakland diesel shop.

Whilst searching for the entrance to the Golden Gate Railroad Museums Hunters Point site I stumbled upon the South Sanfrancisco switch job - some nice SF street running. After chasing a few Caltrains I went over the Golden Gate and San Rafael bridges to do some East Bay railfanning. A late night visit to the Oakland International Gateway terminal (OIG) was also undertaken.

Another 7am start! Another guided tour and a cabride with the Richmond Pacific Railroad Company. Excellent!

An early morning guided tour of the Niles Canyon Railroad was made all the more interesting with a cabride along the entire length of the line on former SP GP9 5623, part owned by Howard Wise. I went to get a few pics at Niles Junction after that but nothing came so I headed up to Martinez, an Amtrak hotspot.

The afternoon was spent taking a tour of the Caltrain yard at San Francisco followed by a trip to San Jose and back.

Even after the holiday was seemingly over we were treated to a fly-by around the city of San Francisco and over the bay to Oakland with not a cloud in the sky. I was able to take a few pictures including this one overlooking the Port of Oakland. West Oakland Yard is in the center of the picture and Jack London Square is to the left. San Francisco is to the right of this picture.

With one day of our holiday left we still had some spending money and space in our cases so I took my wife on a scenic drive up to Eckley just in time to photograph the late running 'Coast Starlight', then to Concord for more models and to Dublin for more Crafts! I still managed to find a couple of hours in the afternoon to pop back to Martinez where there were Dash 8's in abundance.

After totally underestimating our baggage allowance for our flight home, my wife and I headed our seperate ways again with some extra shopping money. She went to the craft shops in Dublin and Pleasanton and I drove to 'Just Trains' in concord again. I knew she'd be all day so I took the opportunity to get some more photos.

The 'CalRailfans' yahoogroup had arranged a meet for its members at Eckley Pier for Saturday 22nd May but as I was going home on the 19th, I decided to do a sort of preemptive strike. The following pictures were taken from above the mainline near Crockett and from the grade crossing providing access to Eckley Pier. I photographed four Union Pacific movements in the space of 90 minutes. Three of them are pictured here.

My cousin decided to take my wife around all the decent craft shops in the area so I was left to my own devices once again. As they only decided the night before what they were doing I didn't really know where to go so I just went down to Martinez for 0730 and weighed up the traction. In the end I opted for an F59 to Sacramento to cover new ground. I then travelled back through to Oakland and walked about a mile west to CP Magnolia and West Oakland Yard. This allowed me to gather research for my HO model railroad which is based on 'CP Maggie' as it is known locally.

After walking back to Jack London Sq and catching the same F59 back to Martinez I drove over to Concord to visit 'Just Trains' model shop. When I came out of the shop I heard the horn of a BNSF freight passing nearby Maltby and just caught a glimpse of the rear end from about a mile away. I raced back up Route 4 westward to overtake it. I managed to get to Collier Siding, at the west end of Franklin Canyon, about 10 minutes ahead of it.

After that I headed back to Martinez for a few more pictures. To my annoyance, San Joaquin Train 718 came in with a BNSF SD40 on the point. I could have travelled on this from Oakland if I had known in advance. Still, I was happy enough to photograph it anyway.

Once again, got up early and drove to Martinez to meet the southbound Amtrak 'Coast Starlight' which is due to leave there at 0734. It eventually arrived nearly two hours late but I killed the time racing around the surrounding area in the car to get some more interesting lineside shots. Aside from the booked pair of P42's on the L.A. service, two more appeared on San Joaquins. Meanwhile down at Ozol Yard, a second Geep had joined UP 901 on switching duties.

On the way back to my cousins in San Ramon I stumbled upon Muir Tressle on the BNSF Franklin Canyon line and decided to follow the line by way of the Franklin Canyon Road. Although the line sees maybe four or five trains a day, it didn't take long until a Richmond bound double stack turned up at Glen Frazer.

I got to Martinez nice and early again but this time I caught Amtrak Capitol train 523 to San Jose then bought a day pass for Caltrain. I planned a move that would get me haulage behind as many Caltrain F40's as possible before travelling up the penninsula to San Francisco. I returned to San Jose to catch the last northbound Capitol back to Martinez which, I'm glad to report, produced one of Amtrak California's freshly painted Dash 8's, CDTX 2052. In the end I managed to photograph nearly every Caltrain F40 and all six of the railroads MP36's. The only F40's I missed were 902, 903, 906 and 911. The latter worked the Amtrak 'Coast Starlight' to Los Angeles that morning but I had made my way up the penninsula by the time it arrived at San Jose, where 911 was attached.

I made another early morning visit to Martinez and then took a short walk to Ozol Yard to watch a pair of GP38's switching a manifest.

This was my first visit to the United States with railfanning in mind. For my first day out I spent a couple of hours at Martinez Amtrak Station. This section features Amtrak's Capitol and San Joaquin services and long distance 'California Zephyr' as well as Union Pacific works and Autorack trains.

In June 1999 I also spent two weeks in the Bay Area. I was not into American railroads at the time but I did video a few trains on 25th June when I travelled down to Palo Alto to look around Stanford University. These pictures are stills from that video thus the quality is low. Worthy of note are the two Amtrak F40's that were on lease at the time and the experimental Caltrain livery that CDTX 901 carried for a short time. I travelled behind three F40's that day, Caltrains' CDTX 901, CDTX 919 and F40PH-2CAT CDTX 921.

If I hadn't gone to Stanford that day I probably wouldn't have taken any of the other pictures in this gallery.