Good morning everyone. Wednesday has arrived, and it is time to prepare for the upcoming weekend. Like the hokey-pokey, that's what it's all about. If you were one of the lucky 363 people to ride the "Oneida Clipper Excursion" this past Saturday, May 5, you got to ride on some pretty rare track. Part of it was upgraded to minimal passenger standards just for us. The trip began in Port Clinton on the Reading & Northern Railroad. 
The train was a mixed freight. A full freight train with passenger cars and two passenger gondolas. The train was led by two former Southern Ry MP15s. No. 1543 and 1540 were the power.
Quite a few hoppers were in the consist.
Only one boxcar in the train.
Two gondolas
Plus, this tank car (used in water storage for re-filling steam engine 425) and a caboose. All marked for the Reading & Northern.
Snapped this one right before boarding.
The first (of 4) runby locations was south of Tamaqua, PA, which is one of their larger yards. The runby shots are okay, but the units really smoked it up for the return, as they brought the whole train in for re-boarding.
This is the best I could get of the freight train. Most of the runbys were just of the freight, which allowed the caboose riders to get more rail time in than others.
These gondolas are used for moving bicycles on the Lehigh Gorge passenger route.
I will post more photos of this trip, but now I am handing the thread over to you. Show us what ya got!
Every now and then everything just seems to fall into place and I hit the mother lode! This was one of those weeks.
It's what keeps me going year after year. For starters I managed to get a nice shot of a grain train going over a small waterfall on the BNSF Corson sub not far from my home. I then turned my attention to some unfinished business from a month or so ago up in North Dakota. On Friday night I loaded up my car and went north over the weekend. My wife decided she didn't want to sit out all night just to see diesel trains, so she stayed home. I headed straight to the great Karnak trestle over Lake Ashtabula on the BNSF KO sub. There was no snow this time, but I still had to hike in from the dirt road carrying ~50 pounds of gear in a backpack. It took me an hour to set up. Since there was no longer any snow on the ground, I decided to double the number of flash from two to four to make up for the difference. I sat on the bluff on the west side of the valley, and hoped all this would be worth it as darkness fell.
One of the five best night shots I've ever done.
With that, the dispatcher turned off the tap and I saw no more trains. After two hours I packed up and left. I got to my hotel in Valley City around 2 am and went to sleep with a smile.
