Freight and old depot

I’ve had such bad luck with the nightly northbound freight these past few weeks, I decided to give up on it for awhile and devote the time to a book I want to complete by mid-February. As followers of my train posts know, the northbound freight typically passes through Wasilla between 9:00 and 10:00 PM. I try to be in position to photograph it by about 8:45 and if it doesn’t show up by 10:00 will often stay put until 10:30. If it doesn’t show by then I give up, go home, microwave a bag of popcorn, put a generous serving of treats in a little plastic bottle for Junipurr and then slowly feed them to her one at a time as Margie and I munch popcorn and watch a late night movie.

In the past two weeks, I believe I caught the northbound freight just once - last week not at all. It didn’t come in this time period Sunday night, either. So I decided that until I finish this book, I will limit my train photography efforts to the passenger trains which run on a much more reliable schedule. Right now, only one round trip passenger passes through Wasilla per week, except for two the first week of the month. There will be one additional train in the middle of February and then in March another four per month.

So I had no plans to go out last night at all, until I got a text message from my friend Mike who lives in Montana Creek. To his surprise, a southbound train had just passed his house. It would be in Wasilla in about 50 minutes. I put on some warm gear and drove toward the tracks. The full moon was out, beautifully hazy through thin clouds. I hoped I could figure out how to work into the picture but I couldn’t. In all possible framings of train and moon, the lead locomotive headlamps would be pointed away from the camera eye of Sancho the drone. The train would be lost in black.

So I shot this image of the southbound freight, which normally rolls through Wasilla between 5:00 and 6:00 AM, as it passed by the old depot, home of the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce.

Photograph courtesy of Bill Hess