Sunday, June 17, 2018
Burning Daylight was a novel by Jack London which was his best-selling book in his lifetime. This pretty much summed it up as I was sleeping in to gain strength for the day's events and conversely literally losing valuable daylight hours of which there never seem to be enough of. Jim, a lifelong small aircraft pilot, picked us up in his Honda Pilot (with a pun license plate "A PILOT") and transported us to Peggy's Restaurant. Jim loves this place, which opened in 1944, as it is located across from Merrill Field where he houses his planes. Jim delighted in the fact we had a surly waitress which added to the colorful clientele seated around us. As we departed the restaurant we noticed a sign stating the business was for sale.
Merrill Field was the first airport in Anchorage when it opened in 1930. Jim drove us through the remote controlled gates and into Merrill Field where his girlfriend's car was parked so as to make the vehicle exchange. We made a brief stop at Jim's planes to see if weed killer needed to be applied to the surrounding cracks in the asphalt.
After commandeering Jim's SUV we headed to Wal-Mart for trip groceries and then to snag a few geocaches. At one of the geocaches a passing woman inquired, "What are you looking for?" We gave a quick and easy to understand explanation of being on a scavenger hunt. She nodded suspiciously and continued on her way.
Our next stop was at the home of Curt and Renee Rudd. Curt started working for the Alaska Railroad as a teenager and rose through its ranks over the years. He recently retired and turned his attention to renovating his home, spending time with friends and hunting tasty animals. The Rudd's recently built a massive addition onto their home which included an extensive workshop and guest apartment. With a pleasant whiff of meat on a slow cooker, Curt gave us a tour of the property as well as their new addition. He showed great pride in the fact his workshop included a urinal. The guest apartment had a fully equipped kitchen complete with snacks and drinks, a small dining area, a cozy seating area with sleeper sofa, spectacular bathroom with walk-in shower and an Alaska themed bedroom. Curt put a garage key in our hands and invited us to come and go as we pleased. What incredible hosts! Time and again I've been so impressed with the hospitality of Alaskans.
Few people have captured the amazing aesthetics of the Alaska Railroad like Frank Keller has. Whittier to Seward to Anchorage to Fairbanks and all points in between are captured in amazing moods, scenery and atmospheres which honor its operations as well as provides a calling to those who have never experienced The Great Land. One merely needs to visit railpictures.net to see (as of 3/4/19) 387 examples of Frank's expertise behind the lens. His work is also featured in magazines such as Trains, Railfan and Railroad, Passenger Train Journal and Railroads Illustrated. Terry and I are fortunate enough to be able to call Frank a friend.
Frank had agreed to meet us at the end of his work day at the Alaska Railroad to do a bit of train chasing. Several years ago he upped his game by purchasing a DJI Phantom drone to capture brilliant aerial photos and video. On my last couple of Alaska trips I'd wanted to watch him fly his drone, but either ran out of time or encountered bad weather. Although today's weather wasn't the most pleasant it was cooperating enough to field the drone.
Our chosen meeting place was the parking lot of the Potter Section House Railroad Museum which gave me a chance to briefly revisit the old Alaska Railroad Rotary Snow Plow. It is said happiness is meeting up with a friend after a long time and feeling that nothing has changed. Without a doubt this was the true with Frank. Gosh, it was great to see him again! We loaded his drone into "my" Honda Pilot and set our sights on tracking down a train. Catching the Glacier Discovery at Portage was our best bet and the bonus was a scenic drive along Turnagain Arm. Even though the weather was bleak and moody it provided soft and somber lighting of the majestic Alaska scenery.
As we drove down "The Arm" my wife asked Frank how he became interested in trains. As the story is lengthy I won't repeat it here save to say it was indeed truly inspirational.
Shortly after arriving at Portage we caught a fairly unique sighting of a propane train returning from Crown Point. Without a doubt, this"mini" train provided an easy run for this train service crew. About a half hour later the Glacier Discovery emerged and I took photos while Terry grabbed some iPhone video.
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| Chugach Explorer DMU #751 | GP40 #3012 on the point of the Glacier Discovery | The propane train heading back to Anchorage |
Growling stomachs? We couldn't help, but notice how close we were to the Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ! Reasonable prices, great service, beautiful view and of course, excellent BBQ and sides made for a fantastic stop. Fighting our way through the resulting food coma we headed back to the Portage area to field the drone.
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| John, Frank and the Glacier Discovery at Portage | DJI Phantom quadcopter | Ready for lift off! |
I've worked with several fascinating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in my USAF career and thought some day I'd love to fly a non-commercial one myself. Unfortunately, I've got so many projects going on at home that I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Therefore, Frank's quadcopter demonstration today would undoubtably scratch my itch for a little while. I thought about posting some drone jokes here, but none of them would even be REMOTEly funny, and I don't want to drone on and on.
With the current technolog availale flying a drone would be easy, but I also realized that a mistake could smash your healthy dollar investment. One acquaintance of mine was on his third drone as the first two hit tree branches and wound up taking a plunge in the river. Another fine example was our community billionaire who had fliers placed in our mailboxes asking us to be on the lookout for an expensive drone that had somehow gone rogue and disappeared. Frank had a few close calls of his own. On one wintery occasion his drone went down unexpectedly. Apparently batteries do not hold their charge in cold temperatures and the drone landed itself before running out of juice. Now just imagine for a minute looking for a white object in a large field of snow!
After unboxing the quadcopter at Girdwood Frank explained basic operations as well as the flight and camera specifications. As it turned out the FAA does have a list of rules and it is typically up to the operator to ensure they are obeying them. Also noteworthy is some railroads (such as Union Pacific) have UAV policy statements which they expect to be followed although some railfans flagrantly disobey them. I believe all operations come down to two basic principals: safety and respect.
Once the drone was aloft, Frank gave us an "over the shoulder" view of chasing the Glacier Discovery via the iPad resting on top of the controls. I'll admit I got a huge rush of excitement watching the Glacier Discovery from an elevated view. Frank's total demonstration, from lift off to landing, lasted four minutes, and for me it ended far too soon. Frank later provided me with the raw video file which came in at a whopping 1GB. Since most of you are not on a commercial data line I've provided smaller movies: 480p at 151MB and 720p at 357MB.
After stowing the quadcopter we raced up Turnagain Arm snagging photos of the Glacier Discover along the way. A strong icy cold wind made walking and holding the camera still especially challenging. Although I didn't know this until later, railfan Matt Leistico was looking out of the front west side window of the the Chugach Explorer and spotted me along the rail. How did he know it was me? "You stand out like a railfan with a GP40 on a white T-shirt", he said.
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| Glacier Discovery at Windy | Chugach Explorer DMU #751 | New Positive Train Control (PTC) instrumentation near Potter Section House |
We ended the evening a tad bit early as Terry and I had to catch an early morning Coastal Classic. We thanked Frank for his time, expertise, drone demonstration and friendship.