Hi, John -
Thanks for taking me seriously - or at least just about exactly as seriously as I intended. One of my favorite shots, which someone is now marketing as an "illuminated" poster (!?!?! - with LED's for the car and loco headlights and markers, I presume), is Elliot Irwin's 1955 photo "Wyoming". There's a car on the road, and a snow fence and a LOT of wires between the camera and the train - but it's still a great picture. It reminds me of being on vacation when I was about 12. As we were driving across southern Idaho along the U.P., a Challenger came racing along in the opposite direction with a long string of heavyweights behind ... The photo shows how it was up until fairly recently, before communications all went underground with buried fiber-optic cables; it used to be really tough to get a train shot without wires in the way, except maybe at mp 302 between Big Horn and Sublette ...
Sometimes I miss the rhythm of phone poles and wires fading into the background haze alongside the right of way - but I never did and never will like big electric power lines running across a scene.
- Russ
p.s. RE People - if they "belong" (a judgement call), they add to the shot. If you'll check the 3rd of the 4 shots in my previous post, you'll see there are still a lot of people in the photo, specifically a fan (Olaf?) chatting with the fireman. I erased only the older gentleman (probably younger than I am now) blocking the view of #498, and part of Olaf's car.
p.p.s. Your name has come up as someone likely to have a lot of good C&TS photos from the early 1990's (and maybe even the seventies & eighties). IF the screen saver project that Tom Gildersleeve, Ernie Robart, John West and I are currently working on with Roger Hogan generates a sequel or two, would you be willing to share some photos for the benefit of the engine 483 restoration? Check out
[www.silcom.com] , -/ss-2/ss-2.htm and -/ss-3/ss-3.htm for the UNEDITED rough collection from the 1960's and early 1970's that we have so far, from which we'll be making the final selection for the screen saver.
