If I remember correctly, the popular Nevada Northern winter photo shots were dreamed up by Joel Jensen around 2000 or so. Or at least for a number of years he was very much involved. It was a lot of fun having such a creative photographer running the photo ops. One experience that sticks in my mind was, late in the afternoon on an overcast day as the light was quickly disappearing, I was dithering trying to figure out how to take a shot. Joel kind of dragged me me into the sage brush on the dark side and suggested something along the lines of "forget the train, it's the SKY you want!" Okay, it's not a masterpiece, but the experience did teach me to look for whatever is interesting in a scene, even if it means making the train a secondary part of the image.
JBWX
It's the SKY stupid!