Out here in the Pacific Northwest, a group of Rail fans (including several Rails), get together on a winter weekend for some train photography on Steven's Pass (BNSF Scenic Sub).

This year's event just concluded. Thursday and Friday were mostly sans snow, but a nice system rolled in Friday evening and by Saturday morning the snow picture improved dramatically.

Here's one of my favorites, from at a great location (Foss River bridge), featuring a dirt train that got tied down in Gold Bar due to a report of a leaning load early Saturday. The problem was never found and a crew didn't get called until Sunday morning. They had quite a getting the train moving and were rather suspicious of the leaning load report. Eventually the crew, and a couple of MOW guys found all the tied down brakes.

Here's my shot a Foss River!


Joel, Ross and I also caught it just after leaving Gold Bar.

Here's Joel's shot at Gold Bar

The crew had a bit of surprise when they arrived at Scenic on the siding. Expressing some disbelieve to the dispatcher that a bunch of adults would be out in the snow taking pictures of trains. The dispatcher had been watching the video feed some quarter mile away near the Cascade Tunnel portal and was wondering what of penguins were doing playing around at the crossing.

Our fearless organizer Ross, made a great shot the evening before at Foss River.
Here's Ross's Foss River night time shot of the Builder.