Tried rotating the pic 2 degrees clockwise, and this makes the front corner of the tender and both ends of the P42 vertical (forget that signal line pole; they're notorious for leaning). It also lessens the impression of the grade's steepness -- essentially makes for more realistism.

What I've noticed lately, starting with some digital photographs I took of some repair work on my house, is that digital cameras tend to skew the verticals on one side or the other of a picture, more so than film cameras. This could be an effect of a wide(ish) angle lens/zoom setting. I've had to rotate a lot of my own pictures because of this. I understand Photoshop has a skew function which corrects perspective, sort of like a view camera with it's elevating, tilting, and rotating lens and film planes (haven't tried it yet because I don't use Win).

As for the horizon not being "level" phooey. As you said, mountains are flat? And as for the color values, right on! This part of Calif towards twilight abounds in unsaturated, pastel colors. Subject matter? excellent. It's a mcuh better photo than most of what I've seen on that other site.