Railway Photography and A New Suitcase

The railway photography in Trains magazine (US) and especially in its Locomotive 2010 special is unrivalled. It astonishes me that, in a country where freight dominates passenger traffic and people do not generally travel distances by rail, there is such a flourishing enthusiast movement. To combine the hobbies of railways and photography has supposedly been occasionally difficult after 9/11 although I am not aware of any specific threat outside the aviation world in that time. In my vacation area there is substantial east and west movement of often huge freight trains. They are so long it is hard to imagine anywhere big enough to put them together or indeed separate the wagons at their destinations. Before today and right up to this morning, I had visualised several locations (for photography) but only at lunchtime captured my first very satisfying image outside LA Union station and (many years ago) South Florida. I was very pleased and the more so for having done this in plain sight of a Sheriff's car without being challenged or even perhaps shot. The intense bright light of the desert requires some care in using largely automatic cameras so I was pleased too with my later shots of a cactus.

I have often remarked that good pictures can be produced only with inspiration and so, even here, a lot around me goes unrecorded. We had been to Cabazon for the outlets and I found its dinosaurs completely uninspiring so they remain in the I-10 hinterland and in other photostreams but not mine. My visit to Casino Morongo was rather startling when it took considerably less time to spend $20 on a machine than $11.09 on my Panda Express lunch. With a new suitcase in the boot (trunk) we headed back to Palm Springs. Now it remains only to see whether the handle or wheels will be damaged first and whether LAX or LHR has the winning team.