T.G.'s Photography Blog

BNSF 662, BNSF 4954, and BNSF 5442 lead a train north on the Fort Scott Subdivision in the Marais Des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge. This photograph was taken along Stillwell Road, about halfway between Lacygne, Kansas, and Pleasanton, Kansas, and just to the west of Trading Post, Kansas. Lacygne is milepost 62.5 and Pleasanton is milepost 74.0 on the BNSF Fort Scott Subdivision.  BNSF 662, BNSF 4954, and BNSF 5442 All three of the locomotives on this train were built by General Electric and are the same model/type, C44-9W.  BNSF 662 is a former Santa Fe Railway locomotive that at the time of the photograph was still painted in the Warbonnet paint scheme. BNSF 662 was built in September, 1994; BNSF 4954 was built in December, 1998; and BNSF 5442 was built in July, 2000. BNSF 4954 and 5442 are painted in BNSF's Heritage II paint scheme. BNSF Fort Scott Subdivision The BNSF Fort Scott Subdivision runs between Kansas City, Missouri, and Springfield, Missouri. The subdivision is par…

Back in October of 2010, Union Pacific's Challenger 3985 came to St. Louis, Missouri. On October 7, the steam locomotive took an excursion train south to Gorham, Illinois, and then back to St. Louis. The first photograph, above, is of the locomotive as it heads south on the Union Pacific's Chester Subdivision at Columbia, Illinois. This was the only photograph I managed to get of the locomotive on the outbound trip to Gorham. The train was traveling at a fast pace, and due to a road closure at Chester, Illinois, my dad and I could not keep with it. So, after lunch in Chester, we found a photographic spot to capture UP 3985 from on the return trip.


After Union Pacific 3985 got to Gorham, Illinois, it was turned around on the wye tracks between the Chester Subdivision and the Mount Vernon Subdivision. It then began its journey back to St. Louis. On the return journey we caught the locomotive and its train coming across the Kaskaskia River bridge (approximately milepost 51.5) on…

While I have not managed to see Union Pacific Big Boy 4014, the newly restored and running Big Boy steam locomotive, I have managed to see and photograph two other Big Boy locomotives on static display. One of the two is Union Pacific Big Boy 4006, which is on display at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, Missouri. Kirkwood, is a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.

Union Pacific Big Boy 4006 Union Pacific 4006 was built by the American Locomotive Company (Alco) in September 1941. In total, Alco built twenty-five Big Boys for the Union Pacific Railroad, with the first ones being delivered in 1941. The locomotives have a wheel arrangement of 4-8-8-4, and are articulated type steam locomotives. This means that the two sets of eight driving wheels move separately from each other, allowing the steam locomotives to navigate tighter radius curves. Overall, the locomotives and their tenders weigh in at about 1.2 million pounds (600 US tons/544 Metric tons), and are 132 fee…

This side pulpit at the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal (Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal) caught my eye while I was touring the basilica. I found the stairway leading up to the pulpit to be very intriguing. The stairway seems such an ornate design, with its wood banisters and railings twisting up, around, and even under itself. In the below photograph, the view is looking past the side pulpit's stairs toward the main altar of the basilica.

About the images Tripods and flashes are not allowed to be used inside the basilica, and the church is extremely dimly lit. So, I had to set the ISO to 6400, and hand hold the camera, shooting at 1/60th of a second, at F/4, for both photographs. Post processing was done in Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop, utilizing the Nik Collection's Silver Efex Pro and Dfine (to reduce the noise a bit).

Photographs taken: July 16, 2013, at Montréal, Québec.