T.G.'s Photography Blog

August 1991.

While not the greatest photograph from a composition or technical standpoint (I took this in high school), the content is something that will likely not be seen anymore on mainline trackage. Here we see a Burlington Northern B30-7 (built by General Electric) as the third unit on a west bound train on the BN's Hasting Subdivision. The first two locomotives are LMX 8598 and LMX 8532. Both of the LMX units are lease units.

This image was scanned from a Kodak T-Max 400 negative using a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED film scanner. I used Nik Software's Dfine 2 to try and reduce the grain a bit, but other than that I only used a general levels adjustment to enhance the image.

April 17, 1997. East St. Louis, Illinois.

Union Pacific 5021 (an EMD SD50) waits on the southern edge of Valley Junction waiting for clearance to proceed north. Notice the sign to the right of the train which indicates the different radio channels train crews are to use depending on which railroad they need to communicate with. Today the locomotive's identifying number has been reassigned to a newer UP locomotive, an EMD SD70M.

Valley Junction is probably the busiest railroad junction in the St. Louis Metropolitan area. The Junction has three railroad yards, the biggest of which is the Alton and Southern's Gateway Yard. The Alton and Southern is a subsidiary of the Union Pacific.

Early March 2004. Pacific, Missouri.

BNSF 870, a patched Santa Fe Warbonnet, leads a freight west on the BNSF's Cuba Subdivision.

Image details:

This image was scanned as a 16 bit NEF file from a Kodak Ektachrome slide on a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED film scanner. Post processing was done in Adobe Photoshop.

Photo © Tom Gatermann.

Manufactuers Railway System (MRS) 256 shoves a cut of MRS boxcars off the 2nd Street trackage toward an industrial siding. The industry that was to receive the cut of box cars was a block over on 3rd Street.

The MRS was a small switching operation that was owned by the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. When InBev bought AB the railroad was sold off. Now Foster Townsend Rail Logistics, Inc. operates the railroad. The railroad still switches the brewery complex and also does a lot of engine rebuilding. However, I believe that all of the 2nd Street trackage has been abandoned.

The 2nd Street trackage isn't used much these days due to most of the customer base going away. In this general area there were three customers who received weekly rail service. The largest customer at this location was a chemical plant which was closed and torn down. At one time the 2nd Street trackage ran for just over two miles from the MRS yard by the brewery down to the southern edge of the Gateway Arch grounds. Ov…

February 8, 2004. Altoona, Kansas.

Union Pacific's Challenger 3985 thunders through the small town of Altoona as it leads the Superbowl XXXVIII special. The train is heading north on the UP's Coffeyville Subdivision toward Kansas City, MO. After being on display in Houston, Texas during the Superbowl, the train is heading back home to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Photo © Tom Gatermann.

1989. East St. Louis, Illinois.

Santa Fe 96, an EMD FP45, sits idle on one of the locomotive servicing tracks in the Chicago, Missouri, and Western Railroad (CM&W) yard. Today this yard is operated by the Kansas City Southern.

This image was scanned from a Kodak T-Max 400 negative and post processed in Adobe Photoshop, along with Nik Software's Dfine2 (to reduce the grain in the sky). The negative was originally developed in Kodak D-76 film developer.

April 1997. Old Monroe, Missouri.

LMX 8512, a GE B39-8E, leads a BNSF train around the bend at Old Monroe. The freight train is heading north on the BNSF's Hannibal Subdivision.

Photo © Tom Gatermann.

January 15, 2004. Jefferson City, Missouri.

Here is another shot of Union Pacific 3985 during its 2004 Superbowl tour special. This shot was taken during a service stop as the train was running from Kansas City, MO to St. Louis, MO. The train's final destination was Houston, TX where it would be on display during Superbowl XXXVIII's festivities.

The image was scanned from a Kodak Ektachrome 200 slide by using a Nikon ED9000 film scanner. It was then converted into black and white using Adobe Photoshop.

Photo © Tom Gatermann.

August 1991. Near Keystone, South Dakota.

And now for something completely different from my recent posts. Recently I've been digging into some of the scans I have done of my old film images. This one is from my high school days and was taken during a family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The view is through a tunnel on the Needles Highway in the Black Hills. As you can guess from the sign, the tunnels on the Needles Highway are only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time.

The image was captured on Kodak Tri-X black and white film. The film was either processed in Kodak D-76 or Kodak HC-110 film developer. Those were my two mainstay developers at the time. The negative was scanned on a Nikon ED9000 film scanner and processed in Adobe Photoshop.

Southern Pacific 214 sits in the siding as Southern Pacific 8706 leads a manifest freight south on the Union Pacific's Chester Subdivision. This shot was taken only about a year or so after the UP-SP merger so both locomotives had not been patched; meaning they retained their full Southern Pacific paint schemes and numbering.
Photo taken: May 1997. Cahokia, Illinois.