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Images: These pictures are not censored for quality. What one person considers a bad or useless picture may be exactly what someone else is looking for. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them.
Videos: These videos are very big, which is why railfanning videos are so rare on line. As long as Windows Media Player says "Connecting" it is working, even it if appears to be taking a very long time. It says "Connecting" until it has finished downloading the video. Please be patient. If you are unable to play these videos with Windows Media player, a problem which exists with some versions of Media Player and (sometimes) with Internet Explorer versions lower than 6, I strongly recommend the use of Quicktime if it is available. If you are using Linux, mplayer needs to be told that the videos have a bit depth of 16 (-bpp 16) to work.
Filenames refer to location, date (dd.mm.yy), and camera-assigned four digit id number.
Top photos from January, 2020
January 1st, 2020 | We started the year in Galveston, took the Bolivar Ferry, which is free and state-run in a place where socialism is anathema, and worked our way into Louisiana on the hunt more for crawfish than trains. | |
Galveston, Texas | Galveston is a significant industrial port, cruise port, and tourist town on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The island is home to several railways, an enormous single track bridge with its own authority shared by UP and BNSF, and a century-old tram. | |
209 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
Orange, Texas | Orange is on the Texas-Louisiana border along the Union Pacific and I-10. | |
72 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
January 2nd, 2020 | We left Lafayette in bad weather hunting more for crawfish than trains, which we found nearby, and set our sights on the streetrunning at Gretna on the New Orleans and Gulf Coast. There was trackwork near the streetrunning and nothing was running over it -- bad luck -- but we did find two working on the line. | |
Gretna, Louisiana | Gretna is across the river from New Orleans and is the site of the New Orleans and Gulf Coast, which makes extensive use of street running. | |
45 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
New Orleans, Louisiana | New Orleans is famous for many things and needs no introduction. It is also a busy railroad city. | |
10 images | No videos | Marks: |
Pascagoula, Mississippi | Near the Mississippi-Alabama border along the CSX at the junction of the Mississippi Export. | |
20 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
Plaquemine, Louisiniana | Plaquemine is along the Mississippi river between Baton Rouge and Gretna along the Union Pacific. | |
23 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
January 3rd, 2020 | We started the day at Pascagoula, Mississippi, catching a single CSX out the window of the hotel in torrential rain before going off to explore, and quickly find, the Mississippi Export Rail. We were lucky enough to catch it on the causeway near the company's shops in Moss Point before proceeding on to the port city of Mobile Alabama to check out another shortline, the Alabama Export, where we found two G&W units switching and a single pre-G&W painted unit elusively switching in a spot we simply couldn't shoot. | |
Mobile, Alabama | Mobile is the home of the Alabama Export and a busy set of yards at its large port. | |
40 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
Moss Point, Mississippi | Home of the Mississippi Export Rail shops just north of Pascagoula, there is some almost street-running and an easily viewed curved causeway. | |
73 images | 3 videos | Marks: |
Pascagoula, Mississippi | Near the Mississippi-Alabama border along the CSX at the junction of the Mississippi Export. | |
8 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 4th, 2020 | A light train day as we headed south, stopping only briefly to shoot the parked power of the Florida Northern. | |
Ocala, Florida | Ocala is home to the Florida Northern Railroad. | |
17 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 5th, 2020 | Disney World. | |
Orlando, Florida | The home of Disney World and so many other attractions -- and an interesting selection of unusual trains... | |
52 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 6th, 2020 | We traveled out to Port Canaveral to board the Disney Dream for a tour and caught one at Titusville on the return to our hotel. | |
Port Canaveral, Florida | Port Canaveral is the cruise ship terminal near NASA's Kennedy Space Centre on the coast of Florida. | |
17 images | No videos | Marks: |
Titusville, Florida | Titusville is a bit north of Cocoa near the Kennedy Space Centre along the FEC. | |
16 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
January 7th, 2020 | Disney World. | |
Orlando, Florida | The home of Disney World and so many other attractions -- and an interesting selection of unusual trains... | |
4 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
January 8th, 2020 | Traveling from Orlando to Miami, we stopped at Port Salerno to see the spot where I started watching trains (unsuccessfully) up close as a kid. This time, we did catch one northbound. | |
Port Salerno, Florida | Port Salerno is a smaller community in Martin County and is where it all began for me. As a kid, my grandparents had a condo at Emerald Lakes on SE Cove Road where they wintered. Every Christmas, we would drive down as a family to visit them, and whenever I could I would take the bike down to the crossing and wait, hoping for a train on the FEC tracks. In all my Christmas holidays of doing that, I never once saw a train there, though did once chat with a track foreman who got off to inspect why his truck had triggered the crossing gates. All night long I would hear trains pass and so the next day I would try again... | |
44 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
Stuart, Florida | Stuart is in Martin County on the FEC and home to a peculiar roundabout with the railway through the middle and the Stuart drawbridge on the railway, both of which I have not yet photographed but have seen. | |
22 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
January 9th, 2020 | We explored Miami before boarding the Disney Magic for a five day cruise. | |
Miami, Florida | Miami has a surprising amount of rail, with FEC, CSX, and a variety of passenger services in a complex network through town. | |
203 images | 4 videos | Marks: |
January 10th, 2020 | At sea on the Disney Magic, we passed a fair amount of other shipping. | |
The Atlantic Ocean | Shipspotting at sea can also be fun... | |
56 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 11th, 2020 | Our first port of call was Key West, which is famous for once having been the end of the Florida East Coast's sea route, destroyed by a hurricane in the 1930s. In honour of this history, there are local tourist road trains in large numbers floating around the downtown. | |
Key West, Florida | At the southern tip of Florida, 90 miles off the coast of Cuba, was once the end of the Florida East Coast. The railway has been gone almost a century, but it remains a tourist town with plenty of road trains to entertain. | |
103 images | No videos | Marks: |
No images | 1 videos | Marks: |
January 12th, 2020 | Our second port of call was Nassau in the Bahamas. Not too many trains, but being an island nation, there is plenty of shipping to go around. | |
Nassau, Bahamas | Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas and a frequent cruise destination with plenty of maritime activity to watch. | |
34 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 13th, 2020 | Like many cruise ship operators, Disney owns a private island in the Bahamas called Disney Castaway Cay, which offers some great views of the ship we are riding if you don't mind not seeing the bow. | |
The Atlantic Ocean | Shipspotting at sea can also be fun... | |
23 images | No videos | Marks: |
Castaway Cay, Bahamas | Disney Cruise Line's private island... | |
22 images | No videos | Marks: |
January 14th, 2020 | Our trip nearly over, we got off the ship in Miami and wandered north to Jacksonville, stopping only once for a train at West Palm Beach. | |
Miami, Florida | Miami has a surprising amount of rail, with FEC, CSX, and a variety of passenger services in a complex network through town. | |
10 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
West Palm Beach, Florida | West Palm Beach needs no introduction and is along the Florida East Coast, also served by several passenger services. | |
58 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
January 15th, 2020 | Working northward, we stopped for gas and trains in Florence, South Carolina. The Amtrak station agent politely declined our request to shoot from the platform so we made do with looking through the fence. | |
Florence, South Carolina | Florence is a CSX junction a few miles south of the North Carolina border on the I-95. | |
26 images | 2 videos | Marks: |
January 16th, 2020 | Working our way up the I-81, we happened upon a slow Winchester & Western northbound approaching Clear Brook, Virginia, right on the border with West Virginia, and caught it at the next exit -- 10 minutes later. | |
Clear Brook, Virginia | Clear Brook is on the I-81 and Winchester and Western at the West Virginia border. | |
32 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
January 17th, 2020 | We completed our 21-state tour of the US and returned to Canada, catching the Delaware-Lackawanna switching at Steamtown in Scranton and a northbound NYSW at Onativia Road near Lafayette, New York. | |
Lafayette, New York | Lafayette is just north of Syracuse on the I-81 along the NYSW. | |
52 images | 1 videos | Marks: |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | (map) Home of Steamtown, a large state parks-run museum dedicated to the preservation of steam engines. It is about 45 minutes south of Binghamton. | |
30 images | 1 videos | Marks: |