Keep On Keepin' On

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It's been a while since I've been able to get any photos from a stopped train blocking State Road 51 and inconveniencing dozens of people. Keep on keepin' on indeed.


Do not look at this:



…The train had started moving again when I shot that one.



This little guy looks so happy:





One of these days, a freight train is going to derail in my back yard and kill me.

Freight Train Graffiti

A few monikers from the freight train blocking the Ainsworth crossing on Sunday, January 21.


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Freight Train Graffiti of Ainsworth

A freight train westbound on the Canadian National tracks stopped on its way through Ainsworth last Friday afternoon, blocking S.R. 51 for a long, long time.


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Freight Train Graffiti

A freight train stopped on the Canadian National tracks through Ainsworth yesterday. That's nothing out of the ordinary, but they usually stop in bad lighting, or have no chalk graffiti, or they don't quite stop, so I try to photograph them when they are moving very slowly and the photographs come out unfocused — anyway, the point is, yesterday I finally got a few photos.


Like an owl (same person?)


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Jug of moonshine.




Twenty Seven (aka Deuce 7)




Not sure if this is the same person.

Grand Trunk Crossing, 1958

While I don't know the location of this crossing, I know it wasn't Ainsworth. That much is obvious from the overpass at the right.


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But cover up the right side with your hand, suspend your disbelief, and you might think you're looking at the Randolph Street crossing in 1958 … which may have been called the Springman Road crossing back then. Gravel road, no gates, no lights, little traffic; barns and fields, and a steam engine just passing through.

The original is marked "May 12, 1958." I am told that the car in the picture is a 1957 Ford.

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Ainsworth has had a rash of stopped freight trains lately. Most of the time I don't bother slogging through the snow to photograph any graffiti. And when I do, either the graffiti isn't very good or I can't manage to focus my camera.

Here's Raildog, who says, "Hi Mom."



From an intermodal train, we get uninspired scrawlings about a coal train in Jackson, Mississippi …



… and a sad willow.



I believe intermodal trains have the second-worst graffiti on the roads.



The worst graffiti of all is to be found, or not found, on coal trains.

In other news, work is progressing very slowly.

Freight Train Graffiti

I'm trying to get in gear to start posting again. Really.

Meanwhile, here's some graffiti from a recent slow-moving train through Ainsworth on the Canadian National Railway.


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Those are Labs, aren't they?








Sorry about the focus. I got a third Freight Bandit from that same train, but the focus on that one was even worse.

Freight Train Graffiti (Random Pointless Photos)

State Road 51 was blocked for several hours yesterday by a freight train stopped on the Canadian National Railway tracks. It was a big inconvenience for people trying to go south to, or north from, Route 30. I didn't want to go anywhere, however, just take pictures.


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… I must admit that until yesterday I never knew there was such a place as Nampa, Idaho.

Freight Train Graffiti: Old Man Fishbird

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I don't usually deal with spray-painted graffiti, but for something this well done I can make an exception.

Train Graffiti

A freight train stopped in Ainsworth this morning.


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I hustled out there with my camera to get some pictures of chalk and other line graffiti.










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The newspaper archive I use through the Lake County Public Library is undergoing maintenance and has become temperamental and unreliable. The work is supposed to be finished and a new search engine in place eventually — on November 19 they told me this would take place "within a month or so." But at present, research is very difficult and slow.

Smokin' Joe Strikes for the 16,870th Time

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A freight train was stopped on the tracks, blocking the Ainsworth crossing, and everybody else's inconvenience was my photo op. This photo was taken a few years ago, but a post today on Eddie's Rail Fan Page reminded me of it.