Alexander Railroad

I had my first chance ever to photograph the Alexander Railroad on Friday 2/17/12, I chased the train from Taylorsville to Statesville, NC. For a shortline railroad they move a lot of freight and have an incredible looking infrastructure.

Here are a few favorites from the day.











Thanks for looking.
www.joeybowman.net

Tweetsie Railfan Weekend 2011

Another year, another great railfan weekend at Tweetsie Railroad. Brandi and I spent the 10th and 11th of September photographing and riding trains at Tweetsie Railroad. Despite visiting Tweetsie quite a few times this year (Brandi and I are both season pass holders) railfan weekend offers a completely different experience than any other visit.

During the weekend Tweetsie has both locomotives, #12 and #190, operating and they have a lot of other special activities going on for the railfan weekend ticket holders. Including a special memorabilia room, shop tours, double-header train, photo run-bys, and a chance to ride in coach #5. However, the big draw for us is a chance to walk around the mountain and photograph the train in different locations. Here are a few favorites from the weekend, I wish I had more time to edit some more.










Thanks for looking,
Joey

www.JoeyBowman.net
www.CherishTheMomentPhotography.net

Steam Locomotive

The Virginia-Carolina #50, a 2-6-0 steam locomotive was recently moved from Florida to Newton, NC at the future location of the Southeastern Narrow Gauge & Shortline Museum. The locomotive is not in the best shape yet but the fine folks with the Alexander Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and the Newton Depot Authority will soon have the locomotive looking great.

Brandi and I spent a few minutes this past Sunday taking a few shots of the locomotive as it sits in its new location. I look forward to taking more photos of #50 as restoration begins and is completed.







Thanks for looking.
Check out http://www.newtondepot.com/ for more information on the locomotive and museum.
And as always feel free to visit www.joeybowman.net

Getting lucky

From time to time I receive questions about how I go about photographing trains. Mostly the questions regard how I know when and where a train will be at a specific location. The truth is that 99% of the time I get lucky. In many ways it is kind of like fishing, you may sit at the same spot all day and never catch a thing, other days you may catch fish after fish after fish. I do not carry a scanner and rarely talk to any one else that relay information about train movements in the area.

Brandi and I were hanging around Old Fort, NC this past Saturday. We were starting to get into my car when I could see the headlights of a train approaching. We drove around trying to find a good location to photograph the train going through town. After photographing it in town we headed up old US 70, to try to find another location and we ended up standing on a bridge to photograph the train. Unfortunately we were not able to chase it any farther as there was also a bike race going on the roads in the area and I did not want to have to deal with passing mountain bikers while trying to rush and chase a train.

One "unique" thing about this train was that the lead locomotive (and all of the other locomotives) were running in a "long nose" forward which is not that common for this type of locomotive.





Thanks for viewing
-Joey

http://www.joeybowman.net

Waterfalls

I have been lagging with my blog updates recently, what else is new right? Here are a few recent shots, the first from Setrock Creek Falls near Mt Mitchell. The second shot is from a popular waterfall along US 221 just west of Blowing Rock.






http://www.JoeyBowman.net