(Click all of the pictures to open a larger image in a new browser window. As always, I apologize for the quality of my scanned images. Just come over to the apartment to see the slides in their full glory.)
Thursday, May 25, 2000:
Paul and Brad got here at 1:45 am. After some unpacking, they crashed and I went back to sleep. They got everything ready on Thursday while I was at work. I left work at 2:00 and we were on the road by 3:00.
We arrived in Maine, AZ, which is nothing more than a wooden station sign, a siding, and a pair of crossovers on the BNSF mainline, at about 5:30. A forest fire was burning several miles to the north, but fortunately it was brought under control that evening and the smoke mostly stayed out of our shots. The line was busy, with about half a dozen trains roaring through in the two hours we were there. The evening light was really pretty and we did some exploring and got several good shots.
We then drove east to exit 230 on I-40, 35 miles east of Flagstaff. It was already dark, but we bounced out a very rough dirt road for 4 miles until we arrived at our campsite: Canyon Diablo on the BNSF mainline. The land in this part of the state is pretty flat, but a small creek has cut a very deep and narrow canyon right through it. The line crosses it on a high steel girder bridge. It was cool and windy and completely deserted. We set up camp and watched trains roar past at 60 mph. It was so dark and flat that often we could see the headlights of 2 or 3 trains at the same time, long before they arrived.
Amtrak's westbound Southwest Chief came through at about 11:00 pm. We timed it at 89 mph. After that, we walked about 1/2 mile down the line to a siding, where a defective locomotive was parked. Since there was no one around and the thing was unlocked, we climbed aboard and watched two trains go by from inside the cab. We then returned to camp and retired, Paul and Brad sleeping on top of the Jeep and me inside.
Friday, May 26, 2000:
After a restless sleep that was interrupted several times by passing trains, I was the first one up at about 5:00. I shot the sunrise and set up my tripod for some morning shots of trains on the bridge. Paul joined me around 6:00 and we then woke up Brad. The action slowed down for a little while, but a car came bouncing down the road and we made conversation with a railfanning couple from Washington, D.C. Amtrak flew over the bridge doing 90 at about 7 am, and was followed by an eastbound freight. The couple left and we walked down to some stone Indian ruins along the line. We got some cool shots of trains passing with the ruins in the foreground, and I managed to walk within three feet of the tail end of a rattlesnake. Fortunately it didn't notice me and quietly crawled back into one of the stone walls. We watched our steps pretty closely after that.
We packed up camp around 10:30 and headed east for Holbrook and the Apache Railroad. The Apache is a 40 mile shortline that runs down to a papermill near Snowflake. They exclusively use Alco diesel locomotives from the 1960's, which are no longer in production. There was a long cut of coal cars for the mill's powerplant on the siding in Holbrook, but their locos had not showed up yet, so we drove down the line in search of the perfect shot. Unfortunately, the line is not very accessible in places, and we had to bounce down some dirt roads, mostly on cattle ranches. While doing this, the engines managed to sneak past us and were already halfway back to Snowflake with the coal loads when we first saw them. After some initial disappointment in missing them leave town, we drove south to some good spots we had picked out. It was getting cloudy, with touch and go sunlight, but we managed to shoot the six engines working hard with the heavy coal train in three different locations, and watched them pull into the yard at Snowflake at about 5:00.
We had a long drive through the mountains to Clifton, arriving at about 10:00 at our campsite in Apache National Forest 20 miles north of town. The scenery was amazing--high mountains and tall pines--not your typical idea of Arizona. We passed lots of elk and deer after it got dark, but managed to avoid hitting any. It wasn't really that hard--US 191 was so curvy that we could rarely go over 25 or 35 mph. I traded bunks with Brad and slept under a sky filled with stars. It was absolutely beautiful.
Saturday, May 27, 2000:
We got up around 7:00, broke camp, and were on the road again by 8:00. The last 20 miles into town were quite impressive, as the road wound around the mountain side as it descended into the valley. The Phelps Dodge copper mine at Clifton is the largest in the country. We stopped to gawk at an observation platform north of town. We could see *dozens* of 200 ton capacity dump trucks shuttling back and forth between huge excavators and the crusher. On the drive into town, we had to stop for a huge semi to cross the road in front of us, carrying one of the largest bulldozers Caterpillar makes. Each of the tires on the semi tractor was bigger than our jeep.
US 191 continued through the heart of the mine, providing us with impressive views of the operation. We shot some Phelps Dodge locomotives at one of the mine buildings, then headed into town. Clifton is built right in the middle of a narrow river valley and is very reminiscent of a West Virginia coal mining town, except for the lack of greenery. The buildings are shoehorned between the canyon walls and the river. Paul made the keen observation that after the mine plays out, the community will have plenty of room to expand, but will no longer need the space. There was a quaint depot that is now used as a community center by the small rail yard where the Phelps Dodge interchanges cars with the Union Pacific (ex-Southern Pacific).
We drove south of town to inspect the railroad and look for good shots. Our exploring was much more productive than the previous day's. We still had to use dirt roads, but they were all public, ungated roads on government owned public recreation land. The roads led to literally dozens of beautiful shots. The line climbs out of Clifton on a 2% grade and passes through six tunnels in the first five miles. We found a screamer shot in a sweeping S-curve through a deep cut and set up our cameras, hoping the local train out of Lordsburg, NM was running today.
As Paul and Brad climbed around on the hills above me, a faint rumble became audible. I told them to stop and listen, and they heard it too. They ran for the Jeep, hoping to get down the line and grab another shot before this one, but I stayed put. No sooner had they got to the top of the hill did they throw the Jeep in reverse and come back to where I was. We got ready, and pumped film through the cameras as five 4-axle locomotives crept through the cut at 10 mph, pulling a dozen boxcars and tank cars. We hopped in the Jeep and shot the train in a horseshoe curve with Clifton in the background, and again coming through two tunnels just before town. We then went to the depot and shot him pulling into the yard.
After dropping their train in the yard, the crew got off and talked with us briefly. After I had shot them at the tunnels, I had taken off running to where Paul was, further down the line. They told me there was a coyote 25 feet below me, running the other way. They also told us that Phelps Dodge wasn't running due to the holiday weekend, so they wouldn't have a trainload of copper concentrate to take back to Lordsburg. We were disappointed, but we still got some good shots of them going back with just the engines. The conductor even dropped bottles of water out the cab window to us at one point.
After getting our shots, we stopped further down the line, along the Gila River, and had a late lunch at about 2:00. We cooked chicken speedies on the gas camp stove, tossed the football, and waded in the river. At 3:00 we left to go back and get some afternoon pictures of the copper mine, but when we turned back onto the main road, the Jeep suddenly became hard to steer. An inspection revealed a broken line in the power steering fluid reservoir. We drove to a gas station just down the road, made a temporary repair, and returned to Phoenix. It was disappointing, but almost expected given how hard we'd been driving the 12 year old Jeep.
The return to Phoenix was quite interesting. One of the headlights was burnt out, and no less than three police officers were kind enough to stop us and point that out. The last one had a drug dog, which did a full inspection of the Jeep. It smelled something it liked in our cooler, and the officers became suspicious. Those suspicions were not eased when we opened the cooler and revealed a couple dozen film canisters, but the dog didn't smell anything on them, and we were eventually allowed to go. We rolled into my apartment around 11:30, delayed at least an hour by the cops.
Unfortunately, we would do no more railfanning this weekend. Sunday was spent fixing the Jeep, which also revealed a bad starter when we tried to start it and take it to Napa. Paul and Brad used my car while I took care of things at the apartment. We finally got it fixed and put back together around 7:00 that evening. Brad met up with a friend that he had grown up with in western New York, and I treated Paul to fish tacos at Rubio's. We all got back around 10:00, and went to bed around 11:30, hoping to shoot the Copper Basin Railway in the morning. Unfortunately, I slept right through my alarm at 4:00 am, and was woken by Paul at 7:00. We were disappointed, but couldn't help but appreciate the extra sleep. Brad finally rolled out around 9:30, and after breakfast we packed the Jeep and they headed for Monument Valley, Soldier Summit, and Paul's home in the Pacific Northwest. I was left to return to work on Tuesday morning.
Despite the problems, it was a great weekend. Seeing trains 20 miles away in the darkness and then watching them roll by at 60 mph on the Santa Fe mainline was awesome, as was camping under the stars Friday night. The exhilaration I felt when I first heard the Clifton local approaching us on Saturday was unmatched. Any doubts that I've ever had about the sanity or rationality of driving hundreds of miles to brave heat and rattlesnakes just to take pictures of trains were permanently erased from my mind in that instant. And above all, I had a great time with two good friends, which is what it's really all about anyway.
Until the next time I'm beckoned trackside,
Scott
