Railfans of the Black Hills

South Dakota Black Hills track

I rode the train, in one of the great open-window cars, and we had a sunny day. The curves are sharp enough that I suggest riding about 3 or 4 cars behind the engine, any further back will put cliffs and trees in the way of a view of the engine.

While taking a picture of the tin mine, I inadvertantly got a railfan in the picture. I could have cropped him out, but he must be a celebrity because I see hands with a camera in the lower left of the picture; taking his picture, too. I suppose that dust on the rear window has some story to go with it.

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And there was a railfan in a red car who chased the train from Keystone for quite a ways through these valleys.

I think both cars had South Dakota plates, and from their enthusiasm I would guess they were as happy to see the railroad as I was. Or maybe it was the sunshine. And long train on a Thursday which warranted being pulled by the mallet. And from the dust on the gray car, I would guess he was also checking backroads of the DME and their change to the Rapid City, Pierre, and Eastern. If one of those railfans wants to say hello, and let us see their pictures, please contact me. I could provide a link to your pictures if they are on the internet. You can send me email by using this e address (current as of June 2010) pure 20 est 33 at charter dot net and push it all together to make an address. Contact me first there, and please don't send large pictures there. Later, I can give you a Google address that can handle pictures. I have 'tons' of pictures but no time to process them, so maybe I will show more on some winter day. Most are like what others have shown on the internet, although I have one pole camera picture on a rainy day that may be unique. And at first, I didn't realize they have a locomotive related to my Flambeau Paper history project. That will take some time, too. If someone else visits the Black Hills Central, you might be able to help my project by getting a broadside view of 104, the 2-6-2. I have pictures, but they are too close and have some wide angle distortion. Use a lot of telephoto like 15x. Or all the telephoto you have and still back up for the picture, and crop the loco from the center of the picture. I would like it from over 200 feet away so there's very little distortion, perfectly up the middle of the side, so I can trace it on a drawing. Either side will do. An angled view from a corner won't do, I already have enough of those and they are too time consuming to correct the perspective for drawing a perfect side view. Maybe on a day when there's low contrast or no deep shadows so I can see the running gear, too. A cloudy day would be good for this. And the enginehouse area sometimes is too crowded to get a telephoto picture from a distance. And confirm the driver diameter at the tread (not the flange outside diameter) is 38 inches, so I can measure the picture from that. The picture doesn't need to be larger than a 2 meg, or a 1 meg crop from a picture that was taken from a distance.

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. . . . . and you can see my visit to Crazy Horse mountain (on my NexGen website; be patient, sometimes its slow)