#modoc line

[briansolomonauthor]

Holding Back the Best

Holding Back the Best

Yesterday, I was discussing photography with my Fiancée, Kris as we drove through rural western Maine. I explained that I rarely display the photos that I feel are my finest work. Why? The reason is very simple. I made the best photos for me, and I can be selfish. I put a huge amount of work into some of these images and I’m holding them back for just the right moment. In 1994, I spent months…

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[trainmaniac]

The Moran Brothers last hurrah by Greg Brown Via Flickr: Flooding in late December 1996 put the Shasta Route and the Feather River Canyon out of service. Aside from going to Salt Lake, the only way to get up and down the west coast by rail was a detour over Donner Pass and the Modoc Line. For a couple of weeks, the Modoc Line was busier than it had ever been. In this image, an eastbound (southbound) passes a train parked in Moran siding. Most of the detour trains ran in fleets of five or six at a time, generally at speeds of 15-20 MPH. Any railfans that were there experienced the ultimate Modoc turkey shoot. Alas, on July 1, 1997, Union Pacific closed the Modoc for good as a through route. The rails were removed a few years later.

[trainmaniac]

Modoc Memories at Karlo - 1 by Greg Brown Via Flickr: It is a quiet Sunday morning on the high desert. One of the first trains on the Modoc Line after the Southern Pacific - Rio Grande merger approaches Karlo, CA. A crew change at Wendel is about a half hour away. A friend and I spent the entire weekend on the Modoc. On Saturday night, we had some beers and watched the first game of the 1988 World Series (i.e., the famous Kirk Gibson walk-off home run game) in the Likely Saloon. We had camped out in our car, parked in the middle of Indian Camp Loop near Likely. Our thought was that we did not want a train to get by us during the night. This train thundered past us at dawn. Once awake, we figured that we would drive into Karlo, as we had not shot there. The road in was as rough a washboard as I have ever driven on. However, the shots we obtained of this train were well worth the effort..