Funny about the ball-caps. I was working a photo freight pulled by our Southern Pacific Black Widow SD9 SP5472. I was conductor riding on our cupola caboose SP1101 with a random assortment of freight cars in-between. Considering the 5472 was built in 1954 the photo freight represented a freight you would have seen in the late 1950's. So the hat I wore that day was a 1957 San Francisco Seals baseball cap. I had people ask me why I didn't have period clothing, specifically a regular railraoders cap. I had to point out to them that I was wearing period clothing and as a railroader working in the Bay Area I could easily substitute a baseball cap for the standard crush cap. After explaining it to them they got it and thought it was cool.

What Kevin Madore speaks above is what was told to all of us at the welcome dinner for the event above. Apparently there was some big pileup on the 4014 chase involving several cars (of which, I'm not exactly sure when or where that happened). With the number of people expected to show up for a snow run with a rotary in an event similar to the 1990s runs where everyone was basically on their own, and the high chance of snow/ice covered roads, DOT freaked out fearing accidents as an unknown number of cars tried to park and pull out with people wandering all over the place on a fairly heavily traveled road.

Railroad was told in no uncertain terms that a free for all would not be allowed. The only way the event could proceed was busses for the photographers, work zones in effect so the people could cross the road safely to get to photo lines (set up on the side of the road)....and the railroad had to pay for all of it, and had to deal with two states to coordinate all of it. Of course, that cost got passed down directly to the people who wanted to take photos.

It was a giant pain in the neck for everyone involved, but the event did go off without a hitch. We got lucky in that the area was not inundated with snow, so the roads and shoulders were clear. I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening again anytime in the near future, however. Perhaps it could be done on the eastern half of the line where automobile traffic isn't an issue, but marching people through snow at 9000+ft of elevation is no trivial matter.

And some people think you just call a railroad, choose a date, couple up and go - that's all there is to running a charter or photo train. I'm glad folks are sharing some of the issues so others can understand what it takes.

Mr. Gillman and Mr. Madore

I am sure that is what you were told and you are honest in what you bring to the discussion. I did not intend the comments to shed a negative view of either of you and if it was taken that way please let me apologize now. You both seem to understand the complexities of the situation and how to effectively deal with the issues that may arise.

The property we are talking about has a need for public support, it has developed a reputation among some for not always telling the truth and playing favorites. I know of a certain individual in a leadership position that told a person with two governor awards for their work on that very railroad "What have you done for the Railroad?". Previously to that event, I know of a a six figure donor who went to the RR to make sure another six figure donor was properly recognized. Even with that event you attended, personalities got involved. It is my understanding that a long term employee choose one crew for the event, management over ruled and then blamed the long term employee for the change. This gets back to finding the true colors of your management.

The wreck involving chasers of the Big Boy was not the worst by far in the history of chase wrecks. The wreck of railfans chasing the 4014 that I know about was in October in Utah and I do believe the use of buses was announced before then. I helped cleaned up three wrecks in 3 days around Labor Day of last year. It was about this time I first heard of the plan. Given the number of near accidents I have seen in work zones I thought the idea of using a road closure was playing Russian Roulette. For those curious, two were at flagging stations and one was just leaving the work zone. We sent a dozen people to the hospital between two of the wrecks.

Photo charters can be very fun events to. If you have a group that understands what is going on and appreciates the effort it takes to pull one off it can be fun. I will always remember one event where we seem to have half of the participants working on various things before the event to help us pull it off.

And if you photoshoots create the strangest request just deal with the motion picture and advertising world. I still remember having a unannounced helicopter hovering over the tracks as I approached it at track speed. And then the next day they wanted tome to smile for the camera. Or the request to slide the drivers on a steam locomotive or other request.

Robby Peartree

Not in the slightest. No worries there. I think we're all pretty much on the same page here. We've seen good. We've seen disasters. Lots of war stories to share over dinner.




One thing I can say is that the Rotary run was probably a no win situation from the get go. From a railroad side of things, I would have been very nervous to let a free for all happen knowing the kind of publicity you'd get with that type of event nowadays compared to the 90s. The weather ended up being best case scenario for a safe event, but you just don't know that when you plan it. I think my bank account is still suffering from sticker shock, but it probably went about as well as something like that was going to go, and everyone went home safe and happy...and also a few muscles in my legs complaining loudly about the trials of snowshoes at 10,000ft. I certainly never expected something like that to happen again after the last go around, so I count myself lucky for being able to attend. Doing cool things just because you can is a neat thing that shouldn't be taken for granted.




They can be a lot of fun. Lot of stress during the event that most people would never realize until the weight of everything is on your shoulders. The best ones are when both the photographers AND the railroad people come up and say "thank you. let's do this again sometime!". If you keep everyone happy and safe, it's a job well done.





That's one benefit with dealing with railfans. Most of them at least have some vague notion about how a railroad works and what is/isn't possible. Movie people are worse. They know their craft, but they often have no background knowledge of what your craft entails. It can lead to...shall we say, interesting situations.
Kevin

Well, you can do that, and it has been done. I think I've been there for one or two of those to be honest. You just don't have a high chance of being invited back and the railroad crew often goes out afterwards to buy "we survived the XXXX charter" shirts.

There's about 14,000 pitfalls to avoid running one of these things, and it's the small stuff that can really stab you in the back. Some more than others. Someone forgetting to tell the catering person to provide food for the group, someone trying to find a different angle and getting stuck in the mud during a runby and requiring people to rescue them afterwards (yes, they were left in the mud for the runby!), dog barks its head off during a runby trying to herd a charter participant who wanted a different angle to get back to the rest of the pack while the rest of the group falls over laughing, and having your engine run out of fuel in the middle of the railroad being some of the more amusing ones. Perhaps not as amusing at the time, of course!

When everyone from the railroad to the organizer to the photographers are on the same page, it can be a lot of fun though and everyone goes hope safe and happy.

The Big Boy chase accident that occurred in Utah happened in early October. A large number of vehicles were following the train at high speeds on dirt roads south of Lund when the lead vehicles slowed down. The chokingly dense dust cloud meant that none of the vehicles behind them could see more than a few feet ahead and a pileup wreck ensued. Recognizing most of the vehicles from my chase the day previously, I'm pretty sure all but one of the drivers were from out of state and/or out of country and not familiar with dirt road driving.

On another forum when the announcement about the mentioned charter was made, one of the reasons given for CDOT involvement was to prevent such an accident from occurring again, since such high-profile charters tend to attract people with little to no experience in unusual driving conditions, whether it be desert dirt roads or high-altitude Rocky Mountain highways in the snow.

There was another incident involving a Union Pacific steam tour through Wyoming in the past few years where a carload of foamers was pacing the locomotive in the wrong lane to get unobstructed video and collided head-on at highway speeds with another vehicle coming the opposite direction. If I remember right, that one resulted in a fatality. It is totally understandable that a tourist railroad would want to minimize the risk of these accidents happening as they become all too common.

There was also a car load of people chasing a NS steam trip (750 maybe, I can't remember for sure) on a dirt road at insane speeds. The road took a hard right on a steep berm but the car kept going and the guys hanging out the vestibule watched the car go sailing off into heavy trees. I know a few of the guys who watched that happen but I've never found out what happened to those in the car, maybe the cops never even put 2 and 2 together later on, as I'd expect all those in the car 'went west' from that.

The talk of automobile wrecks and similar happenings reminded me of an incident that occurred along the Sierra Railroad in the early 1970s. It was in the era when the management of the railroad was taken over by one of the heirs of the Crocker estate which was still the owner of the railroad. Pacific Locomotive Association and others organized steam powered excursion trains. Most of the photo stops and run-bys were usually located away from the roads in the area. But the train was chased at other locations.

At one location the railroad paralleled state highway 108 for about 1-1/3 miles with a slight curve along the way. This was a long-time place for railfans to take pictures of Sierra RR trains over the years. I believe I was riding one particular train and afterward I heard about an incident that occurred at this area.

A senior railfan photographer whose work went back into the 1930s was among the roadside photographers. After getting his photos, he turned to get back to the automobile and while crossing the highway was hit by an automobile traveling down the road. He survived, but required a hospital stay.

One item I hadn't seen mentioned yet:

When one past charter operator started every excursion with a briefing to the participants, one rule he laid out: "I tell the crew what to do--no one else!" The point was not to have conflicting demands upon them. If you had an idea for a different angle or wanted a second runby, you talked to the operator and him alone. He would know what could be done within the time constraints, what was reasonable or not, etc.

I managed to point out a different opportunity and talk him into it on the one trip, after some consideration over whether the uniqueness of the angle (now impossible because of tree growth) was worth scrubbing another planned runby location.

I've seen charters fall into chaos over this very point. One person is in charge and communicates with the railroad. I've been on a trip where the organizers started arguing with each other as to what to do next. Railroad didn't like it much.





One thing I've always tried to remember while running a charter is that the trip is for the paying people, not for me. Some groups are mobile. Some are not. Some move fast. Some don't. Some are willing to sit around and wait for the light at a location, even if it means scrubbing something else. Some aren't nearly that hardcore. Some want every last bit of light as long as crew schedules are ok and will hike to any worthwhile location. Some are beat by mid afternoon. It's easy to be so focused on the plan that you don't look at the people. You have to tailor the trip on the fly to what group you have....and pray you don't have everything from daisy pickers to hardcore on the same trip. That can get interesting akin to herding cats to get everyone on the same page. You have to move as a group. Letting everyone do their own thing is a recipe for disaster.

The one rule I've always had is that everyone gets a good shot at the runby, whether you're #1 or #40 on the photo line. I've seen it before where the first 15 to set up get a good shot, 20 figure out how to cram in somewhere and the last 5 or so throw up their hands and walk away because there is nothing left. Everyone gets a shot, or you have to run a double runby and force people to vacate after runby #1 so the second half gets prime position.
Kevin

I have been both #1 on the photo line, and one of the "last 5" people to not get a shot. 9 times out of 10, the operator will realize there is not much room on the photo line at that spot and do multiple runbys. A good charter operator will think about these things and scout out the line ahead of time, even taking a speeder ride or ride on a locomotive along the line to scout out the locations in person. Kevin, you're one of the good ones, and I know if you have a hand in running the charter, things will be just fine.