RE: the WAB/AA boxcars, X46464 and X4643-- are these the cars that were on the siding at St. Charles back in 1990 or so? Glad to see some of them (there were about 5 or 6, I recall) found an appropriate home.

Nice train.

Howard P.
Symbol Freight, CT

The X4646 was in that lineup, and some of them ended up on the "City of Milwaukee" as well I believe. Somewhere I have a shot of that lineup, taken with the #1225.

Thanks,

TJ

Talking about the younger chick in the pics not railroad-related? If so, she is someone I did senior photos for. That site is just a selection of photos I have taken, so occasionally there are non-rr photos on there.

I can't take all the credit for the press in the Journal and mLive all I did was answer lots of questions and play traffic cop and make sure everyone connected.

Um, I do believe your being a bit modest there Paul, but hey, its cool when the two orgs can work together. By the way, I'm particularly a fan of the below:

The HTP/SRI/Huck weekend was one of the best photography events I have ever attended. The weather forced us into some things that really worked out for the best. On the Huckleberry the original plan ws to run to the north (?) loop first for sunrise shots, but a lack of sun at sunrise kept us sitting for awhile and resulted in getting the plow shot at the trestle -- we would have knocked the snow off the bridge before sunrise had the weather cooperated! And the bad weather on Sunday that forced us indoors provided some fantastic scenes with the Rosies and the scouts. This is the kind of stuff that I have never shot before and really gives depth to a photo collection.

One of the best bargains of the trip was the "caboose pass" that gave a photographer about 20 minutes alone in a caboose with a full crew decked out in period dress. Everything modern was stripped out of both the Pere Marquette and Ann Arbor cabeese, and the resulting shots are timeless. I have a book project that a few of these shots are going to wind up in! The caboose pass also gave 12 photographers lunch in the caboose (three photographers in each caboose for each of two lunches) that also yielded timeless photographs, from the steam rising from the cooking pan to the percolated coffee to the jams and pickled eggs on the table. And the food was delicious!

It was an absolutely incredible weekend. The depth of the photography goes well past the bazillion runby-type events. I'm still trying to sort out the A+ photos from the A photos. B, C, D, and F photos were almost impossible to come by. Thanks to JAC, TJG, SRI, HTP, Pete Lerro and his cast of thousands, the ladies, the scouts, the caboose crews, the rest of the actors, and all the folks behind the scenes that made this a truly one-of-a-kind event.

I'll be staying up past midnight again tonight trying to sort through this stuff. (BTW, if anyone from Railpictures.net is reading this, kudos for allowing so many of the "people" shots to be posted).

Personally, I have always liked the closer, more 'intimate' people-photos like what were shot sunday. I think it was a huge wake up to others as well, and I even heard John say something about how he couldnt believe that everyone was eating up the indoor shots on an otherwise nasty day.

Run-by shots do not do it for me (there are a few exceptions). I actually slept during all the run-by's except for about a half hour at King Rd. The night shots, and the indoor people-shots are what really do it.

It certainly is helpful when so many friends can be easily acronym'ed ;)

"KCL"

This would be a great time to thank the small army of people who showed up, on their own nickel, to help out. Without them, this event wouldn't have happened: thanks to all of you.

Steve Weaver and Erik Armpriester (Strasburg Railroad), Steve Wasiura (D&SNGRR), Chris Zahrt (Steam Operations Corp.), Kelly Lynch (FWRHS), John Barnett (NS), Dave Sutter (Henry Ford Museum) and Jason "the OC reject" Johnson, all showed up to help out servicing the locomotive, controlling traffic at the runbys, and cook and clean up in the cabooses.

Our "Rosies:" Nancy Barnes, Kathi Barnett, Diane Francis, Heather Gaffney, Alaina Kraus, Kim Lazar, and Jane Unterbrink.

TJ has already mentioned the Elks Lodge, and I'll leave it to him to name the many SRI, GLC, and RailAmerica folks who made this possible.

The only downside to the weekend was that Steve Zuiderveen and Preston Claytor had to cancel. We missed you guys.

OK, enough TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for now.

JAC

Well, since ya put me on the spot...

GLC --- Tom Springsdorf, Mike Bagwell, Jim Schell. NONE of us
would be able to operate the Berk without them.
RA --- Charlie Kricher, Preston Claytor, Norm Schmidt. Again, the
Owosso Elks Lodge/ GTW depot would not have happened without
them, and we would never be able to operate south of Owosso
(or on the ex-GTW track) without their generosity and
understanding.
SRI --- Wow, where to start. First and foremost, Barney Gramling -- - the 1225 and all the equipment wouldn't turn a wheel without
him. The man works miracles, people --- trust me.

Jodi Hak, our guru of the Visitors Center and her crew; they
stayed in and handled the books, phones, etc. while all of us
were out with the Berk, especially Friday and Saturday.

The SRI portion of caboose crew, espeically Fred Stevens, who
prepped the cabooses and held down the fort with AA Caboose, in
particular.

Our night watch and engine crews, who kept the engine
under steam for four days and nights, and those who help
service.

The SRI portion of the road crew led by Dane Reynolds, who
seemingly were always there before we were, and were
constantly watching out for us.

The others are too numerous to name, but suffice it to say that
about 30 volunteers spent lots of hours helping us pull this off.

Owosso --- Again, too many, But Renita M., Kim Lazar, All of Elks,
especially Frank Harvath (who is THE reason the Elks lodge looked
like a GTW depot again) The Storrers, who were our older
couple on the platform, and who closed their Men's Store here
after nearly 100 years in business...

And ditto to what John said about "others"; Scooter of Viscoes #6 fame, Mark St. Aubin, and several others. All of you --- MANY thanks.

TJG

Great stuff, guys...thanks for sharing. Wonderful art direction, John -- these scenes look terrific!

Stephen

I loved all the human interest photos too. But sure hard to beat this great pan shot by Mitch Goldman:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=224051

Les