My Day as a Train Stalker

I have a fondness for trains, as you may have gathered from previous posts, and yesterday I spent many hours standing around waiting for a special steam-powered excursion train to pass near my home. I posted a photo yesterday that was taken by my son of Santa Fe steam locomotive 3751 as it headed southbound on the tracks just below my house (I was videotaping a mile or so away). I think I spent a total of 4 hours standing around waiting for two run-by's that took a total of less than 2 minutes. Train stalkers are a dedicated bunch.

I put together a YouTube video of the two passes. Here you go:

I need to thank my fellow train stalkers, many of whom I met during the day at my two photo locations, and two of whom helped me get the shots I otherwise might have given up on. The photographer (whose name I didn't get) who came running up just about the time I was going to give up and told me the train was in Irvine and would soon run by, and Art, another photographer who spent the day chasing the train down to Carlsbad and ended up at the same photo location where I was for the evening run-by. He had a friend who knew someone on the train, and thanks to many cellphone calls, was able to narrow down the time the train would return to my area. He saved me a lot of waiting, and probably kept me from missing the second shot.