By Nick Benson/photos by the author
It was October 2016, and I had a hot tip that Canadian Pacific’s business train, in Minneapolis for the Ryder Cup, would be returning to Calgary. Time has made a few details fuzzy, but it lingered near the Twin Cities early in the day, a fortuitous courtesy that allowed the autumnal sun to swing into position and collude with vibrant blue skies. CP had done all of the gathered railfans a favor by providing a consist right out of a Lionel catalog — A-B-A F-units and a healthy consist of matching Tuscan passenger cars. I followed that train for 175 rail miles into the sunset, fortunate to be the last foamer standing as I set up my panning rig for one final shot of 4107 as it passed through the hamlet of Oswald, N.D. I’ve had no shortage of fun railroad photography experiences, but that day I clearly remember thinking this will be a top-ten lifetime chase.
Another memorable day trackside that stands out, even more than a dozen years later, was one spent chasing Union Pacific’s Job 23, which operates out of New Prague, Minn., on one of the few segments of Minneapolis & St. Louis that wasn’t ripped up in the 1980s after becoming redundant by the many mergers of Chicago & North Western and its successors. It was classic Midwestern branch line railroading — a standard-cab EMD delivering a handful of cars to a mill and a vegetable cannery. A little off the beaten path, running only on weekdays, and something that’d “always be there,” it was largely overlooked by my fellow railfans. Fortunately, I caught it in beautiful weather and spent several hours following it through the modest scenery of southern Minnesota, catching it passing a depot (the crew invited me in for a tour), an apple orchard, several farms, and even the local grocery store, where the crew stopped to grab refreshments. The mill has since closed, relegating the former week-daily job to as-needed, making it even more challenging to document. I strive to get out and spend a day capturing fall color each year, but meeting the high expectations I set that day in 2012 is tough.
Autumn Colors Express
In 2019, I was fortunate to be chosen as a volunteer staff photographer for the revived passenger excursions through the New River Gorge in West Virginia, marketed at the time as the Autumn Colors Express. The train consisted of 21 private cars and was assembled in Chicago, where I met it, and we deadheaded down to West Virginia. On our way to Huntington, I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a musician aboard the Super Dome. I had been told who he was, but I hadn’t heard of him and was too bashful to ask for clarification. In any event, after dinner, we all gathered in Skytop Lounge Cedar Rapids, where the musician would be performing an acoustic concert for the crew under the beautiful glass solarium. As he played, a lightbulb went off when I recognized several of his songs — he was Glen Phillips, lead singer of the legendary ’90s alt-rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket. Why he was aboard exactly, I still don’t know, but he hopped off to much adoration in Indianapolis, and I was left scratching my head. Had that really just happened?
There were three days of excursions, which I spent roaming the train documenting as much as I could — car interiors, staff loading and unloading supplies and passengers, people getting haircuts en route in the salon, folks enjoying the Railroad Days festival in Hinton, breakfast prep in Chairman’s Class’s kitchen, a newly engaged couple, people enjoying themselves in the domes and lounges. It was a fun assignment.
My home that week was the ex-Frisco sleeping car Cimarron River, and two of the nights were spent on the move to or from Chicago, hot on the heels of Amtrak’s Cardinal. On the return deadhead move I stayed up late, a fly on the wall listening to amusing stories of rival Milwaukee Road and Soo Line preservationists, before returning to my roomette and being rocked to sleep. It was a short night, though; I woke up at dawn and had the train to myself, as the vast majority of the staff slept in, too exhausted to enjoy an Indiana sunrise. I once again found myself in Cedar Rapids, just me and my camera, our silhouette projected by early light on the passing scenery. The photographic finale happened as we arrived in Chicago and were pulled through the wash rack — the colors and water splashing off designer Brooks Stevens’ handiwork were breathtaking.
ABOVE: Berk excitedly points out an approaching BNSF train from the window of Northstar, as his younger brother Lucas looks on, from our ride in 2015. Ten years later we’d ride again, and this time they were the ones taking most of the pictures.
Family Foaming
It wasn’t an obvious highlight to my thick skull, but in retrospect some of my best times trackside were just normal days hanging out with the family. We rode the caboose at Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul, the trolleys at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, and the North Pole Express at St. Paul Union Depot. We made several trackside trips, just out to see the usual day-to-day traffic, often with a stroller safely perched on an overpass.
Milwaukee Road 261’s fall color trips, often coincident with my oldest son’s birthday, became an annual family tradition. The relaxed pace and scheduled stops make it an easy chase. The kids are old enough to take photos on their own now, but I got them started by getting my cameras pointed at the right spot and handing over the shutter release cable. There’s nothing more compelling to a child than pushing a button, especially if it’s connected to one of Dad’s prized gizmos and produces a great photo that they took all by themselves. My three children are growing up fast and enjoy visual arts. Mila, the youngest, is generally more interested in arts and crafts, usually things that don’t have wheels. Berk and Lucas, on the other hand, have my affliction for transportation photography, especially of planes and trains. As a parent, it’s fun seeing the boys following in my footsteps directly, and so interesting to see my daughter applying the mechanical aptitude she inherited from me as an ability to paint, sculpt, and craft so creatively.
These days we probably aren’t getting out to document railroads as much as we ought to — our time is usually spent on aviation now — but the boys and I recently took a trip on our local commuter railroad, Northstar, an out-and-back from Minneapolis to Big Lake. Unfortunately, our local commuter rail is a victim of poor implementation, lack of support from several communities served, and lingering effects from pandemic restrictions. It sounds like Northstar’s days are numbered now, and we needed to get out and ride it again before it was gone.
It was fun to see the boys, who were grooving on riding a train 10 years ago, now excited by photographic opportunities, looking for interesting reflections, framing devices, dragging the shutter to get motion blur, lying on the ground to get a more dramatic angle, noticing station signs that provide context, and chatting up the crew to get better access. I found myself having more fun watching them take pictures than being the photographer myself. Did I just discover what it means to be a parent?
The Oblivious
Lord willing, I have plenty of years and chases left in the hopper, but I am as confident today as I was nearly a decade ago that it’ll be tough to top that perfect chase of the CP office car train. You needn’t spend much time trackside to appreciate the confluence of light, power, and scenery. But as I sit here now, 40 years old, realizing time slips by faster than most of us younger are capable of acknowledging, there’s something to appreciate about the ordinary time trackside, especially if friends and family are involved.
Without straying too far into contemplative reflection and nostalgia, our time here is ephemeral, and as everyone learns as the years go by, none of us are guaranteed another tomorrow. Just as our favorite railroads, equipment, and industries morph as time passes, children grow, friendships change — the special people in our lives aren’t always going to be able to go on that next chase, or be waiting for us when we get home a few hours late because the light was so good.
While chasing a perfect westbound into the sunset can be a self-evident photographic triumph, embarrassingly, it wasn’t obvious to me how good things were when I was spending time with my family chasing Milwaukee 261 on its fall color trips, or loading up the stroller at Union Depot ahead of a walk up the Kellogg Boulevard overpass to appreciate the usual parade of traffic passing below us. It should have been obvious, of course; I fondly remember “checking the crossing” at Talmage Avenue with my dad when I was young, forming core memories of watching Burlington Northern and Soo Line rumble past, and learning how to be a good father myself.
I wish it’d been more obvious to me how great it was — perhaps I ought to appreciate how good it still is.