Ryan is an employee of Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF).
Recently, his job took him across Northern Arizona right after an unusually intense snow storm.
Ryan hitched a ride on a westbound train to Needles, California, where he then picked up an eastbound train to drive to Belen, New Mexico.
Although I have never communicated with Ryan he sent this photo journal in email form to a mutual friend of ours who lives in Prescott, AZ, who then in turn forwarded it to me for my enjoyment and with the author's permission I now share it with you.
The particular stretch of railroad featured in this photo journal parallels Old Route 66 across Northern Arizona from the Kingman area to the Flagstaff area which is my favorite stretch of the Mother Road and one which I have driven perhaps a hundred times in my life and hope to drive a few hundred more times.
It is a spiritual journey of sorts for me, not just a physical one so these photos mean a lot to me as I've never driven through that area when it was as snowy as shown below.
Ryan does an excellent job in his photo captions (inside quotation marks) and Ryan took each of these 28 photos so with that, enjoy!
"About to dive down into Pica before the assult on Yampai hill starts. (you can see the water tank for the steam locos back in the day.)" |
"Just west of Peach Springs. Lots of snow here. Was told it was very unique to have this much on the ground here." |
"The next day..."
"On the approach to Cherokee crossovers" |
"The section house we werwe
stopped at the day befroe as seen from the south main, which is on a
different alignment than the north main." |
"The two alignments (near Nelson) slowly come back together. South main is on a 1.4% grade, North main is on a 1.8%." |
All photos and captions courtesy of Ryan Baker, Flagstaff, Arizona.
WOW! OH WOW! Totally cool! Thanks for sharing these images!
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