This isn't happening...

It's been a long, cold, wet spring.

With a never ending cycle of sloooowly warming up, followed by a overnight fall off the temperature cliff. Followed by another sloooooow warm up, fall of the temperature cliff, repeat, repeat.

But hey, it's late May. That cycle is finally over, its almost Memorial day and summer, right?

Last week was pretty nice. Other than kind of windy, it was upper 60s and well into 70s. Finally. For days! I was enjoying it.

But no, it was another Mother Nature fake out!

It got very cold, and a major winter storm hit us. I measured about 9 inches of very wet heavy snow. Really weighing down all the trees and plants that are leafing out. Had to get the snow shovel back out!

It's LATE MAY. Not March. Not February.

Not even Christmas. Though it sure looks like it.

Temps will get back to normal. In a few days. Till then, more cold, with chances of snow and rain.

This is beginning to look like a summer without a summer!

Invisible Iron

Is it possible to make a 78 year old, 1,200,000 pound steam locomotive disappear?

To an amazing degree, YES! Allow me to elaborate...

Yesterday was a BIG day. A Big Boy day...

After 5 years, the Union Pacific rolled out the Big Boy 4014 locomotive. Restored and back to operating condition. The biggest steam locomotive ever made.

I've posted on it a couple time in the past, in 2014 and 2018. You can find the links at right. The good news is they got it back together and working! At least well enough to go to the big 150th Transcontinental Railroad Anniversary event in Utah, as they had planned.

Saturday morning, they sent the trains off after a brief christening ceremony. Big Boy 4014 leading the way, then the 844 Living Legend locomotive behind it (doing most of the work I think. 4014 is really still being broken in and tested), followed by a Diesel and a number of cargo and passenger cars for this special trip. Here's a link to a short video (not mine, ~2 minutes) of the trains pulling up to the UP Depot in town:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cofv2msLz-0

This train has been the subject of huge interest. For years. Especially in the railfan community.
Here's a good UP video (~3 min) summarizing the train and the beginning of the journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrqzaSDiM-A

People from all over the US and foreign countries as well were here to see this monster take to the rails again, for the first time since the early 1960s. There were cars and people EVERYWHERE for MILES. The tracks run parallel to a main road for a long way heading west from the Depot, and it's pretty unobscured once you get near the edge of town. Other than more train tracks. Therein lies the problem. Today in particular, a BIG PROBLEM. Which I still cannot believe they didn't plan for.

As I drove down the road, there was a very looooooong, loaded UP freight train. On the rail closest to the road. Parked. Blocking the view of the rails the steam train would take. There were tons of people there, waiting, hoping the train would move I guess so they could see. They were unfortunately mistaken. The freight train just sat there. Never moved.

I went farther west, past the parked freight. Out into open country, near the tracks with clear viewing, with LOTS of additional people. All waiting for that train. And finally, we could hear it coming. Just as it cleared the parked train, guess what happened? Another UP freight train came rolling in, eastbound. And TOTALLY blocked our view of the steam trains, as they chugged by behind it. Stealth technology on the cheap!

So THOUSANDS of people in Cheyenne waited to see the train leave town on its maiden voyage. Instead, they got to look at freight trains with something behind it puffing smoke. After years of stories and news, waiting for the big day. And a parked train and a UNBELIEVABLY poorly timed second train blocked the view of almost EVERYONE! Great job of planning and thinking ahead UP.

Many people WERE in a better spot and DID get to see it. But WAY WAY too many got the invisible train I saw. I'll include a few links for people who had a much better day seeing the train than I did.

This may qualify for the Outstanding Performance of an Epic Fail in the Competition for Epic Fails. CBG has something to say about this at the end of this post...

Not only were the trains steamed, now so was I! My option was to give up, or chase it. I chased a bit. Where it was going was kind of vague. Unless you really researched it. There is quite a spaghetti mess of tracks west of town, and exactly which one it was on very few people seemed to grasp. I knew one stop it was making, and as I travelled west and checked my map, realized I had to change where I was going. Everywhere I was driving, I saw lots of people parked along different tracks. They were all at the wrong tracks and would not see the train. Sorry folks! Again, if the UP wanted more people to see this, they should have been a lot more specific of which route it was taking. Because very few people seemed to know from what I saw.

After about a 30 mile drive, I turned off and did another 10 or so miles of dirt road. A small collection of vehicles were all caravanning to this same spot. Which was on private land. No problem, the landowners were there, letting cars in. For $10 /person. Paid it, cause I'd already come this far.

OK, FINALLY going to see the train. Shooting pictures and video, trying to run two cameras at once. Which is really one too many for one person. I got some photos and video, but both would have been a lot better if I had been able to do just one.

Here's a panorama of the landscape, before the train arrived-

I was waiting maybe a half hour, before the puffs of steam and smoke were visible. And as if out of nowhere, the trains suddenly appeared!

(All the wind noise in the mic - No Extra Charge! You're welcome!)

Pretty awesome sight. Video could have been better. And less wind noisy! But like I said, its hard to pan a video camera while shooting a SLR camera at the same time. I needed a helper! Wouldn't have hurt to get a little closer to the tracks also, in hindsight.

All that work, chasing, etc. And in 30 seconds its gone...

Here's what turned out to be my best photo from the day-

So then, I took a long trip home. My train chasing done. I've since seen some video from other stops the train has made on its trip. Search YouTube for Big Boy 4014 videos, there's lots of them, and some are really, really good. Here's a couple (none are mine)-

This guy chased the train all day. And got some really good locations (~21 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REgH3pT4IH0

Good short up close video of the train leaving after a remote stop along the way (~2 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqgdZMTkV9Y

Awesome video of the Big Boy pumping out some steam, putting down some power (~3 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgK3ZBajFY

It's such a rare, historical old locomotive, and they did such an amazing job getting it operational again. And it looks great. Which makes the way it was obscured most of the way out of town, disappointing thousands of people there to see it go, so very hard to fathom for me.

Why the UP couldn't have kept the rails clear for a few miles west of town for 30 minutes Saturday morning, I'll never understand. What the.....sigh...

It was a incredible event overall. With a few rough edges...

Wrap up time, with a guest summary of my overall personal experience for the day!
Take it away CBG!

Ten Years Later

The Spiritbox Studio blog. At 10 years!

Happy Anniversary!

I started this blog with my first post on May 3, 2009.

You can find it in the links at right, or you can find it right here:
http://spiritboxstudio.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-blog-new-shooz.html

Mostly, it was just talking about some new cycling shoes I got.

Well, ten years later, I still got em!

They're definitely a little more worn and dirty, but still in good shape. The laces are getting ratty, need to replace those soon. But as 4 of my 5 bikes have SPD pedals, they get used pretty regularly.

Speaking of bikes, I posted recently on the Orange Chopper project bike I built. And mentioned in the Christmas post about the 5th bike I had finally gotten - a real road bike. Since this seems to be mostly a bike stuff post, how about just a little more with a current photo of my road bike - The Fred Sled.

It's a very good bike - a Specialized S-Works bike. Which is their top end bike even today. This particular example dates to 2004. So about 15 years old. Its a very nicely finished aluminum frame with carbon fiber fork, seat post and handlebar. Current higher end bikes are usually entirely carbon fiber. Over the years, the prior owner changed a bunch of the components from what it came with. It was kind of grungy, some time with automotive polishing compound cleaned up a whole lot of seemingly permanent grime. Did some tuning and adjusting, touched up a number of paint scratches and chips. It's got new tires and tubes, pedals, bottle cages, seat bag and a cyclocomputer. Otherwise it's just as I bought it. For its age and a lot of use, it looks really, really good. 

In the future, I'm thinking of stripping it down of all the miscellaneous components, and put on matching current generation Shimano 105 parts. And a new set of matching wheels. Plus a few other minor changes like a different saddle and handlebar. Which is just about everything!

But its all functional as is. Certainly feels different from my other bikes as its about half the weight of any thing else I have. Fastest I was able to pedal up to, on flat ground with a bit of tailwind, was 33.7 mph. Briefly. Can't maintain that speed at all. 

Time to wrap up this anniversary celebration. Open the champagne!

Sneak Peek - Coming soon - Something else with wheels. Considerably larger...