HerrDrayer

I haven't been too active on here for a long while because I'm a homeowner and a father now, and playing around with cameras takes a backseat to house repairs, yardwork, and child rearing.  But, I did manage to send off a few pictures to Trains Magazine about the new railfan viewing platform where St. Anthony Parkway crosses over the south end of the BNSF Northtown Yard in Minneapolis, parallel to the CP flyover.  Trains decided to print my picture of a Northstar commuter train passing by the platform in the February issue on Page 73 if you're interested in seeing my work.  They said they'd pay me, but the check hasn't arrived yet.  :)

How many of you have seen this TED talk? http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_hellum_the_world_s_most_boring_television_and_why_it_s_hilariously_addictive If Norwegian public television can arrange to broadcast a week-long live broadcast of a ship sailing from Bergen to Kirkenes (a trip I've taken in the opposite direction), why couldn't a team of American railfans pool resources and a kickstarter campaign to broadcast a live documentary from aboard the Empire Builder?  Every Amtrak long distance train, and every short one too, has the potential to make great "Slow TV" content, and the act would help to bring positive attention to Amtrak, the ho

The Hunger Games are good films for railfans. After all, the most luxurious transportation available between the districts is a train that may or may not use magnetic levitation. Curiously, the background of District 12 is decorated with highly conventional, painted steel coal hopper cars.  Meanwhile, the passenger trains run on what appears to be a strange cross between the Transrapid's guideway set on the ground and the aerodynamic shape of the Japanese superconducting maglev vehicles, all hauled by a locomotive whose shrouding looks like it was pirated from the Chicago and Northwestern's Twin Cities 400.  The set designer must have been a