London Fog
On Saturday, March 20, 2004, I and three good friends, Ron Cady, Neil Plagens, and Mat Haven set out to do some railfanning. Despite the incessant clouds and rain, we set our sights on Southern Ontario.
While I am on the record as hating clouds, I discovered that inclement weather and digital do mix.
After an hour of the most boring driving I have done in recent months, we arrived in pouring rain at Hyde Park, outside of London. I didn’t see a park, just the dual mainlines of CN and CP. (I guess the Park is Hydden.) The fog was really going at this point, making for the ol’ atmospheric shots.
This is the CP, looking west.
CN, looking west.
CN, looking east.
No sooner than three minutes passed when the CP signals came on, followed shortly by a westbound train.
We relocated to a bridge roughly one mile east. This bridge had some history with Neil, as he was chased up on the railing by a rabid raccoon some years back.
The advantages of this location were that the signals to the south were now easily visible and there was a wider area on either side of the bridge to shoot the trains.
This bridge was over the CN only, and showed its age. While there were no houses visible on the road, true to railfan fashion, a horde of cars tuned up just as soon as we parked on the side of the road. I don’t know where they came from or where they were going, but I thought for a few minutes that we were going to have a good old-fashioned traffic snarl.
The fog was showing no sign of lifting, prompting me to do some atmospheric shots.
This fog stuff really cuts down on the noise, consequently this westbound CP train snuck up on us. The train was really creeping along. About this time a furry animal started trotting up the road to the bridge. Remembering the raccoon story, we got all bent out of shape and headed for the car.
Once in the car, we decided to chase the train. On the way back down the road, we discovered that the “raccoon” was really a woodchuck.
Turns out that the train was moving faster than expected and we barely got to the photo spot. I shot this out the car window as we ground to a stop, but no one else was able to get set up fast enough.
A VIA westbound showed up shortly after we returned to the bridge.
We were really hoping for a Genesis or the Telus locomotive, but that was not to be the case.
Vintage Budd equipment was a good compromise, though.
Right after VIA, a freight came through.
At the next crossing east on the CN we caught two freights.
The CP people were squawking up a storm on the radio so we relocated to Hyde Park.
A treat! A new CSX SD70somethingoranother, fresh from the EMD factory in London.
We went back to the raccoon bridge to shoot the eastbound VIA. While we were waiting, this high-railer went by on the CP.
Finally, our last train of the day. Note the bird over the tracks.
No Budd cars here.
After picking up Dave Haugan at Windsor’s VIA depot, we went down to the waterfront. Honestly, this is the only way to look at Detroit – from a distance! He, he, he, actually, this is really a morning shot…
…or a night shot.
We returned after dinner at a great little English restaurant, where Dave knew the owner. We had a neat little room on the back of the place, complete with glass windows that overlooked flower beds. We had to go through the kitchen to get there, but once we were there, no smoke (except from the kitchen), no noisy guests, no hocus-pocus, just talk amongst good friends. The food was literally handed out the door from the kitchen, and was prepared very quickly and with excellent care.
After the waterfront shot, we went back to the VIA depot to do some night shots.
Following the ambient shot, I got out my wireless flash mess.
On the way back to the United States, we ran afoul of the tunnel system. At the tunnel entrance in Windsor there was a pile-up of cars waiting to get through the token booths. Someone had had an accident, some woman without exact change had gotten herself into the 'token or change only' lane, and a tunnel bus had driven up over the curb and blocked off five of the toll booths. Everybody headed for the tunnel was jamming in around the stalled bus, giving it had no chance of getting out of the way. People were getting out and shouting at each other, and so on. In addition, the traffic trying to get around the mess to the two available toll booths only served to create a larger snarl out on the streets.
But really, the fun didn’t start until we got to the American side. Just when the tunnel started sloping back up again, traffic ground to a halt. Apparently there was a back-up at customs.
After crawling slowly out of the tunnel, we discovered that the Americans were having an equally bad day. Only half the booths were open.
By now we were traveling in two separate cars. Dave and Neil were in the first car, the rest of us in the second. We quickly discovered that we had picked the wrong lane – cars were moving at 5 to 1 through the others. A tunnel official came up and motioned us to use another lane, but we decided that that would make keeping the cars together more difficult. The lane that we could have used, as it turned out, didn’t have anyone in the booth. We wondered why nobody was using it! And all these cars would go up to it, stop, look around, and drive away!
Anyways, it turned out that we got some total fool for a customs agent. The man weighed at least 350 pounds, had huge jowls, and didn’t speak English.
Really, it’s terrifying to get some dumb fool who doesn’t speak the language when the possibility of a search is involved. I just can’t believe that they hire these people.
Our conversation when like this:
Him: Rullduundeedwinnduuh!
Us: What?
Him: Rullduundudeedwinnduuhhhh!
Us: What?
Him: (Really loud) Rulldududduundeedwinnduuh!
Us: Oh! Roll down the window! (which was down, anyways.)
Him: Huuhhdlonnnnngduududhiuniinnn Canadudduh?
Us: What?
Him: Huuhhdlonnnnngduududhiuniinnn Canadudduh?!!!?! (Think Jabba the Hut with flapping jowls and mouth spray.)
Us: Canada? Uh, … this morning?
Him: Unnhdhdhdu! Whodindudandudaabacccckseadddtsuh?
Us: Uh, … This is Mat, …. Blah, blah, blah.
Him: Prudddfudofffudsiddidenndip, ennh? Didduhjuddoubudduyydyanndyydinnnhuh?
At this point I was close to hysteria. Those of you who know me know that I refuse to deal with nonsense, and this was a prime example. If these are our first line against defending us from the terrorists, or what the Bush regime thinks is security, then it’s a miracle that there haven’t been any more attacks. This man had no business making decisions about who needed more scrutiny, which car has Osama, who has the anthrax, etc. For crying out loud, He couldn’t even speak English…
When we got back to the house we had a great big laugh, acting out the situation if one of us had grabbed their camera bag and started waving it around and saying things like, "It’s gonna blow!” I shouldn’t joke, but short of filing a complaint, you can’t help but laugh.
And so go the adventures...