Coalmotion Video

Sometimes it needs a little help.

Processing a digital photo is a must for any photography amateur or professional. There are only a few times when you would not touch a digital negative before you convert it to a standard file format like .tiff or .jpeg. Every photo usually gets sharpened, leveled, minor color adjustments, contrast and brightness corrected. A lot of cameras do some of this for you as it saves the jpeg if you want it too. I like to start from the original raw file that has not been adjusted  or corrected in anyway. How I process completely depends on what the client or myself wants to get from the final image and what it will be used for, from news to artistic expression.  


I love the American west. I love the feeling of what once was and now the desolation that it is. When I took the image above, I was looking to capture the large empty, almost abandoned looking, stock yard with a freight train flying by. I could just imagine a time when this cattle yard received trains full of cattle but now freight just fly by with no intention of making a return here. 


I have passed by this photo many times with not a second look. It was flat and boring. The feel I wanted to convey just wasn't captured in the raw file. It just didn't fit my original vision. Two years later I came across this photo again with a clear vision and feel, I knew I could get out of it. The vintage processing technique made this flat image come to life. It aged the scene in a way that flowed well with the empty stock yard and feeling of abandonment. The processing helped separate the train, fencing, and  grain elevators into points for your eyes to flow and follow. In the end it really helped make the abandonment of the west feel come to life as I visioned it the day I took it in 2008. Sometimes your vision just needs a little help.

It's here again.

With October almost over, winter is almost upon us. Temps today are at 32F already. Winter is one of my favorite times of the year to shoot. A fresh snow fall is just an amazing sight and morning frost is killer. A good snow storm is what I sit and wait for and it is just yard to beat. 

Rocky Blizzard Stalker Boots

My hatred of the cold makes this a difficult time of year though. There is nothing worse then the constant internal struggle. I look outside and see the conditions that just burn inside me and drives me into the cold to go photograph in, just waiting outside the door. Soon they could be gone and I need to get out there. All I am thinking is why would I want to leave this warm house, struggle to bundle up and get all my gear ready, sit in the cold doing all I can to keep my camera from fogging up and the lens clear of snow. Well nothing makes that struggle any better, but my Blizzard Stalker boots from Rocky sure do keep my feet warm. I have never experienced warmer and more comfortable boots in my life. They are actually one of the most comfortable pieces of footwear I have ever worn. 1200 grams of Thinsulate does it's job. My feet have yet to get cold in these boots, even after hours in the elements. I'm not the only one that loves these. I have a few friends I talked into buying a pair and they will give you the same review and reaction I gave you. They are good boots, period. So for any of you winter railfans and photographers out there, these boots may help you as they have greatly made my winter shooting more enjoyable. 

You are a Conductor

A really cool video by Alex Jonathon O'nan. More videos by him can be found here. http://www.youtube.com/user/alexonan

 A quick slideshow for the upcoming Halloween. One of my first attempts with my new slideshow program.

A day with the Wisconsin Northern

A rare night move of a string of coal hoppers that are destined for storage around Barron, WI. Photo taken in Bloomer, WI.

Back in June 2009 I had the privilege of spending the day with the Wisconsin Northern crew. I started my day meeting them in Chippewa Falls, WI. They had already started their yard work at Norma and Pliant Plastics. The switching lasted a couple hours and then we were ready to head north. 



Shoving back a cut of cars at Chippewa Falls, WI.


The engineer and I headed towards Bloomer in WN 1500, as the conductor shadows the train in a Progressive Rail badged Ford F150. Track speed is a decent 25mph to Bloomer allowing us to make good time there. The crew switched out a a few cars in Bloomer and a few more on the north end of town. 

North of Bloomer track speed is an agonizing 10mph but we still pushed on. We made a few set out and pick ups along the way as we made our way to Rice Lake, WI. From Rice Lake we headed back south to Cameron, WI where we crossed the diamond and then wyed the train for westward movement to Barron, WI. 



Old tower south of Rice Lake. I believe it was were the CNW crossed the Soo.


They were installing a new grade crossing in Cameron and the construction crew had us test the rail a few times. The engineer powered the train back and forth on the new rail as workers on the ground got down and looked for any issues.

Running north near New Auburn, WI.

After the train was wyed, we were off to Barron. The end of the day was near and the train would be tied down there for the night. The next day the crew would pick up were they left off and make their way back to Chippewa Falls.

New book! Trains of the West in 7 days

Trains of the West in 7 Days by Travis Dewitz | Make Your Own Book

Story behind the photo.

Many of my photos tell the whole story within the image itself while others can't even begin to capture half of the story that it took to get the image in the first place. This is one of those photos that has just as interesting of a back story to the photo as the  photo has captured itself.

The last couple of weeks has had the last two surviving Chicago & Northwestern (CNW 8701 and CNW 8646) units traveling the Union Pacific mainline between Proviso and South St. Paul together.  I had already had the privilege to catch the CNW duo pulling freight on the Altoona and Wyeville Subdivisions in recent days but the timing that was about to happen was unexpected.

It was just after 11pm on the 24th of April, 2009 when the CNW duo led MSSPR into the Altoona yard. A large thunderstorm was also making an appearance over the Chippewa Valley at the same time. I ran from my house into the pouring with my camera in hand. I jumped into my Trailblazer and raced to the east end of the yard to catch MSSPR switching out it's train. The pouring rain was relentless as lightning started to fill the sky. 

MSSPR was almost ready to depart Altoona, WI so my time was running thin. I needed to find a place to park to get a few remaining shots. I drove my Trailblazer down a very sandy access road to a spot near the tracks. I started to turn my truck around so I could make a quick exit if needed. Between the sand and all of the rain the road had become a very poor place to turn around a truck on that had lost it's 4wd capabilities on a previous chase a few weeks prior. I was stuck.

With no time to waste I needed to get trackside before the CNW units led their train out of Altoona. I ran out into the pouring rain that was dumping from the sky with no protection at all. The mad dash from my home left me without any of my camera rain gear or my own. I set up my camera and tripod and did what I could to cover my Canon 40d body with my own. The front glass of my 24-105 f4L had to be wiped dry in between every shot to keep as many rain drops as I could from ruining my shots. I took one shot after another trying to capture the lightning off in the distance a bit while only thinking about how I was going to get out from my stuck position in the middle of the night and in the storm. As the lightning bolt I captured spider webbed across the sky above my head and the code line pole I was crouched below, I decided the storm was much closer then I thought and I ran to the stuck truck with my gear in hand. 

I first took the time to wipe my camera and lens as dry as I could even though I was soaked to the bone. Water resistant doesn't mean water proof and I didn't want to take that big of a chance. Now it was time to handle the task that was clouding my thoughts until that bolt of lightning flashed over my head and broke the dreaded feeling of being disabled. Surprisingly my truck found it's way all the way around and back to the paved road after only a few forward to reverse rocking motions of the truck to get all the way around and off the rain soaked sandy two tire rutted road. 

The image above captured the rare units working at night in a thunderstorm pretty well but didn't  show the dreaded feeling of being stuck, the excitement of railroad and storm coming together or the lack of available time and lucky timing to capture a working train and a lightning bolt together.

A great month to read a railroad magazine!

A big thank you goes out to the editors for the honor of being published in the pages of your magazine.

TRAINS Magazine - October 2010
DMI&R unit heading into Proctor, MN



Railroads Illustrated - DINA -September 2010
BNSF Rice's Point Yard in Duluth, MN
Taken from Skyline Dr.



Railroads Illustrated - DINA - September 2010
EJ&E led train heads out of Two Harbor, MN

A Great Severe Weather Wisconsin Summer

The storms have been rolling into Wisconsin all summer long and have been a blast to get out in finding trains to shoot. I have been able to connect a few times with hopes of a few more yet this year. With todays temps all ready in the 50's I may not get another chance. 

The local Union Pacific job enters yard limits in Altoona, WI just as the storm front passes over the city.


The conductor works out in the rain as this Union Pacific job switches out Banbury Place which use to be the old Uniroyal in Eau Claire, WI.



A CSX led extra heads west on the Union Pacific Altoona Sub towards Saint Paul, MN. The setting sun paints the scene with an orange glow as I head for shelter in my Tahoe.



A BNSF train heads up the Mississippi River on the St. Croix Sub towards Minneapolis trying to out run another round or severe weather.

You Just Need to Be There

Being there is the first step to any photo. Sometimes the photo you want requires you to be there, in horrible conditions, but that is what needs to be done to get the shot you may want. Being there is what I needed to do when the weather service predicted the first big snow storm of the 2009 winter season in Western Wisconsin. The storm started to put down some heavy snow which I knew I needed to shoot in. I stayed out in the early hours of the night before capturing what I could locally knowing tomorrow was going to be the chase.

The local Altoona job was switching out Banbury Place (old Uniroyal plant) in Eau Claire, WI. I found myself a stack of pallets to gain elevation to shoot over the fence along the Union Pacific right of way. In the process, the night security guard found me and advised I should find my way off the stack.

The next morning I found plenty of snow and a soon to be departing Eastbound MSSPR. Most roads were not plowed yet and trying to find spot to park out of the way was a challenge. Glad I had 4wd. The recent trackwork from Altoona east has increased the track speed and with the weather conditions my chase ended at Fall Creek with some flying snow. Road conditions

were very poor with not much improvement until around noon. The La Crosse local was working it's way up river as a county plow was working the roads around Cochrane. The snow wasn't coming down heavy any more but the just above 0 temperatures and strong wind made it a tough day for the crews on the ground.

The snow picked up a lot later in the afternoon as another wave pounded the area. Nothing beats heavy fresh snow and a fast train.

I ended my day in Red Wing, MN catching this Soo Line led local heading back towards St. Paul. The train hustled past the Red Wing depot through the falling snow as the crossing light lit up. What a great end to a great day chasing trains in some tough weather conditions.
All photos can be viewed or purchased at www.travsirocz.smugmug.com