Made it to texas. Only been a couple of winters and I'm already headed back for austin. I've put this year through as much hell as I did the one before it and carved two giant circles into the lower 48 between them.
I wanted to try the rockies on for size this winter, so dived down the overland for my third or fourth go but hatching back instead this time down to the south and east into ogden via green river, wyo. I wasn't even sure where else after that but I knew I wanted for certain to go and see if I couldn't bag an east over the mountains. One hoped that denver would handle the rest I guess. And you know it did, cause three days and I'd seen enough. It handled me alright.
Provo yd was strange. Couldn't pick a spot that put one at ease to save my life, the way yd duty would go skirting around all five corners of the A, day and night. I went in by the west bridge on the first evening and then mosied over to the east one by midnight the next.. First thinking that the jungle in the middle there was going to be camp-worthy, until I seen work trucks parking right in there by it not long after noon pretty frequently, either on a smoke break or patrol. Took me a few days, dancing around for warmth there in intervals, steel toe boots and the snow.
And on the third day it was only when I was leaving over that bridge to go try for the macaroni at salt lake that they'd listed in the 2013/14 updates when I noticed a bnsf manifest, on trackage rights, laying over for a new crew further down in the yd itself.
And on the third day it was only when I was leaving over that bridge to go try for the macaroni at salt lake that they'd listed in the 2013/14 updates when I noticed a bnsf manifest, on trackage rights, laying over for a new crew further down in the yd itself.
When I went to investigate there was cats and dogs brought down all the sudden and then hail too for a good hour altogether. I tried to be as low profile as I could but once I cut in right on up next to the train in question and hopped over the other side for better cover / less visibility between strings, I discovered that the far string was a maintenance line and there was a crew of welders, busy running a bead while I passed and who I only hoped wouldn't notice me. They heard my feet on the ballast I guess though, and I could hear them after passing, exclamations of disbelief behind me through the torrents of hail.. Look there goes one now, jack..
The ride was about 30 hours and I was damned hungery by noon of the second day. Hungry but happy; There were times of brilliant sunshine over the pass, skating cautiously through like a windsail somewhere round about 25 mph through a bright snow perfumed winter wonderland, gold and green when I awoke the next day in the late noon as the sun was still deciding on just where to bed in all the snow caked forrest it ever dreamed of eating. I wished then that I hadn't burned my phone dead shooting a video the previous evening when we'd departed, all radiant as christmas carols, sledding through a nightstand nativity of baby jesus and whipped cream.
I will have to find that line again -- and jump off!.. Wait until spring, bandini.
God but the cold. I could do nothing but stay locked up deep in my bedding. Getting out only to pee and to stretch, and then it was a real ordeal.. not at all pleasant but for the first couple of minutes, spent mostly just unwrapping and climbing out of the double barrel.. which I was, in retrospect, very lucky to have found. It was the only double punched grain container on the whole train, and the best shelter anyone could ever hope to find on it at that. But for an open box of course and I don't think that order even carries empty boxes typically.
When we first stopped during the day (for like 5-6 hours, good lord), I first thought when I began to feel like it to climb off and have a look around and get some air in my veins but on stepping down discovered the snow to be a lot more than I guessed.. it was kneedeep. I didn't feel like getting out for a walk much after that. Not because I wasn't layered enough for it, but because my feet were stiff and I was feeling a little weak, hungover more like, and it was all I could do to keep toes thawed without the steel toes on and wading in ice was not going to be the solution to this.
Rolling in on denver then on the eve of it so to speak while there was still daylight lighting up the farthest expanses, coming in on top of it on a winding track winding down off the back of the rocky moutains. Stepping down the grade like a snake switching back over itself down the trunk of a tree, sun behind you and the east a bleached rolling plains dyed peaches reds and purples as far as the eye. A plot of grey metropolis somewhere in the center of it frost bitten and relatively featureless from that distance... but what a distance. And from that height on the way down I wished again, terribly, that I'd still batteries in the phone enough to ask your photograph.
Rolling in on denver then, rolling in on denver.. It was even colder thanks to the twilight hour and it's not sixty seconds before your fingers are all gone rolling up the belongings all dry ice inside of that grainer when we finally ground to a stop at north yd. Or maybe 48th street I don't know right now. The one relatively center but fairly west of town also. And the adrenaline, oh god.. sometimes you kinda just have to expect the worse. Because you can't hear or see anything at all out of those things, and there's not seeing a floodlight if it fixed on you until you were well out on the porch of it.
Disembarked that son of a bitch and there I was, Denver! Denver then.. land ho... Snows even deeper now and I can't feel my hands nor any of my toes about as soon as I jumped down off the final rung of that ladder.. And I'm so goddamn starved and my waters all frozen and shit and I'm not sure I'd have noticed there were an SUV black or white or red if it were 10 cars away. Was lucky enough though that we'd pulled in on the last track west side and there was nothing but 40-50 someodd paces wading as I was, to the edge of rail property and to safety -- not even a fence to vault over.. Twice lucky aye.
But there was somewhat an embankment there waiting for me and in 2 and a half feet of snow it took about ten minutes to crawl up this little hill that couldn't have been any more than 10 feetsworth I swear to god.. Gasping and grasping and weezing from the effort of it and the whole time looking back over my shoulder for the yard dog any second now. The fattest I have ever felt in my whole life. I felt like a beached fucking whale. Have I used that yet? Whatever... Anyway when I dragged myself past the final couple feet of sleet, wrenching my bags up alongside me like a couple of logs, I lay down for something like another 5-10 minutes recovering and eating snow to cool down again. Cold does that, too. Guts all busted and the ride I just left not a hundred feet away nor cop nor camera anywhere.
I stayed at a motel that night. It's weird sometimes how you can have no idea whatsoever which way you're going but wind up heading in the right direction. And then the next night stayed at the squat down the road I'd found by pecos bridge where the coal like to stop. I watched that coal track for half the night and it didn't seem to be doing the things just the same as it used to as far as I could tell, and I even went out and walked the length of one of them once to see where they'd stuck the dpus, mid-train or back. Not a soul else but myself there that night - though not a big surprise when it's 5 degrees in or out.. And when I decided it was late enough I layed out a squat mattress somebody had so thoughtfully leaned up lengthwise against the wall, so as to avoid it's being snowed on through the empty windows.
The ride was about 30 hours and I was damned hungery by noon of the second day. Hungry but happy; There were times of brilliant sunshine over the pass, skating cautiously through like a windsail somewhere round about 25 mph through a bright snow perfumed winter wonderland, gold and green when I awoke the next day in the late noon as the sun was still deciding on just where to bed in all the snow caked forrest it ever dreamed of eating. I wished then that I hadn't burned my phone dead shooting a video the previous evening when we'd departed, all radiant as christmas carols, sledding through a nightstand nativity of baby jesus and whipped cream.
I will have to find that line again -- and jump off!.. Wait until spring, bandini.
God but the cold. I could do nothing but stay locked up deep in my bedding. Getting out only to pee and to stretch, and then it was a real ordeal.. not at all pleasant but for the first couple of minutes, spent mostly just unwrapping and climbing out of the double barrel.. which I was, in retrospect, very lucky to have found. It was the only double punched grain container on the whole train, and the best shelter anyone could ever hope to find on it at that. But for an open box of course and I don't think that order even carries empty boxes typically.
When we first stopped during the day (for like 5-6 hours, good lord), I first thought when I began to feel like it to climb off and have a look around and get some air in my veins but on stepping down discovered the snow to be a lot more than I guessed.. it was kneedeep. I didn't feel like getting out for a walk much after that. Not because I wasn't layered enough for it, but because my feet were stiff and I was feeling a little weak, hungover more like, and it was all I could do to keep toes thawed without the steel toes on and wading in ice was not going to be the solution to this.
Rolling in on denver then on the eve of it so to speak while there was still daylight lighting up the farthest expanses, coming in on top of it on a winding track winding down off the back of the rocky moutains. Stepping down the grade like a snake switching back over itself down the trunk of a tree, sun behind you and the east a bleached rolling plains dyed peaches reds and purples as far as the eye. A plot of grey metropolis somewhere in the center of it frost bitten and relatively featureless from that distance... but what a distance. And from that height on the way down I wished again, terribly, that I'd still batteries in the phone enough to ask your photograph.
Rolling in on denver then, rolling in on denver.. It was even colder thanks to the twilight hour and it's not sixty seconds before your fingers are all gone rolling up the belongings all dry ice inside of that grainer when we finally ground to a stop at north yd. Or maybe 48th street I don't know right now. The one relatively center but fairly west of town also. And the adrenaline, oh god.. sometimes you kinda just have to expect the worse. Because you can't hear or see anything at all out of those things, and there's not seeing a floodlight if it fixed on you until you were well out on the porch of it.
Disembarked that son of a bitch and there I was, Denver! Denver then.. land ho... Snows even deeper now and I can't feel my hands nor any of my toes about as soon as I jumped down off the final rung of that ladder.. And I'm so goddamn starved and my waters all frozen and shit and I'm not sure I'd have noticed there were an SUV black or white or red if it were 10 cars away. Was lucky enough though that we'd pulled in on the last track west side and there was nothing but 40-50 someodd paces wading as I was, to the edge of rail property and to safety -- not even a fence to vault over.. Twice lucky aye.
But there was somewhat an embankment there waiting for me and in 2 and a half feet of snow it took about ten minutes to crawl up this little hill that couldn't have been any more than 10 feetsworth I swear to god.. Gasping and grasping and weezing from the effort of it and the whole time looking back over my shoulder for the yard dog any second now. The fattest I have ever felt in my whole life. I felt like a beached fucking whale. Have I used that yet? Whatever... Anyway when I dragged myself past the final couple feet of sleet, wrenching my bags up alongside me like a couple of logs, I lay down for something like another 5-10 minutes recovering and eating snow to cool down again. Cold does that, too. Guts all busted and the ride I just left not a hundred feet away nor cop nor camera anywhere.
I stayed at a motel that night. It's weird sometimes how you can have no idea whatsoever which way you're going but wind up heading in the right direction. And then the next night stayed at the squat down the road I'd found by pecos bridge where the coal like to stop. I watched that coal track for half the night and it didn't seem to be doing the things just the same as it used to as far as I could tell, and I even went out and walked the length of one of them once to see where they'd stuck the dpus, mid-train or back. Not a soul else but myself there that night - though not a big surprise when it's 5 degrees in or out.. And when I decided it was late enough I layed out a squat mattress somebody had so thoughtfully leaned up lengthwise against the wall, so as to avoid it's being snowed on through the empty windows.