What's New? Latest Updates!

 

Update on December 28, 2020

Added a page for the Oregon California & Eastern Railway/OC&E Trail.  This former logging railroad is now the longest linear park in Oregon.

Update on November 1, 2020

Noticed that Union Pacific's executive train was sitting next to the office in Klamath Falls yard during the night - got a decent photo, I think:  https://craigsrailroadpages.com/union-pacific-railroad/union-pacific-railroad-2020.html

Update on August 9, 2008

Today, while driving over the viaduct on S. 6th Street which crosses the Union Pacific yard in Klamath Falls, Oregon, I happened to spot the former Modoc Northern caboose on a track down near the UP's engine service track.  I was not able to get close enough to get a good photo, but the photo I got is now on the Modoc Northern's "End of the Line" page.

So now I know that the caboose is no longer in Tulelake and is apparently on its way to a new owner.  I hope it's not going to a scrap yard.

 

Update on June 23, 2020

The Union Pacific section has now been completed with the photos I had on hand, and frankly I'm realizing just how bad my early  photography is.  And by early photography I mean everything from film cameras to digital cameras, up to about the last two generations of smartphone cameras.  It's kind of discouraging and as I go through the site making updates to the format, I am starting to cull out most of the bad pics.  But, I have a friend who believes even the bad photos are good because they chronicle an earlier era of railroading.  What are YOUR thoughts?  Send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and let me know.

 

Update on June 19, 2020

The Southern Pacific section of the website has now been upgraded to the new format.

 

Update on June 13, 2020

Well, I've finished the Modoc Northern section of my website!  I'm pretty sure I am missing some photos taken in the last year of the railroad's life; if I ever find them I will update the section with the missing photos.

 

Update on June 7, 2020

Re-creating the Modoc Northern pages is going well.  So far I've gotten a main page somewhat laid out, which links so far to a completed page detailing how the Union Pacific's Modoc Subdivision looked prior to MNRR's lease going into effect, a page showing UP's clean-up train at work, the MNRR's Ribbon Cutting and Inaugural Train, and a roster of MNRR's motive power (and their caboose).   So far, so good.  600 photos is a lot of pics to put into proper order!

 

Update on June 4, 2020

Reformatted pages for Central Oregon & Pacific, Lake County Railroad, Lake Railway, and McCloud Railway.  Next in line is the Modoc Northern, but that's going to take a few days as there are a LOT of photos and text to go along with them.

 

Update on June 3, 2020

BNSF page has been updated to the new format.  I've got a long way to go, and I can't say the pages are finished because I still hope to get out in the wild and get more photos.

 

Update on May 29, 2020

Updated the BN page. I'll get the whole site finished at this rate -- eventually. When I get to the railroads of which I have a LOT of photos, I'm going to get mired down and it will be a fight for me to continue. When one has hundreds of photos that are in no particular order and don't follow a specific naming convention, sorting them properly in one's monitor is a mentally exhausting task. At least for me, it is.

 

Update on May 28, 2020

Well, I guess the phrase "never do today what you can put off until tomorrow" describes me pretty well.  I guess COVID-19 quarantining at home has given me time to get around to getting around to doing something about this website.

As of today, I've rebuilt the pages with my photos taken of the Albany & Eastern, the American Freedom Train, a couple of American Orient Express trains, Amtrak in southern and northern California and in Oregon, the Santa Fe in southern California, and the Portland Traction Company in and east of the Portland area of Oregon.

Part of the rebuilding involves getting rid of the photo albums that displayed photos in random order and without captions, replacing them with larger captioned images.  I've also added map location links to most of the photos showing locations where they were taken; a lot has changed for some of those locations since I took the pics back in the 1970's through 1990's.

Take a look at the new look and let me know what you think.

 

Update on January 24, 2019

Happy Birthday, dad; I sure miss you.

As I mentioned on the Home Page, yes, I'm finally getting around to re-creating this website in a mobile-friendly format.  Now that I've sold my web design company and have retired, I will have some extra time on my hands.

Why did I retire?  In a word, burnout.  In another word, my health.  In early 2018, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. The outlook isn't good - it's a fatal condition with no cure other than a lung transplant.  I'm taking medications that are supposed to slow down the progression of the fibrosis (scar tissue building up in my lungs) and I hope it will give me a few more years.  Under "normal" circumstances, "they" say that life expectancy after diagnosis is about 5 years.  Mileage may vary.

I have met with the doctors at the lung transplant center in Phoenix, Arizona, and, while I have a long ways to go before I need to start thinking about a transplant, it is now necessary for my wife and I to travel from Oregon to Arizona every six months until I am eventually placed on a transplant list.  Once that happens, we will have to stay in the Phoenix area for the duration, until a compatible donor lung(s) become available and for a year after the transplant.  Then we will once again revert to traveling for checkups every six months from then until I draw my last breath.

Anyway, please be patient during this changeover process... enjoy what you see and come back soon and re-visit from time to time to check out the latest changes and updates!  I don't have a lot of energy anymore (I'm now 62 and the IPF has already started taking its toll on my body and emotional well-being, so I'm not going to be in any rush).

What will take me the longest to do will be to caption every image and give locations where the images were taken.

 

What can you expect to see here?

Within this website you may eventually see many photographs I have taken and some artwork I have created of railroad subjects in the western United States of America from the 1970's through the present, as well as a little prose and other writings about things railroad.

Most of the photos were taken over 30-40 years ago. That in itself is a good thing for those wanting to see what things were like "back in the day," but I admittedly lacked photographic skill back then.  Also, factoring in that the 35mm 3.5" x 5" prints of the era were scanned to digital format before Y2K and therefore sized at about 600px x 400px or 640 x 427 for the lower resolution monitors of the era, expect low quality small size photographs taken by a then-enthusiastic rail fan of whatever happened to be rolling in the area he was in at the time.

While I still have most of the original photographs and slides and could take the time to rescan them at larger resolutions, I honestly just don't feel like all my time and effort is worth it anymore, especially when all I get out of it is the pleasure of sharing this history with people and the occasional email of thanks for bringing back memories of a certain place and time. But hey, it will give me something to do, right?

Very Truly Yours,

Craig Bass
Klamath Falls, Oregon
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.