Catching a Train

 As I was leaving the airport, I saw this train passing over Middlebelt.

I figured that I would have a chance to catch it in Belleville.

So I waited for a bit at one of the train stops.

It wasn't too long before it appeared.

The lighting was perfect for me.

It was coming from the Dearborn yard but I'm not sure where it was heading.

The French Landing Dam

 So I've taken pictures of this dam before and when I did that, I was meaning to get pictures of the dam side of it.  I didn't really feel like doing much on Sunday, so I decided to head over here to get pictures.  I was thinking of another project but this was closer.

This has appeared on this blog before.  So I'm not going into the history.

I was hoping to get pictures of the dam side at some point.  Well, this made for a good some point.

Besides, I think the drone pictures work better.  I was going to get some pictures of the dam at the other side of Ford Lake but it was in the Willow Run authorization zone.

Fortunately, this dam wasn't.

It's a pretty cool looking dam.

Some other angles.  This is definitely a nice aspect of the drone.  I can get angles I wouldn't normally get.

I think I found a spot for trainspotting to.  I may have to come here again to get a train picture.

One more shot before leaving.
 

The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train Passes Belleville

A couple days ago, I read an article that said that the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train was going to be passing by.  I didn't catch it last year because I didn't see anything about it.  Nor did I catch it the year before for obvious reasons.  I almost wasn't going to catch it this year because the article said that they would be passing through Michigan with their lights off.

 I found the group dedicated to it on Facebook and people were posting updates of its location.  It was supposed to leave Windsor last night at 6:30.  I saw the post that it had passed the Michigan Central Train Station, so I decided to head over to Belleville to catch it.
I used this picture to gate the settings I would need on my camera.

 It took longer to catch it than I had planned.  We had heard that it passed Metro Airport, so I thought it would be passing soon.  And then we heard about this eastbound train passing through.  That meant the Holiday Train would have to wait on a siding for this train to pass.

 It wasn't long for the Holiday Train to appear.  You could tell it was getting close as its headlight shined on this building.

 I don't think this is a particularly good picture but I wanted to shot it because you can see the shadows of the people that were there.  There was a pretty good crowd.  I'm going to guess there was a pretty good crowd all along the route.

 And then the train appeared at an angle where I could get a picture.  I really think this is cool that they do this.  I think they have been doing this since 1999.

 Unfortunately, they have not stopped in Michigan in a while.  I don't think they own the tracks through Michigan and just used them to connect to the Chicago area.

 Maybe one of these years, they will actually stop here.  If not, I may have to just catch it in Windsor.

 The engine carries a few cares and they are all decorated.

 Just in case you forget what the train is.

 Some nice Christmas scenes.

And one more before moving on.

Surprised by the Wolverine

I decided to take Friday off in order to make a four day weekend.  Plus the Eastern game was Friday night and I wanted to get there early to catch some of the practice.  Because of that, I decided to head over to Willow Run to see if I could catch the Blue Angels practicing.

 As I was crossing over the tracks, I noticed that there was a yellow light on the signal and I think that means that would be a train coming.  It was pretty close to Wolverine time, so I waited.  It was too long before the train appeared.

 And it seemed like a pretty nice spot to catch the train.

And one more shot.

The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train

I found out that the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train would be passing by tonight and I heard where it would be passing, so I decided to head to Belleville in order to catch it.

I thought that it was going to be passing around 7:30 or so but the line is owned by Norfolk-Southern so the Holiday Train gets low priority to the Norfolk-Southern trains.  We heard the horn, but it was coming from the wrong direction.

 It was still cool to get some night shots of a train.

 And this particular train headed to the east.

 After the passing of another freight train and some disappointed people, the Holiday Train passed about an hour later.  I'll have to admit that it was pretty neat to catch a train that is all decorated.

 The train itself has been running for close to two decades at the Holiday Train.  There are actually two of them.  One goes through Canada and the other visits the United States.  There are shows along the route and they use those shows as a food bank.  It's kind of cool.

 I'm hoping that this train passes by next year because I would definately like to catch it.

 Like I said, it's pretty neat.

It's even neater as it passes by.  I tried to head over to Milan to catch it there but it was long gone by the time I made it there.

French Landing Dam

I knew that Ford Lake is a manmade lake and I sort of knew it was because of a dam built by Henry Ford.  So I decided to look up the dam that would have caused the creation of Ford Lake and in the process I found out about the below dam.

 In the early 1900's, the Eastern Michigan Edison Company (later Detroit Edison and now DTE Energy) wanted to exploit the energy of the Huron River.  Towards that end, they started to purchase land along the river.

 In 1910, they purchased this parcel of land for creation of a hydroelectric plant.

In 1924, this power house and dam were completed.  It was the fifth in a series of dams built on the Huron River by Detroit Edison.  It was the largest of these dams and could generate 12.7 kilowatt hours of energy until its decomissioning in 1962.  In the process, Belleville Lake was also created.

It was eventually donated to Van Buren township and in 1981 they began restoring it.

I'm going to have to figure out where I can get a picture of the dam itself but I'm thinking that is a springtime project.