And a Few Trains

After the planes, I decided to head back up to Durand.  I was hoping to see a few trains.

 I wasn't disappointed.  While the traffic isn't at Fostoria or Deshler levels, I like the views better I think.  Especially the nice tree lined spots like this.

 The CN engineer deciding to ham it up for the camera.  I still don't know why some people bitch about this.  There are probably hundreds of pictures of this engine but none of them have the engineer with his arms outstretched.

 Apparently, this is an older CN scheme.  I thought it was kind of cool as I've never seen it in person before.

 The Marquette Rail (not to be confused with the Pere Marquette) is a short line railroad that operates in Michigan.  It was founded in 2005 when the owner purchased a CSX line from Grand Rapids to Manistee.  In 2012, it was bought by Rail America which was in turn bought by Genesee and Wyoming.

 I kind of liked the colors.

 And the graffitti.

 I really liked this one.

 Not sure what this one is.

 I thought this made for a colorful shot.

 I wanted to see if I could get the station in the shot.

 Next time, I'll have to move the camera over a bit.

I wanted to see if I could get some reflections in the window.  I'll have to work on this next time I'm there.

Monday With the Heavies

When I arrived at work this morning, the power was out.  After a couple of hours, it was apparent that the power wasn't coming back anytime soon, so they let us go.  Since it was a nice day, I decided to take advantage of it.  I was hoping that I would be able to catch a couple of ships but those had passed by the time they let us go.  Then I remembered that the "Heavies" land at Detroit Metro between 12:30 and 2:00 (or so), so I decided to head over to the airport for a bit.

 While not a heavy, it's not like I would be wasting film, so I got a picture of this CRJ-900 landing from Newark.  This plane has been pretty busy since then with a flight to St. Louis and back.

 Evidently this SkyWest CRJ-200 came in from Scranton, PA.  I wonder if it had the gang from "The Office"?

 This Airbus A330 was coming from Amsterdam.  It was the first "heavy" I ran into this afternoon.  I believe this was Delta Flight 135.  On the radar, it would be referred to as Delta 135 Heavy.  The heavy part alerts planes following it that they may encounter a little turbulence.  However, the Air Traffic Controllers try to put a decent interval between planes so that doesn't happen.

 This particular Spirit Airbus A319 was coming in from Philadelphia.

 I love it when I can get the skyline in a shot.

 Tail Number N801 Aw Yeah.  Another CRJ.

 I believe this plane was coming in from Buffalo.

 It always brightens my day when I see a 757.  I think this one was coming in from Atlanta.  I'm sure alot of you may wonder why I like the 757 so much.  I think it's a beautiful looking aircraft.  And it reminds me of a puppy with those large engines.  It almost looks like it needs to grow into them.  Interestingly enough, even though the 757's weight classifies it as a medium aircraft, it gets to call itself heavy because of it's flight characteristics. 

 Our heavies are getting a little heavier.  This is the Lufthansa flight from Germany.  The silhouette behind it is a 747.  Detroit does not get any A380's.

 I think these are neat looking planes.

 But still not as neat as my favorite.

 This is one of the 747's arriving from Japan.

 A Gulfstream V coming in from somewhere.

 This plane was coming in from Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome, Italy. 

 Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian artist that lived from 1452 to 1519.  His most famous painting was the "Mona Lisa".  He is also famous for being way ahead of his time on some ideas and is sometimes credited with inventing the helicopter, parachute and tank.  He also did some pretty decent studies of the human body.  He was a pretty fascinating man.

 This 767 was arriving from Munich.

 Looks like the Delta boys are ready to rumble.

 A United Express plane getting away from the trouble.

 Last week, American Airlines sent a bunch of MD-80's to the boneyard.  I suspect the MD-88's can't be too far behind.  It will be sad seeing these go.

 The Virgin Atlantic flight from London.

 I tried a frontal shot, but I think I had too much distortion from the heat.

 Another 757.

 As it taxis to the gate.

 And is photobombed by an Airbus A319.

 Another 757 preparing to take off.

The Airbus could only gaze in awe at the lovely beauty preparing to take off.

And the Tim S. Dool

The Blough was being followed fairly closely by another ship.

 The Tim S. Dool was about 10 minutes behind the Blough.  If you will recall, the Tim S. Dool lost power earlier this year.  As she was adrift, it was said that the Blough was trying to avoid her and ended up running aground.  The Dool was checked in Sault Ste Marie and her power restored.  She continued on.  The Blough had more damage.

 The Dool is probably going to follow Blough pretty much all the way until the Blough splits off for Two Harbors and the Dool continues to Superior.

 The head shot.

 It was a nice night for boat pictures though.

 She passes under the Blue Water Bridge.  I think she could use a coat of paint though.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

And she continues on her way.

Catching Roger on the Flip Side

I kept a pretty close eye on when the Roger Blough would be leaving Conneaut.  I figured that I might have a good chance to catch her.  When I woke up this morning, I saw that she was about halfway across Lake Erie (or so).  I figured that would put her in Port Huron around 1800.  That gave me the chance to do laundry and catch up on some other stuff.

 After finishing my laundry, I headed up to Port Huron.  I thought I was going to miss her because two lanes of I-94 were shut down by the airport.  Fortunately, I was able to get around it by taking Haggerty to Ecorse Road.  I might have found a couple spots for plane watching on Ecorse.

 I did make it to catch the Blough.  The light was just about right too, although I wish I had the clouds from earlier because they were the nice cool gray clouds.

 The head shot that I always get at Port Huron.

 For some reason, I prefer her downbound look to her upbound look.  She looks low and squat in the water when she is heading down.

 The skies still looked pretty cool.

 They are still doing work on the Blue Water Bridge.

 A shot of her pilot house.

 And her deckhouse.

She continues out to Lake Huron.  She will head north to Sault Ste Marie.  After going through the Poe Lock, she work her way up Lake Superior to Two Harbors, Minnesota where she will pick up another load of taconite.