Category Archives: Railroad

Art, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Macro, Nature, Night, Railroad

2010-06-05 Part 2

January 9, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

There were a literal ton of images in the folder 2010-06-05. Nearly 700. So adding the pictures that belonged in the gallery to the gallery, was no small feat. Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to post all of those images. It would be well over 100.

That being said, a ton of pictures from State Center and an abandoned railroad bridge that used to be in the heart of downtown Ames are still coming your way. This one might get long. Buckle up Dorothy:

That old train bridge has since been torn down. I believe it was the railroad tracks that ran a commuter train “The Dinkey” between downtown Ames and the Iowa State Campus. I used to like to visit that bridge on my lunch breaks or sometimes after work. It is sad that is gone.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

RWPE #22 – PAINTING WITH LIGHT

Flame On

Adumbrate

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 26 ALPHA

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 26 BETA

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 26 GAMMA

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a trip to Ledges.

History, Railroad, Town Sign Project

Town Sign Project: Marshall County

January 6, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

I recently drove around Marshall County to harvest all the town signs there that I am missing. One of the things I like to do is visit any historical markers that are on my journey. If I know of a particularly interesting (or in this case tragic) historical marker that isn’t on my way, I will go out of my way to visit such a historical marker. One of these is in Marshall County. It is the site of the Green Mountain Train Wreck. The worst railroad tragedy in Iowa history. 52 people were killed and another 39 injured.

Here is the historical marker to mark the site of this tragedy:

Here is more information from Wikipedia on the tragedy:

The Green Mountain train wreck is the worst ever railroad accident in the state of Iowa, USA. It occurred between Green Mountain and Gladbrook on the morning of March 21, 1910, and killed 52 people.

A train wreck earlier that morning at Shellsburg meant that the Rock Island Line trains were being diverted from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo over Chicago Great Western tracks via Marshalltown. The trains concerned were the No. 21 St Louis-Twin Cities and No. 19 Chicago-Twin Cities; which had been combined into a ten car train with the two locomotives travelling backwards, tender first. The new combined train now had two wooden cars sandwiched between the locomotives, a steel Pullman car, and other steel cars.

Between Green Mountain and Gladbrook, just east of the Marshall County border, the lead engine left the tracks and hit a clay embankment coming to a sudden stop. The steel cars sliced through the two wooden coaches: a smoking car and a ladies’ day coach containing many children. There were no fatalities in the Pullman cars. One of the uninjured passengers said, “I saw women in the coach crushed into a bleeding mass, their bodies twisted out of human shape. I have seen what I shall see all my life when I dream.” A relief train arrived two hours after the accident. It was later reported, “The sight was one of horribly crushed, mutilated, and dismembered bodies.”

Here is a picture of the wreck I found on a website called Cardboard America:

The railroad tracks themselves no longer exist. My best research says that the tracks were abandoned in the 1980s. I haven’t seen any documentation on when the tracks were removed. But enough sadness. Here is a look at the Marshall County Photo Map:

Marshall County Photo Map

And with Marshall County completed, this is what the Photography 139 Conquest Map looks like:

PURPLE=COMPLETED

Here are the town signs of Marshall County:

Marshalltown, Iowa
Marshalltown Welcomes You
Population: 27,552

State Center, Iowa
Rose Capital of Iowa
Population: 1,468

Melbourne, Iowa
Welcome to the City of Melbourne – Established 1882
Population: 830

Le Grand, Iowa (Partially in Tama County)
Welcome to Le Grand
Population: 938

Gilman, Iowa
Welcome to Gilman – Established 1876
Population: 509

Albion, Iowa
Welcome to Albion – Established 1852
Population: 505

Rhodes, Iowa
Welcome to Rhodes – Established 1883
Population: 305

Liscomb, Iowa
Liscomb – Just a Little Street Where Old Friends Meet – Est. 1873
Population: 301

Laurel, Iowa
Laurel – A Place to Know. A Place to Grow
Population: 239

Haverhill, Iowa
Welcome to Haverhill – A good place to visit… A great place to call home!
Population: 173

Clemons, Iowa
Welcome to Clemons – Size of a dime – Heart of a dollar
Population: 148

Green Mountain, Iowa (Census Designated Place)
Green Mountain
Population: 126

Ferguson, Iowa
Ferguson
Population: 126

St. Anthony, Iowa
Welcome to St. Anthony – “Pinhook” Est. 1882 – Pride in Our Past. Faith in Our Future.
Population: 102

Marshall County is a very solid county for town signs. I don’t that they have any I necessarily hate. Towns like Ferguson really only had an old railroad depot sign hanging up to designate their town. A lot of towns had those old railroad depot signs hanging up. It was actually pretty impressive. That being said, since that is all Ferguson had and Green Mountain isn’t technically a town any longer, I’ll give Ferguson the worst town sign award. Although Le Grand really pushes for last place as well.

But who gets Best in Show. There are some strong contenders, I really like the signs in Laurel, Liscomb, and Rhodes. For a corporate looking sign, State Center’s sign is pretty okay. But Best in Show has to go to Haverhill:

Haverhill – Best in Show Marshall County

Time for the BENNETT TOWN SIGN POWER RANKINGS.

#10. Badger

#9. Granger

#8. Scranton

#7. Boone

#6. Liscomb

#5. Dexter

#4. Haverhill

#3. Farnhamville

#2. Pilot Mound

#1. Moingona

I’ve also decided to reconsider how I do Best in Show for each county. I’ve decide that a town is only eligible for Best in Show for a county if they are either mostly in that county or if they are evenly split among more than one county. Therefore, these are the altered BEST IN SHOW winners:

Best in Show – Boone County

Best in Show – Greene County

Best in Show – Story County

Best in Show – Hamilton County

Best in Show – Webster County

Best in Show – Dallas County

Best in Show – Polk County

Best in Show – Marshall County

Next time we visit THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, we will visit Carroll County.

Black & White, Drone, Railroad

Rodan139: Humpback Bridge

January 5, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

A couple weeks back I took Rodan139 for a flight around the Humpback Bridge. It was probably too late in the evening so some of the images have too much noise for my liking, but that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t plenty there for the liking.

Here is some fun facts about the Humpback Bridge:

+Built in 1900
+Riveted double intersection Warren pony truss
+Length of largest span: 69.9 feet
+Total Length: 140.1 feet
+Deck Width: 18.4 feet
+Bridge is likely built using a former Chicago & North Western Railway span, which has been reconstructed for road use.

All of that is according to Bridgehunter.com.

Animals, Art, Black & White, Flowers, Grandma, Iowa State, Logan, Macro, Mom, Railroad, Teresa

2010-05-24

December 5, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

There was a very large collection of images in the folder 2010-05-24. Most of them are flower pictures. Some taken from my yard. Others taken from Reiman Gardens. I’ll just get to it, because there is a ton of photos here:

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Reiman Gardens

RWPE #20 – PANNING CAMERA BLUR

The Yard

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 23 ALPHA

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 23 BETA

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve daisies.

Drone, Panorama, Railroad

Rodan139: Three Bridges

October 11, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

A couple Saturdays ago I had a couple of less successful drone flights with Rodan139 than I was hoping for. One was my messup with a battery charging situation that I mismanaged. The other one I cut short because of tourists. Ugh! Tourists!

Have a look at what I did get:

I’m trying to make a concerted effort to take the drone out once a week, before the weather makes it impossible to take it out. For example, this week was extremely windy, but I was able to take it on a brief flight on Saturday down by the Des Moines River. I have a couple targets I want to get before the weather gets nasty. But one is really hard to get to, but I have a plan. We’ll see how it works out.

Art, Birthdays, Drone, History, Railroad, Ruins, Sara, Self-Portrait, Shawn Lockner, Town Sign Project, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

Maybe I’m a Man and Maybe I’m a Lonely Man

October 9, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to start today by wishing Shawn a happy birthday. Happy birthday Shawn!

I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you want it to be!

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I do love pictures of SIGNS. My sister-in-law Laura once told me that this makes me a hipster. She is wrong about that, but even if it did make me a hipster, I’d still love pictures of signs. Battered. Beat up. Barely hanging on. My kind of SIGNS. With that in mind, here are the alternate pictures for last week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme SIGNS:

I also took a couple pictures of unincorporated towns in Boone County:

Centerville, Iowa
Unincorporated

Ridgeport, Iowa
Unincorporated

Here is an interesting fact about Ridgeport. It was originally called Mineral Ridge. It took that name from the ridge that the town sits on. It was giving that name because the surveyors that were exploring the area, their compass wasn’t working correctly. The figured that this was because the ridge was filled with minerals. Turns out that they just had a broken compass. At least this is what I read in the latest issue of “Trail Tales”.

I wish more of these unincorporated communities had signs like Centerville. I looked for one in Logansport and didn’t find one. Also looked for some kind of marker where Zenorsville was once located, but found nothing. However, of all the unincorporated communities in Boone County, the lack of any kind of marker for Jordan makes me the saddest. Not just because of my family connection (I also have a family connection to Centerville) to Jordan, but because of its historical significance because of the Jordan tornado. C’est la vie!

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is SELF-PORTRAIT:

SELF-PORTRAIT

A SELF-PORTRAIT is simply a picture where the photographer and the subject are the same person. Obviously, there are some creative ways to get around that, if you don’t like take pictures of yourself. Even if that doesn’t make sense to anybody else.

Happy photo harvesting!

Drone, Mom, Nature, Panorama, Railroad, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, Teresa, Vacation

Rodan139: Mines of Spain

September 16, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 11 Comments

I suppose I should report on how I did on my vacation goals from last week:

1. I want to visit 5 state parks I have never visited. Including Mines of Spain and Preparation Canyon.
I DIDN’T EXACTLY HIT 5 STATE PARKS. BUT I DID HIT 3 STATE PARKS AND 2 STATE FORESTS. SO I’M COUNTING THIS IS AS A WIN.

2. I want to add at least 20 new signs to THE TOWN SIGNS PROJECT. A project I’ve mostly ignored this year, despite the fact that this would have been a good year to work on it.
I BELIEVE I GOT 21 OR 22 NEW TOWN SIGNS. SO ANOTHER WIN.

3. I want to finally meet Jen and Derrick’s dog.
I NEVER EVEN CONTACTED THEM. MY FAULT, BUT I’M LEERY TO ENTER THE COVID DRENCHED TOWN THAT IS AMES. PLUS I’M PRETTY SURE THAT DERRICK’S PHONE DOESN’T WORK.

4. I want to finally tackle those POSTCARD PROJECT pictures that I have put off for like 3-4 years now.
I TACKLED ABOUT 5 OF THESE. SO WIN.

5. To play with a new lens I hope to purchase between now and then, but the verdict is still out on what new lens I’m going to purchase.
OH YEAH. DEFINITELY PLAYED WITH THAT LENS. PROBABLY A REPORT ON THAT LATER THIS WEEK.

6. Take some near full moon photography. The next full moon is September 2. Which is a Wednesday. But I figure there will still be plenty of moonlight left on September 4.
ANOTHER FAIL. IT WAS TOO CLOUDY ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY TO TACKLE THIS. AFTER THAT, THERE WASN’T ENOUGH MOON. NEXT FULL MOON IS OCTOBER 1. THAT IS A THURSDAY, WHICH ALL OF A SUDDEN IS SEEMING LIKE A REAL GOOD REASON TO HAVE A 3 DAY WEEKEND.

4 out of 6, I’ll consider that a success. There were a couple other failures out there, that weren’t stated goals. I wanted to go to Pike’s Peak State Park, but I cut my Monday road trip short because Naima hurt her leg the night before, so I felt it was best to get back early to check on her condition. She might have been milking it as she seemed fine by 8 PM Monday night. But probably not.

I also wanted to take Rodan139 out to the High Trestle Trail Bridge again, but it rained about every day of my vacation. So that didn’t happen. It’s all good though.

I did make accomplish my number one goal from the week though. That was visiting Mines of Spain. I was originally going to do this on Tuesday, but I ended up going on Labor Day so that Teresa and my Mom could go. I didn’t want to get stuck in a State Park with a ton of people, plus I wanted to get there with some good soft morning light. This meant leaving at 5 AM. My sister and Mom didn’t seem to understand that I was serious about this, until I showed up at their door at 4:55 AM.

I’ll go into more details about that trip later, but here are some pictures from Mines of Spain taken by Rodan139. Mostly at Horse Shoe Bluff, but also around the Julien Dubuque Monument:

I will definitely need to visit this park again. I considered this a good scouting trip, but now I have more ideas of how to best drone photograph the park.

Mom, Railroad

Welcome to Boone

September 10, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

If my vacation is going how I hoped, today will be kind of a recovery day. I was hoping to spend Wednesday on a trip out to some place out west in the state. Maybe I’m spending today sleeping in. Maybe I’m watching the new Alfred Hitchcock 4K boxed set that hopefully arrived in my mailbox yesterday or before.

I know what you are thinking. Why did you need to buy a boxed set with PSYCHO, THE BIRDS, REAR WINDOW, and VERTIGO, when you already own PSYCHO on Blu-ray and DVD, THE BIRDS on Blu-ray, REAR WINDOW on Blu-ray, and VERTIGO on DVD. Because I don’t own them on 4K silly. In fact, even though PSYCHO is included in the boxed set, there is a fair chance I’ll also pick up the steelbook version of PSYCHO that is only available from Best Buy.

FULL METAL JACKET is coming out on 4K later in December. That is just a public service announcement.

But the photos from today have nothing to do with watching movies. It has to do with the second day of moving the train out to the intersection of US30 and Story Street to make a new “Welcome to Boone” sign.

It got moved in the middle of the morning, so even though the Computer Mine was battling 3 collapsed shafts I snuck out on my brake and snapped a few quick pictures before heading home for another joyous day of mining.

If you look closely, you can see my Mom in the last picture.

Nobody did anything stupid and tried to politicize the event. It was the one pure, good thing to happen in 2020. Oh wait, that isn’t what happened at all. 2020 sucks.

Animals, Flowers, Mom, Naima, Railroad

Town Sign Upgrade

September 3, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

As you know, I am a big fan of town signs. So much so that I’ve even created a project dedicated to my love for town signs. Part of this love comes from a sign I remember as a kid. It was up on Marion Street as you were entering Boone from the west from the Logansport area. I believe the sign was a guy fishing and the sign said something like “Try Boone. You’ll Stay”.

This could 100% be a false memory. I have never been able to find a picture of the sign. I don’t know that anybody else even remembers it.

What is beyond contestation, however is that Boone’s town signs have been less than stellar for years. Currently there are some boring brick sings on US30 that just declare “Welcome to Boone”. They aren’t well lit and sometimes the letters fall off. It is very disappointing.

Then the Boone Rotary Club stepped in and stepped up Boone’s town sign game. They raised funds to move a train from the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad out to the intersection of US30 and Story Street.

It ended up being more work than they thought. They had to split up the move into two days. On the first day they moved the coal tender and a passenger car. On the second day they moved the engine.

Here are some pictures from the first day:

The last two pictures are really connected to the movement of the train, they were just taken on the same day and I like them.

Art, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Derrick, Evie, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jen, Jonah, Jorge, Layla, Michelle, Movies, Naima, Nature, Photoshop, Railroad, State Fair, WPC - Reminder

Suds, Dickcissel, and Lensbaby Redux

June 5, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Hey, I screwed up the schedule of posts and 2 posts accidentally posted at the same time yesterday. This one, that I took back down and re-posted and another one with daffodils. It is possible that you didn’t get the post about the daffodils yesterday. If that is the case, click on the link below:

My soul and pocketbook are glad to announce that I have finished THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT. 5 new canvases arrived on Monday and I was able to get them up that night. Here are the 5 final canvases:

Before the Swallow Dares – 2020

There is also an update on Naima and birthday wishes for Jorge in there.

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My soul and pocketbook are glad to announce that I have finished THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT. 5 new canvases arrived on Monday and I was able to get them up that night. Here are the 5 final canvases:

This is what the wall looks like:

Now, I realize that when there is furniture in place, not every picture is visible. That isn’t the important part. The important part is that they are there at all.

On to the next decorating project. Whatever that may be!
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I don’t consider pictures that were taken in the same calendar year in which we currently exist to be a backlog. However, if I did, this collection of images would be somewhat of a backlog. This clears out all images from January and February that had yet to be edited or curated.

Pictures from a trip to Dickcissel with Naima, some Lensbaby tests, and a picture of the Root Beer Symposium we had during movie night back in January.

We haven’t had Movie Night at The Union Street theater since February, so we haven’t been able to crown a root beer champion, but those pictures might give you the slightest indication of how messy my basement is right now. Although I would estimate that the big parts of the basement cleanup are about 30% done.

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This is your reminder that SIGNS is this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme:

SIGNS

A SIGNS picture is just that, a picture of a SIGN or multiple SIGNS. Remember, there are more than one kind of SIGN(S).

Happy photo harvesting!