The Hoffman Swing Bridge lined for a rail movement.
October 13, 2007 Saturday, October 13, 2007 was a good day in more ways than one. Weather wise a railfan couldn't ask for anything better. Sunny skies and little to no clouds made going out to take pictures a very ideal thing to do. Today's primary focus was the South Saint Paul area. I was about to leave my place when my cell phone rang, turns out it was Nat updating me on the status of the UP 3300 which happens to be a very special unit, decked out in a paint scheme with a United Way theme. I would get some average shots of this unit a bit later on in my adventure.
As I was driving towards South Saint Paul I decided to call MilwaukeeroadMatt to see where he was in terms of trackside location. He told me that a coal train was blocking a railfan's chance of shooting anything at railroad University which was somewhat of a downer as this was one spot I was hoping to stop at on this day. I told MilwaukeeroadMatt about my call from Nat and he told me he was going to relocate to try and catch this unit as well. I asked for an opinion on the best location to possibly snag a shot of this unit and was told about a pedestrian overpass off of Hardman Avenue in South Saint Paul. This would of course be on the old Chicago and Northwestern Railroad trackage, and this was an area that I have yet to spend much time railfanning yet.
Only being at this location for a few minutes I was able to begin shooting a train. Next thing I know the train is going right under the walkway I'm standing on and stopped so that a switch could be thrown ahead. This obviously gave me a good view of the top of the units I was now standing over. I shot this train several times from several different angles. The shot I liked best is the shot that contains the four Union Pacific units, the Mississippi River, and the Saint Paul skyline off in the distance. It wasn't long after this when I saw MilwaukeeroadMatt, along with his wife and son pulls into a parking spot next to my truck. A few minutes later they emerged on the walkway I was standing on, pleasantries were exchanged and before long Matt pointed out a string of units in front of us and we wondered if this string had the special unit we were after. A walk down the other side of the walkway towards the river led us to a walking/bike path along the Mississippi River. Little did we (I) know that this would be the beginning of a 4-6 mile walk -- not that I'm complaining by any means.
A good guess proved to be correct from Matt as we neared the short string of units the United Way Union Pacific unit became vividly clear. I again, took several shots of this unit, unfortunately I wasn't on the "correct side" of the unit in terms of sun angle but I still got some fairly decent roster type shots of this unit.
Walking further on the trail we ended up where the pavement ended and only vehicle tracks continued on. We chose to follow the tracks getting closer to what appears to be housing development construction. After walking further we came across another paved trail that got closer to the river again, with anticipation of this going somewhere near the Hoffman swing bridge we decided to walk on and I'm very glad we did.
As the trail winded around and the geese droppings became more numerous we quickly learned that we would be able to get mighty close to the swing bridge. The radio had all kinds of random chatter ranging from switching operations to track warrants. The radio quickly caught our attention with the Union Pacific made contact with the bridge tender to line the bridge for a light power movement. Seeing the bridge more clearly than ever and being within a couple hundred yards of it we could see the bridge start to move. A few minutes later, we could hear the light power movement getting closer and closer when finally the units emerged and slowly crept across the bridge. Though it was only a light power movement, I was ecstatic that out timing could be this good—okay, lucky. Numerous pictures were taken from both of us. Given the near perfect weather, the path that led us to the bridge, and the fact that a train went across the bridge in front of us led me to call this a successful day but we weren’t quite done yet.
Pushing our luck and trudging through the construction zone we decided to go take some roster shots of the units sitting on the curve near the yard. At this time my feet were starting to hurt and we had a long way to walk back. All in all it was a great day. It was nice to railfan once again with another railfan. Finally, I would like to thank MilwaukeeroadMatt for your company and ideas that made this day so successful.
See you trackside!