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When the steam train came to town. Click
to see the images from this journal. I can see the amazing old Harvey House depot, now undergoing restoration. I can hear the power of the engines as they throttle up to leave town and as they glide quietly under the First St bridge coming into Barstow. Yes, I do love trains. I consider them an art form all by themselves. Railroad gestalt as art. When I heard there was a restored steam engine puffing into Barstow on its way to Railfair '99 in Sacramento I asked permission to shoot for a picture page. Permission granted. I traveled and shot, from the Cajon Pass to Barstow and then from Barstow north trying to find the perfect images. It was hot. More than hot, it was hellacious. After climbing hills in the Cajon in more than 100 degree heat looking for the perfect angle I chased the engine into Barstow so that I could photograph it arriving at the old depot. More that 500 people waited to see Santa Fe #3751 chug into town. I hung around shooting and looking and wondering at the lovely lady of steam. I talked with crew members and was invited to climb aboard. If it was still 105 outside at 5:30 p.m. it was at least 25 degrees hotter in the cab of the engine with the fire still going strong in the firebox. I got woozy and despite the crew asking me to stay on board I had to get off before I fainted or threw up or did both at the same time. I was suffering from a nasty case of heat exhaustion. Even though I didn't feel that I had the right pics I was at the point of not caring. One of the steam train crew could tell I was in dire danger of totally collapsing from the heat. He got his drinking water and poured it over my head. I didn't protest until he wanted to pour it down my front. That would have been too embarrassing. A friend drove me home and I jumped or rather fell into a cool bath. Amazing how well that works when you are heat sick. I still felt like some one had beaten all the stuffing out of me an hour later but I headed back to the depot to find "people" shots. Close-ups of engine parts can be aethestically interesting, but people want to see people with those parts and I was losing light.
There is a funny feeling that comes over me sometimes when I am shooting - like it isn't work any longer - magical almost. It happens by itself and I am just along for the ride. Like being in love, goofy high with a slight tinge of melancholy. Breathing the light. Hard to describe. That is way that first evening felt. Next morning I was up before dawn so that I could catch the first light down at the station. As I was leaving home the steam whistle blew. Ah, what a sound. Really different than a diesel horn, which on occasion can sound like a sick cow (like the train that is leaving now.) Steam whistles conjure romantic images of simpler times and places. They are an invitation to run away and join the circus, to travel unencumbered by the conveniences and contraptions of modern life. But that morning, the magic didn't happen and I only made one image that I used in the final page. But that was ok. I had enough from the night before. After seeing all the film, the job of designing the page took over. I knew what I wanted to see and it came together fairly easily. Getting it together was much easier than getting it run. Seems that there was a BIG breakdown in communication and the sister paper that puts everything together didn't know the page was coming for the next Sunday's joint issue. Poop. Then there was no room the Sunday after that. I was in a panic. I really liked this page, had spent many hours on it, including some of my days off and now it was stuck in limbo. In a last ditch effort to get the thing published I suggested we run it in black & white after the train came through again on her way home to Los Angeles so that it would still have some news relevance. It wasn't quite the same as colour, but at least it ran. "A woman
uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition."
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Lara
Hartley
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
