CP 2816 Thief River Falls 22 Aug 07 - a photo on Flickriver

            Canadian Pacific's "Empress" leads the way out of Thief River Falls, MN on a beautiful summer morning.

This was my first shot of steam (hence, the cutoff plume...didn't take into account the need for vertical breathing room), but this shot almost never happened for a variety of reasons.

For one, just 3 weeks before this photo, I was chilling in Grand Forks, ND on leave when I started to see chatter online about KC-135 crews getting calls to pack their gear and expect to be gone somewhere overseas indefinitely.  Sure enough, late in the evening my phone rings.  "Are you in the local area?" the voice asked.  "Why?" I asked, thinking that since I was on leave, I was safe from getting tagged.  "Are you in the local area?", the voice asked again.  "Yes," I replied.  "You're in crew rest effective now.  Expect a call in 12 hours."  Click.  Well that sucks, but now the questions became, "Where am I going?" and "Do I pack desert flight suits or green ones?"  Through the bro network, it looked like we needed to pack green flight suits because we were going someplace tropical in the Pacific.  Sweet!  But I'd been in long enough to be skeptical of everything, so I packed both.  

So 24 hours later the phone rang and I was alerted.  Showing up for the brief, something apparently had changed and now we were heading to the Middle East; glad I packed the desert tans!  But simple questions like, "What's going on?" and "How long are we going to be gone?" couldn't be answered; we'd find out when we got downrange.  Whatever it was, it was big because it wasn't just Grand Forks scrambling to get people and iron overseas, it was every CONUS KC-135 base.

After a direct flight from North Dakota to the Middle East (thankfully I got to sleep most of the way and took over for the landing), we still didn't get any answers.  However, we were told we were basically on lock down, no phone calls or email traffic to the outside world and that we'd be there as long as we were needed.  Normally, deployments for us were 60 days, but this one was shaping up to be open ended with waivers already in hand to waive any flying hour limits we'd run in to.

Speculation was rampant about what we were doing, and the passing of time proved that speculation to be correct: U.S. intel believed they had a bead on Osama Bin Laden living in the mountains bordering Pakistan.  It was within about 4 days after we arrived there that a 4-ship of fully loaded B-1 bombers departed and made some mountains much shorter than they had previously been.  Unfortunately, since this is 2007 we're talking about, it turned out that scumbag wasn't there and we didn't get him.

As the urgency of us being there started to wane, so did the restrictions on communications to the outside world.  We still didn't know when we'd be going home, but we were allowed to use the internet and email again.  As such, since I was getting a month of tax-free income for being in a combat zone, I took advantage and visited B&H Photo and ordered up the Sigma 17-70mm lens which I figured would be waiting for me when I got home.  Not long after, orders came down that we were to head home.

I got back to North Dakota late on 19 Aug and my lens was to be delivered on the 21st.  I also had that week off for Post Mission Crew Rest, a nice feature for aircrew in that we essentially get 1 day off for every 3 days we're gone from home (up to a maximum of 2 weeks).  So I had the week off and a new lens on the way!

I was reminded that the CP was running a steam special through western Minnesota on the evening of the 21st and the morning of the 22nd.  Well here I was with the week off and a new lens to try out thanks to an unexpected trip to the Middle East to try and put and buttload of bombs on Osama Bin Laden!

So, yeah, this is just a wedgie of a steam train with a cutoff plume in western Minnesota, but a lot of stuff happened beforehand to set the stage for me to be there to capture it!

Taken on: August 22, 2007

Tags:

Canadian Pacific

CP 2816

Thief River Falls

Minnesota

Steam Train

4-6-4

H1 Hudson « less

Sets appears in: • North Dakota / Minnesota Railfanning

Groups appears in: • Railroads • I Love Trains more » • North American Railfanning • Your Best Railroad Shot • Minnesota Railroads • International Railroad Photography Gallery • The 844steamtrain Flickr Group • Quality and Exceptional Railway Photographs « less

Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 33mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens:	17.0-70.0 mm
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	33mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Digital Photo Professional
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