But Google told me it was here!!!

The abandoned former Amtrak Midway station in St. Paul, Minnesota. When we were there back in June, 2018 google maps was still showing this as an active Amtrak station even though it had been closed for a while (it is no longer showing on google maps). As it turned out it was only a short distance from our wonderful AirBnB that we stayed at. There is also an interesting model railroad museum just to the south of this old station. It looks like either this building started deteriorating fast or Amtrak had not been taking care of it for some time.

Out in the cold

Iowa Northern Railway 678 spent many years hauling passengers for Amtrak when it was numbered 241. Today it still hauls passengers as it pulls the Hawkeye Express train to University of Iowa home football games and in December for the Snowflake Express. Most of the year the locomotive and its passenger cars can be seen sitting at Bryant Yard in Waterloo, Iowa as it is this particular day in a snow storm.

Arrival Time

Amtrak Cascade train unloads passengers in Seattle after a trip from Portland.

Riding the rails

Amtrak's Illinois Zephyr is departing the La Grange Road station in suburban Chicago on its journey to Quincy, Il.

Boy Scouts learn about trains

Iowa Northern Railway locomotive 678, former Amtrak F40PHR 241 is on display while employees of the railroad explain how a railroad works in Waterloo, Iowa.

Sometimes you just have to snap the picture...

The Coast Starlight leaving Portland with skateboarders along tracks., a photo by Dornoff Photography on Flickr.

There is times you just have to snap the picture even though you know it will not come out perfect.

In this case I was waiting to take pictures of Amtrak's Coast Starlight when I saw these two people walking down the tracks and then starting to skateboard down the crossing. I was already focused on the train so I went ahead and took the picture.

While the skateboarders were not perfectly focused it gets the point across. Hopefully these two learned their lesson about a five seconds after I snapped the picture and the engineer of the train blew the whistle. These two obviously not paying attention freaked out and then started running and started screaming "there was a train coming" over and over as they cross and started walking down the street.

Baggage Dept Sign

Baggage Dept Sign, a photo by Dornoff Photography on Flickr.

Have to love the neon...

After my conference in Portland I took Amtrak's Cascade service to Seattle to visit my best friend.

The Portland train station is a beautiful classic station. The lobby still has many classic details including these wonderful neon signs.

I took this picture with a GE X5 super zoom camera. While it obviously did pretty good in these low light pictures, most of the other pictures were horrible.

A photo turns special

Ross Dress for less and Metro Hybrid
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

In my last entry I mentioned the day my wife and I had in Seattle while visiting a friend between taking different Amtrak trains. After visiting the Pike Place Market my wife and I headed toward Seattle's bus tunnel in order to catch a bus down to the International District in order to find some Chinese Food (we were not impressed with the Chinese Restaurant at Pike Place on a previous visit).

My wife decided to run into a Rite Aid for a couple of things so I decided to get the camera out and take a couple of pictures hoping I the Seattle Police department wouldn't arrest me (there was an incident with a photographer in Seattle shortly before the trip).

I took this picture of a Metro Articulated Hybrid which were still fairly new at the time in front of a Ross Dress for less store which I used as a background because of the design.

Later when looking more carefully the building look as though it could have been a former Woolworth store which was confirmed my someone on Flickr.

My father worked for Woolworth's for many years and would supervise their construction projects across the west. It then hit me that this was the very store that my father was working on when I was born which is another funny story in itself.

I was way over due in the days before they induced labor. My mother had to return to California so at the last minute she hopped a Greyhound bus for Los Angeles (yes Greyhound used to be respectable and safe to ride).

I was born about a week after my mother arrived back in Southern California and for some strange reason the buses arrived early at every driver change point.

You never know when a random picture might turn into something special...

Pike Place Fish Company

Pike Place Fish Company
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

Here is another picture from the vacation my wife and I took back in November of 2007.

We flew down from Salt Lake City to Long Beach on Jet Blue, spent a couple of days with family, then took Amtrak's Coast Starlight up to Portland then the next day we continued onto Seattle via Washington State's Cascade service Talgo.

The day after we arrived in Seattle, we took Sound Transit buses to downtown and spent the day in the area until our next train depart at 4:45pm to Seattle.

We took a long walk around the downtown area before ending up at one of my favorite places Pike Place Market. We look around before I stood in front of the Pike Place Fish Company for a few minutes taking pictures.

The Pike Place Fish Company is famous because of the way they throw around the fish when someone buys one. Well I waited several minutes but was not able to get a picture of them throwing the fish. My wife was getting hungry so we left and headed back towards King Street Station and the International District in order to have lunch.

Here is the best of the fish company pictures. You can see several people looking at the fish but none of them bought any while I was there.

Long Dead but still around

Fedco Sign in Colton, California
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

In November 2006 when my wife and I were on extended vacation in Southern California to visit family plus hit some sights, we passed this sign but we did not have the opportunity to stop since we were on our way to visit my Uncle.

In October, 2007 we made another trip down there before taking Amtrak's Coast Starlight up to Seattle so I made sure to have a few minutes to get a picture of this sign.

So what's so special about this sign.

Well for those that are not familiar with the company, Fedco was a chain of stores (I think there were similar to a K-Mart of the time but I am not sure since I never was in one). However, this chain died probably 20 or 25 years ago.

So the fact that this sign which is near the San Bernardino/Colton on Mt. Vernon along what was US Highway 91 is still around is amazing. A friendly reminder of retailing history much like the old Woolworth store in Bakersfield, California that is now an antique store but still has the Woolworth sign and trim.

Delta Airlines/Skywest CJ700 coming in for Landing at SLC

Delta Airlines/Skywest CJ700 coming in for Landing at SLC
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

Forms of transportation are probably my favorite things to photography. It could stem from the fact that I grew up along the main line of the Santa Fe railroad but I love to take pictures of trains, planes, buses, ships and automobiles. The only problem is, it is a little difficult to make a living photographing these things so I have to work on taking pictures of other things.

When I took this picture I didn't notice the three birds flying past the airplane. However, I thought they added a little interest to the shot that really enhanced it.

The only bad thing I find about taking pictures of planes or Amtrak trains is that I want to be getting on it to going somewhere...