My Friend Steve Davidson

This photo is dedicated to my good friend Steven Davidson. I first met Steve when we were 16 years old and both beginning our careers on the railway on the Youth Training Scheme. We worked 40 hours a week and got paid the US equivalent of $40 a week. The pay sucked but if we worked hard we knew it would lead to a full time job. Both Steve and I wanted to be Train Drivers and both of us interviewed and got offered positions as Train Drivers Assistants at Stratford Depot. Unfortunately, a day after the offer was made a recruiting ban was put on and we never started the jobs. Eventually though, with some perseverance we both finally got our wish and started our train driving (or Footplate as it was known) careers at Waterloo Station, a major London terminus station. I left Waterloo not long after we qualified as Train Driver Assistants to go to Euston Station and Steve stayed at Waterloo. After serving our 2-3 year effective apprenticeships we both qualified as full fledge Train Drivers. Of course eventually I left the railway and moved to the USA, Steve on the other hand is still a driver today at Northampton.

So, anyway, this photo is for you Steve and hopefully you'll find your way over here for a visit and I'll show you what a "Real Train" looks like.

A SoCal Skyline

Southern California is such an amazing place! Where in the world can you live in a desert, while trying to decide; "Should I drive to any one of the MANY amazing beaches, that are within a couple of hours?" or look up towards the snow covered mountains and go skiing? This last weekend just happened to be one of those perfect weekends, it snowed up at the ski resorts and yet it was pretty nice down here. On Monday, I had to take a trip up to Box Springs again for a construction kick-off meeting for work, so like I always do, I took my camera along.  The photograph above was the view from up the top of Box Springs looking North East towards the San Bernardino Mountains, which happened to have a sprinkling of snow from the weekend.

Christmas at The Mission Inn

Today's photo is of the side of the Mission Inn lit up by all the lights for the Festival of Lights. You may remember that I took a photograph of this scene (click here to see it) not so long ago, but without the lights. It was a bit more of a challenge this time because there was so much traffic driving around looking at the lights as well. I hope you enjoy it.

Festival of Lights

Saturday evening I headed down to the Mission Inn in Downtown Riverside. Every year the day after Thanksgiving the owners light up the Mission Inn with Christmas lights and call it The Festival of Lights. I walked around from just before sunset until well after dark to see what photographs I could take. It was a bit of a challenge trying to use a tripod with so many people wandering around, but it was worth it. I'll post a couple more photos over the next couple of days.

Elsinore Peak

I've spoke about it a lot but I've never really shown you what it looks like, but here is Elsinore Peak. This is the view from the road driving up to it. The antenna farm looks like a small copse of trees on a hillside. As you can see Elsinore Peak is pretty busy as it provides a "Gateway" for microwave connections between San Diego, Riverside and Orange Counties. These microwave links provide all sorts of services for radio, telephone and data networks.

Happy Chicken Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and family.  As for all the Brit's; sorry you have to work today and tomorrow, but us here in the USA will be making up for you having to work...by NOT working. For anybody interested in the history of Thanksgiving click here. Anyway, the traditional food here for Thanksgiving is turkey, but seeing as I don't have a photograph of a turkey, a chicken will have to do. In fact it's a Hawaiian chicken. Chickens in Hawaii roam freely around the islands as they have no natural predators to speak of. This one was on the golf course I played at while I was there. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The Inland Empire

Some of the places I get to go in the course of my work have the most amazing views and they are not always that far away. This is a photograph from on top of Box Springs mountain which is just over 3000ft in elevation and is only 10 minutes from my house to the bottom of the mountain. For us at work and many other people with the need for radio towers it's very strategically located and overlooks a large area of the Inland Empire. The County has a site up there and this is where this photograph was taken from, looking north west into San Bernardino County towards Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga. 

A Place To See The World

I had to head up to Elsinore Peak, one of our major radio sites at work with a colleague to meet some of our tenants. Once the discussion was over, I thought I would take advantage of the trip and take some photographs of Lake Elsinore from the peaks high up above. After I climbed the hill behind our site, I came across a wooden cross hammered into the ground. I approached the cross from the back. (I didn't see what was written on it) I climbed through some bushes in front of it and found a very touching note to a Tim Prior who was 28 years old when he died. I guess this spot was his favorite place to look at the world below. You know what? He picked a great spot too. The part I like about this is how people go out of their way (and believe me Elsinore Peak is out of the way) to place a monument, no matter how small, to a friend or loved one that is no longer with us. I once remember a family that decided to place flowers next to the railway line where their loved one had been hit by a train and died. (Of course, they nearly joined their loved one because they had no respect for the trains running by them at 80mph as they walked along the track to the spot he had been hit the week previous.)

So, Tim Prior, whomever you may be, Rest In Peace and enjoy the view, because that's how your loved ones remember you! Oh, and in case you are wondering about the view that Tim so enjoyed while he was here, click here to take a look at just a small part of it. Also remember if you want to see a larger version click on the photo.

Update on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 9:06PM by [Martin]

One of my friends at work, David, did some searching and discovered Timothy's obituary. He e-mailed me with the link to it this afternoon. So I thought I would add it here to provide a face to the words written about Tim and give some closure to the post. Click here for a link to his obituary.

Cajon Pass

One of the places that has always fascinated me even while I was driving trains in England was Cajon Pass (pronounced Cahon for you Brit's). The route through Cajon Pass was built in 1885 as part of the Barstow to San Diego line by the California Southern Railroad. The pass has a grade of just over 2% and is one of the major rail routes out of the Los Angeles Basin and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to the rest of the United States. Cajon Pass is notorious with rail fans all over the world probably for the 3 infamous crashes that have taken place along it's route. The most well known crash was the Duffy Street Disaster in San Bernardino in 1989 when a train lost it's brakes and ran away, derailed and crashed onto the houses of Duffy St.

It's only taken me 10 years to go and take some photos along the route of the trains travelling along it, but I found some great photo spots and I know there are more to explore.

Water Pipes

This is a photograph that I took at the Eastern California Museum in Independence, California. It's actually a pipe that was used to transfer water out of the Owens Valley river to hydro-electric plants. The pipes were used until recent times and were only replaced when required. This one was used until 1997, before it was replaced with a concrete one. On the outside of the pipe is a very elaborate system of tensioning bolts that held the wooden planks together and could be adjusted for leaks.