Last (?) Road Trip with Rose the Tiny Tent Camper; Part the Third
At age 80, a camping road trip may have been ill-advised… Notwithstanding, there I wuz —
Interlude, continuing westbound, part Three of the Road Trip saga, now with fewer locomotives.
We struck the North Platte camp and departed early from this great park. Our ultimate goal was Choteau Mountain View R.V. Campground, Choteau, Montana, nearly 900 miles away. We needed a one-night stopover at Rivers Edge R.V. and Cabins Resort, Evansville, Wyoming, just a stone’s throw from Casper, where Daphne was born and grew up.
We were hardly out of town before we spotted a small steam engine. Well, you know I was gonna stop to make some pitchers. It’s’a locomotive; I gots’a camera; you do the math.
This engine is a 2–8–0 Consolidation locomotive in Legion Park in Sidney, Nebraska. Union Pacific 407 was built by Baldwin in 1900 and is the oldest surviving C-57 2–8–0. This pattern was probably the most built steam engine in the U.S., used for both passenger and freight trains by hundreds of railroads, large and small.
The Consolidation represented a notable advance in locomotive power. After 1875, it became “the most popular type of freight locomotive in the United States and was built in greater quantities than any other single wheel arrangement.”
— Wikipedia after White, John H. (1979). A History of the American Locomotive: Its Development, 1830–1880. New York: Dover Publications. p. 65. ISBN 0486238180. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
Union Pacific alone has donated nine Consolidations to Nebraska that remain on static display. Some are better maintained than others. I consider that 407 has been sadly neglected. Admittedly, these old troupers must be fenced to try to hold down the inevitable vandalism and theft, so the fences ruin the photographs without actually being a deterrent. But some displayed locomotives are better maintained, painted to reduce rust, and pressure-washed occasionally; not poor U.P. 407.
To see the difference, here is another Baldwin 2–8–0 Consolidation from 1901 that clearly gets occasional love. In 2010 I didn’t see her Happy Face until I was processing the picture but once seen; it is hard to unsee. 407’s missing running lamp makes it hard to see her happy face if she had one.
So anyway, early the following day at Rivers Edge R.V. and Cabins Resort, Evansville, Wyoming…
We were up at dawn striking this camp because we had a 600-mile day ahead to reach Choteau Mountain View R.V. Campground, Choteau, Montana, without having to haul out for another overnight. Matt had to drive basically all of it; I can’t drive a long run like that anymore. It was rough enough as a passenger. It took me a while to grok that I am totally unused to being in the passenger seat. It is unnerving. I never understood why my late bride Daphne was so terrified of trucks; now I get it.
The ride was long and hard, but nearing the state line from Wyoming into Montana, we stopped for gas and some pitchers of the spectacular clouds:
Those clouds are real! Not pasted-in cardboard or canned cutouts, but admittedly they have been enhanced in Lightroom (I don’t even carry a polarizer). Photography, especially in raw capture, does not do justice to such scenes unless finished in a good raw processor. These are not Straight Out Of Camera (SOOC), but it is my strong belief that photography is a two-step operation: capture, and processing. I mention this because I have had past encounters with puristas who look askance at any post-capture manipulation of a photograph. To them, I say, Fie!
Next up: Choteau, Montana, docked at Mountain View Campground.
Thank you for reading and viewing! I earnestly appreciate it! 😊👍
