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Caption: By far, the most significant bridge on Crown Zellerbach’s log-haul railway from Nanaimo Lakes to Ladysmith was the one over the Nanaimo River at mileage 8.0 from Ladysmith, and about 3.1 km (as a raven flies) upstream from Cassidy on the TransCanada Highway, with a history as part of an earlier Wellington Collieries line from Extension to Oyster Harbour (renamed to Ladysmith). That bridge frequently attracted my cameras, from many angles, first with ALCo RS-3 4097 (ex D&H 4117) then with MLW RS-3 8427 (ex CP 8427), with one questionable-sanity very tall tree perch on the south bank that allowed capturing the full bridge right down to the water.
A 50 mm lens on a 35 mm camera worked okay, but was a bit tight; purchasing a Pentax 6x7 camera with 105 mm normal and slightly wide-angle 90 mm lenses opened up possibilities. A first trial with the 90 mm lens and the second CZ loaded weekday run worked well at 1124 PDT, so the first trip and nearer the summer solstice for best lighting was tried, with this result on Tri-X film at 0755 PDT on Thursday 1981-06-25.
Thus greatly encouraged, I returned on Wednesday July 1, 1981, with Vericolor film for a 6x7 cm colour positive version at 0814 PDT, but to my everlasting dismay, that roll of film was the only one I ever lost in a professional photo finishing lab. Mr. Murphy won that round!
By the time I learned that sad fact, the CZ operation was shut down (a forest industry strike, I believe) and did not restart until the morning lighting for the first trip was no longer there. Then in February 1982, I relocated to CP’s near-new Coquitlam Locomotive Facility in Port Coquitlam, and did not get back to Ladysmith until long after 1985-06-20 when that bridge (mainly the trestle part directly under 8427 in the photo) burned extensively which resulted in permanent shutdown of that railway.
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My heart would sink losing a roll of film under such scenic circumstances. I’ve had a couple of rolls get screwed up in the lab, but the images were only from Conrail…..nothing like what you are describing.
Thankfully you have some gorgeous images like this one to share.
I’ve come to learn a few things about this hobby and the main one, is you have to only get one photo to have it in the bag. Any other photos are just gravy.
One photo is infinitely more than zero.
There’s many examples in my collection of getting ‘one’ photo. Sometimes I only went to a certain location once, and saw one train. Or zero and just took a picture of what I saw.
Sometimes the one shot effort was sub par, not quite right, or heck, even a grab shot I took in passing out the window of a moving car, but now looking back I realized, I’m glad I have it. And Some of these are actually keepers because whatever it is is long gone.
Beats having nothing.
Of course I’ve gone to some locations, put in a lot of effort, only to screw the photo up in some way or another. Most I’ve been able to re-do/fix, some shots took me 10 years to do it properly.. (waiting for the right moment to happen again) but there’s always the ones that got away…
This is nothing short of a killer effort. It didn’t get away from ya
Thank you, Arnold and Stephen, you read the depth I was intending to include. It was a classic single-shot setup and well worth the multiple challenges to get into position. A bit disappointing no one else was successfully tempted to try the same perch, but happily I have several results there, first from 1974 with 4097, post planned for next week.
Thats the sum of it, Ken. The rather exciting idea of actually seeing a rather wild shooting angle and actually pulling off a successful image.
My own favourite pictures have always been something like that because of the memory of just how much it took to get the shot.
And that shot is a beaut.
I don’t even climb rocks any more. Not safe.