Planting the SEED

A little double entendre in today’s title.  On President’s Day, we took advantage of my day off from work and took the girls up to Magic Wings in Deerfield, MA – something they’ve been asking to do since Katina got out of the hospital back in December.  And as we usually do when we hit Magic Wings, we take a swing by PanAm Railway’s East Deerfield yard to see what’s going on.  Usually only I exit the car.  Yesterday, three of us were on the Railfan Bridge watching the action.  And two of us were taking pictures.

Flashing back a bit, for Christmas this year, we decided Katina was old enough at 6 to work a point & shoot digital camera.  So we gave her Jill’s Canon S500 – a simple Canon Digital Elph that takes pretty good pictures.  After teaching her how to use it, she loves it and goes around snapping pictures of everything in sight.  Talk about making a father’s heart glow!

So yesterday we went to Magic Wings, and she was gleefully going around snapping pictures of flowers, butterflies and birds in the sanctuary located a few miles south of PAR’s East Deerfield yard.  When we were done there, we mounted up and headed north to EDY.

When we first got there, not much was going on, so I snapped a shot of the power sitting in the pit

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And the pair of B&M plows sitting off on the side.

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With not much else going on, I went back to the car.  But I had a feeling – so I grabbed my scanner, and my 20D and started walking up to the bridge over the west end of the yard.  As I was getting to the top, I heard the unmistakable sound of a turbocharger to the west.  A quick sprint to the top of the bridge, and I was faced with an eastbound train pulling up to the signal.

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Listening to the scanner, the job turned out to be SEED – Selkirk, NY to East Deerfield.  With them sitting there, I walked back to the car.  When I got there, I asked Katina if she wanted to get a picture of a train, and her answer was a very enthusiastic YES!  So I drove us a little closer, and the two of us got out and walked to the top of the bridge.  When we got there, Katina didn’t hesitate to get a shot of SEED sitting at the signal.

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At that point, a local railfan Richard (Check out his website here) pulled up and we began chatting.  Soon after that, my wife beeped the horn in the car, and motioned that Callie wanted to come up too.  With the wave of my hand, the door opened, and the little one made here way up to the bridge to watch the action with us.

As she got to us, SEED began to move into the yard.

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And as the train rolled under the bridge, we moved to the other side, where the girls watched the train pass below.  Of course, Katina was getting shots nearly the entire time the train rolled underneath.

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Then as the train continued to roll by, I got a little portrait of the girls smiling from ear to ear.

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Hopefully the passing of SEED has planted the seed of railfanning in my girls.  Time will tell if it takes root or not…  Either way, they enjoyed the time on Railfan Bridge watching the train with daddy.  What more can I ask for?

As for Katina’s shots – I didn’t get a chance to pull them off of her card yet.  When I was doing mine, she was outside shooting in the yard.  I couldn’t take the camera from her – gotta keep the fire going!

Thanks for looking!
Tom