The Winter of 2004/5 was the final time steam worked over the Jing Peng pass on the world's last steam-operated main line railway, the JiTong line in Inner Mongolia. Never again would we see large loads being hauled by steam hundreds of miles just as a 'job of work'... The end of an era in human history.
This is leaving Tunnel 4. A very hard picture to get right. Apart from having to climb a snowy mountain side in -30 (Celsius) temperatures, the trains ran to no timetable because they were freight trains running as required. The scene is lit properly from the side for about 30 mins a day in the Winter, so you had to be lucky to get a train in the right window. Even when you did, the prevailing wind was from the west, which would almost always ruin it by blowing the steam down over the train. Each attempt meant giving up several other easier pictures because of the climb up the mountain (if you chased it from the road and aimed for simpler locations, you could get a few pictures of a single train and do so avoiding the wind/sun angle problem). So it was a gamble - try for one awesome picture but probably fail, or try for numerous easier pictures that were likely to succeed. This was my very last day on the line before steam finished forever. I had attempted the shot often before and never succeeded. On this day, when we climbed the mountain, we were in cloud (but large sections of the line we could have been on were in sun)... So the gamble seemed even more reckless...
On this final attempt, it came together. Can you imagine the sight of a small group of men, wearing numerous layers, jumping up and down in excitement, knowing we had finally nailed this shot on the last morning we would ever be able to try?
Then I must mention that our friend, Ian, was at that very moment lying in a hotel bed because he had dislocated his knee, so he missed the shot. In fact, we would all have missed it had he not injured himself - we had been due to leave the area already, but had had to stay on slightly longer until he was fit to be moved. So we have Ian's knee to thank for this picture, even though he could not get it himself. That must have hurt more than the knee... Though he would never admit it.
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Jing Peng Pass-600 dpiStep10SSsRGBUKRP by
Ed Hurst, on Flickr[/IMG]
Pentax 67ii with 105mm lens, Velvia 100F.