The Best of 2022

A look at some of my favorite railroad images from the last 12 months...

The last week of the year is traditionally a time for reflection… or at a newspaper, a time to publish a collection of “Top 10” lists and news reviews so we can all take a few days off (and as anyone who has worked in a newsroom will tell you, aside from weather and travel chaos stories, not much is happening anyway). Even though I’m no longer working full-time at a newspaper, I got to have a hand in making two of those lists this week: One for Railfan & Railroad Magazine and one for the Montana Free Press. 

I also like to make my own “Best of” collection of my favorite railroad images from the past year. Previously, I’ve put together collections of 15 or so images, but this time around I decided to limit myself to just ten photos that I thought best captured my work this year. While it was tough to cut some images, I thought these ten best represented what I saw and, perhaps more importantly, what I aspire my images to be, ones that convey stories about the people and places that make up the railroad world. Without further ado, here they are…

JANUARY 26: Winter came to Northwest Montana in a big way in January and offered me the opportunity to do something I had rarely gotten to do in past years: Photograph BNSF Railway’s dramatic battle to keep Marias Pass open. That led to a few spectacular days on “The Hill,” but my favorite shot was this more abstract one down in the valley on January 26, when they were cleaning out Whitefish Yard. Cleaning a rail yard of snow is generally an anticlimactic affair, but with the drone, I was able to grab this unique view that added a little more drama to what is essentially just a locomotive and spreader going back and forth for hours on end. 

FEBRUARY 27: It’s hard not to take many memorable images at a place like the Nevada Northern Railway, especially during its annual winter photography event. This year was the third time I went to Ely and I came away with a lot of images I liked, but this candid moment of a NNRy crewmember looking up at recently-restored 2-8-0 81 was one of my favorites. It became the favorite of the trip after the Washington Post selected it for its travel section front page a few weeks later. A tip of the hat to fellow photographer Brice Douglas, who jumped into the locomotive pit first to get this low angle. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em… 

APRIL 16: A lot of my railfanning this year would take place along Montana Rail Link, which will soon be absorbed back into the BNSF system. But of all the days trackside, April 16, might have been my favorite. That day, James House, Marty Lecholat and I had a lazy day railfanning around Missoula (spending an equal amount of time at the brewery as we did trackside) before heading out to Quartz Creek to shoot the Night Gas heading west in a late-season snow flurry. A few weeks later, MRL would be crawling with railfans but on this peaceful spring afternoon, we had the place all to ourselves. 

MAY 24: Another big focus of mine this year was Amtrak’s newest locomotives, the Siemens Mobility ALC-42 “Chargers,” which made their main line debut on the Empire Builder in the spring. I spent a lot of time photographing these locomotives on Marias Pass from the ground and from the air, but this shot at Whitefish might be my favorite. While the locomotive is only a few months old, the scene of a crew change on the platform is as old as railroading itself. 

JUNE 16: By happenstance, I’ve been in northern New Mexico twice in the last two years, both times within striking distance of the Santa Fe’s famed semaphores. These signals have been shot by countless people who are much more talented than me and much closer to the subject, so whenever I’ve visited them, I’ve known I’m not going to create anything better than what others have done before. But on June 16, as Ashley and I were driving to our Airbnb in Los Cerrillos during the first rain storm in 80 days and this stunning sunset appeared, I knew I had to try something. I quickly turned the rental down a side road that was quickly turning to mud and frantically searched for a semaphore that I thought was in the area. A few moments later, I spotted the blade, parked the car and ran out, camera in hand. From the warmth of the car, Ashley watched me get soaked in the rain, before yelling out between claps of thunder, “Don’t get killed!” I returned to the car with a big smile on my face. A train would have made it better, but I won’t complain about the stunning sunset, the rain, the jointed rail, the old code line, the semaphore and its replacement lurking around the corner. 

JULY 12: When it was announced MRL was going to become a fallen flag, I knew two things: One, Montana was about to get flooded with railfans. Two, I wanted to do something different from everyone else. So after some begging and pleading, I got the chance to spend some time on MRL in July riding trains, visiting the shops and spending time with the people that made the railroad what it was. No photo project on MRL would be complete, however, without a ride on the Gas Local. In the pre-dawn darkness, Toby Odom is seen taking down a track warrant at West Missoula. 

JULY 12: Not long after Toby copied that track warrant, we were rolling across the 10th Subdivision along the Flathead River at sunrise. With stunning scenery and sharp-looking locomotives, it’s easy to see why MRL was so popular for so many years.

AUGUST 30: The railroad world is a diverse one and a few weeks after riding dirty freight locomotives, I got to ride aboard a pristine private rail car over Marias Pass thanks to Lou Capwell and Bill Gray. I got a lot of great shots, including some of Lou displaying his exquisite bartending abilities, but this candid of Amtrak conductor Shane Johnson at Essex moments before departure was one of my favorites.

NOVEMBER 4: In November, I was back home in Maine. While the primary purpose of the visit was to see friends and family, I also wanted to check out the state-owned Rockland Branch’s seventh operator in 35 years, Midcoast Railservice. I spent a lot of time photographing this line when I was a kid and it was fun to get reacquainted with it on a beautiful late fall morning. At Thomaston, a pair of Midcoast B23-7s cross the St. George River just after sunrise. 

DECEMBER 18: My railroad photography this year ended where it began: back on Marias Pass shooting plow trains. On December 18, BNSF W-ESXESX1-18, aka “The Mountain Work Train,” roars through Stanton Creek, Montana, with a wave of Rocky Mountain powder behind it. I certainly hope this is a sign of things to come in 2023. 

Thanks for joining me on this look back at 2022. Happy New Year and I’ll see you in 2023!

-Justin