My Favorite Chase - and the "Miracle Toilet"

            In 1995, Union Pacific sent the UP 3985 and the E unit trio out to Portland with a big passenger train. One of the highlights of the visit was a weekend trip to Bend on the Oregon Trunk with just the Es for power - down Saturday, back Sunday. The train would be a reasonable approximation of a 1950s-60s "City" streamliner.

I have always been foremost a fan of first generation diesel locomotives and streamlined passenger cars. My general opinion of most steam locomotives is that if they had been cut up faster, we might have more Es, Fs, PAs and other nifty first-generation diesel cab units to chase. So, when we heard about this trip, It became THE priority railfanning event of 1995 for me. 

Many of our friends in the Portland railfan community were along on the chase. My wife Jennie went along as my navigator (satellite navigation was still a dream). During the run to Bend on Saturday afternoon, the train stopped at the hamlet of Gateway to do a photo run-by. This consumed over an hour of time. While this was going on, we watched the action from a nearby hill.

When the train was ready to go, the late afternoon lighting conditions were absolutely perfect. It was at that point that Jennie announced that she needed to find a restroom. Since we had just spent an hour sitting around when we could have been finding a restroom, I was displeased. Very displeased. After all, we were soundly in the center of a whole lot of not much in the way of urban amenities.

As we were screaming down a rural road, we went over a hill and Divine Intervention occurred. On the shoulder of the road, a silent sentinel stood guard - a porta-potty in the middle of nowhere. I skidded to a halt on the gravel and Jennie dove out of the car. It turned out that this rogue relief station was brand new, sparkling clean and fully stocked. As other fans chasing the train drove by, they were sure to honk their horns so Jennie would not feel unappreciated.

About a half mile past our unexpected commode, the group paused to photograph the train at this vista. The excursion train was climbing a 1% grade, and put on a tremendous show for us in the late-afternoon sun. I was relieved to get the shot, and Jennie was just relieved, period. We decided that finding the porta-potty in the farm fields was a bona fide miracle. My wife and I now call this image the "Miracle Toilet" shot.

Taken in: United States / Oregon (show map)

Taken on: September 30, 1995

Tags:

Union Pacific

Oregon

Oregon Trunk

Excursion train

Central Oregon

Trains

Railroads

EMD

E unit

UP 949

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Camera: Plustek OpticFilm 8200i (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Plustek OpticFilm 8200i
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.0 Windows
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