Upde Designs

Some more images from Monday.   I haven’t shot any images of a train for sometime.  I came across this train sitting just short of an intersection apparently waiting for traffic from the other direction to clear before he could move.

Trains always remind me of my friend Ralph.  He worked for the same company as I did back in the 70s.  His office was in Des Monies.  Occasionally I would go to Des Moines for meetings or to help out as he had a really busy work flow.

Ralph was also an avid photographer and he loved trains.  His office was full of train pictures he had taken over the years.

He also loved to ride motorcycles.  He and some of his buddies traveled all over the US on their bikes and anytime he got the chance he would take a picture of a train.  He had trains from about 40 different states.

His entire office was like an art gallery devoted to railroad trains.  They were all framed, matted, and hung with great care.  It wasn’t sloppy but one was overwhelmed when you first walked into his office.  You could easily spend an hour just looking at all of his train pictures.  He rotated them from time to time so each visit I had some new trains to look at.  He was also a very good photographer to boot.

I remember once that Jeanne and I went to Ames, Iowa where his home was for a Christmas party he threw for the Iowa offices of our company.  There were lots of train pictures but in one room, floor to ceiling was a row of book shelves and they contained every Playboy magazine ever published (at that time.)  Jeanne was not impressed but I was.  🙂

Tragically he was killed in a freak accident in a small Kansas town.  On one of his motorcycle trips he had parked his bike and was walking across the street and a motorist ran into him and he died from the injuries he sustained.

He was such an interesting man and I still think of him some 30 plus years later when ever I see a train.

That’s it for today  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.