Photographer Kyle Yunker
“Getting the shot” is a new series of Trains.com articles highlighting the travels of individuals who go above and beyond to capture great railroad images, like hiking several miles for the perfect photo, or driving hours out of the way in search of something special. These articles describe those stories directly from the photographers.
Atlanta-based photographer Kyle Yunker kicks-off this series with a memorable story about how a 2-week trip to Montana became a mad dash for New Mexico’s high desert.
“In September 2020, my good friend Josh Byers and I took an epic two-week trip out west leaving from my home in Atlanta. A week into the trip we were shooting BNSF Railway trains on Marias Pass in northern Montana near Glacier National Park when a friend alerted us about a special movement over New Mexico’s Raton Pass route,” says Yunker.
Raton Pass, which still operates segments of more-than-100-year-old Santa Fe T-2 semaphores, typically only sees two trains each day — Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train Nos. 3 and 4. BNSF sporadically operates maintenance-of-way trains across the route once or twice a year.
Yunker says thick smoke from wildfires in the Pacific Northwest had enveloped most of Montana by the end of their day on Marias Pass when the two guys made the decision to drive 1,250 miles south to Raton from West Glacier, Mont.
Without stops, this drive encompasses more than two-thirds of the United States from north to south, and without stops, is about 17 hours.
“We camped out that night beside the old [Northern Pacific tracks] on Homestake Pass east of Butte, Mont., and took the entire next day to drive south from Cheyenne [Wyoming] and Denver, before finally reaching our destination of Raton that evening,” he says.
“We bummed our first shower of the trip at a friend’s house and camped out for the BNSF work train that would be running the next day.”
Yunker and Byers were awoken early the next morning by the sound of General Electric freight locomotives cranking up in Raton with its crew preparing for the 110-mile run between Raton and Las Vegas, N.M., in New Mexico’s high desert semaphore country.
“It was a killer day shooting Amtrak and a rare BNSF movement by the century-old semaphores,” he says, capping the day with a cold beer and a Mexican-style dinner, and pondering where they would go next.
“430 miles later and we found ourselves on the Desert Power Railway in northwest Colorado — but that’s a story for another time.”
Kyle’s photos can be found here on Flickr.
If you have a similar experience trackside and want to share your story, please send it to chase.gunnoe@outlook.com. Please be sure your story includes photographing trains from a safe distance and does not involve trespassing on railroad property.
Updated on Sept. 11, 2024 to change old Milwaukee Road to Northern Pacific tracks.
