I'll start this year with a story. I usually get 12/31 off, and I go chase trains. This year I headed up into Minnesota along "Old Reliable", the BNSF Marshall sub. Drove north for over two hours, didn't see a single train, nor heard a peep from the radio. I was becoming discouraged! At Granite Falls MN I saw a little TC&W train shuffling cars around at the ethanol plant. TC&W (Twin Cities and Western) is a shortline that runs from Twin Cities west to the border of South Dakota (Milbank.) The tracks are the old C,M & StP mainline. It's all small farming towns along the way. The TC&W uses only Geeps for power, some refitted with CAT engines. The switchman advised me the train was going to head back east, meet a w/b at Sacred Heart MN, and park in a siding. A new crew would then combine the two trains and take it back east in a couple of hours. By then it would be dark! 
I grabbed a quick dinner in Granite Falls--a roller dog and a root beer from the local Tank N Tummy.
Night came and so did the relief crew. Since I've never taken a night shot of the TC&W, I introduced myself to the supervisor as the "foamer night shift," and let him know what I had in mind. I began driving towards Sacred Heart and heard him on the radio telling the crew, "There's a guy who actually admits he's a foamer, and he's going to take some photos of you using some big flash. Or something." They all seemed amused, but totally cool with it. 
For my first shot, I set up a single flash where the w/b would meet the e/b in the siding at Sacred Heart. Train came, I popped the shot. I then drove to the elevators in town and took a few shots without flash while they shuffled cars around a little. After getting a few of those, I headed back to Renville MN, and looked over my options there. That town has an abandoned building trackside, the Renville Creamery Coop. I've always wanted to catch a train there, and it looked like I was getting my chance! I set up my camera and a single big flash, tested, focused, and waited. It was a cold night but without any wind. A fairly steady stream of vehicles slowed as the drivers briefly stared at me--this was the main street of the town and everyone was out for New Years' Eve. I'm not used to this much attention when the temp is near zero.
After about half an hour, a woman in a pickup truck slowly rolled by, looked directly at me, and pulled in next to me. She motioned me over to the passenger side window and rolled it down. As the window lowered I could smell a LOT of alcohol! She excitedly asked if I was taking a photo of the creamery. I replied yes, and the train. She grew more excited and asked me to sit inside with her. Well, OK. Her dad used to work in the creamery, and she grew up right across the street. She seemed like one of those "friendly drunks" you sometimes find out here. I guessed she was in her late forties/early fifties and in fairly trim shape. She said she was driving home, two blocks away. I asked her why she was packing it in at 8pm on New Years? She replied the bartender had asked her to leave because other women were complaining about her hitting on their husbands. Now that takes some nerve in a small town like that! 
She went back to talking about watching the CM& StP trains out her bedroom window when growing up. I told her it would be cool to photo a train from inside a house through a window, lighting up a train outside. I told her about O.Winston Link. She said, "I live right over there in that blue house. The tracks are in my back yard--you could take a picture from my bedroom. It's nice and cozy", she purred. I was thinking of how I would explain a photo obviously taken from inside a woman's home to my wife, and just wasn't coming up with anything that was going to fly! I thanked her and declined. We talked awhile longer and I suggested she'd be happier in a bigger town such as Willmar or even St. Cloud. She could meet more men and not have to poach husbands. She said she had been thinking about that, but was trapped caring for her frail mother at the nursing home. I then told her I needed to get back out so I didn't miss the train. As she left, I thought she needed a bumper sticker that said, "Caution: the contents of this truck may be hazardous to your marriage!" Every now & then I run into these sorts of middle aged lonely women in very small towns; I do feel a bit sorry for them.
The train came not too much later, and I nailed the shot. The lead engine was lettered "RRV&W" for "Red River Valley & Western", a sister shortline that runs up around Wapehton ND. Finally, I got my shot. I hope to get back up there (2.5 hr. drive one way) and catch them at the Danube elevators, but the traffic on that line is not high and is of course unpredictable. It's a long way up there to get skunked. As I drove home that night, I pulled out a CD that had Willie Nelson's "Railroad Lady". I listened to it as I watched for drunks on the road.
Sitting out by the tracks at night far from home gives me a lot of time to think about the places, things, and people I find along the way. When most people think of small towns, they think of close knit communities where no one is a stranger, with happy couples enjoying a satisfying social life with friends. There is that, yes, but there is also heartache and a loneliness that goes clear to the bone, quietly suffering in the shadows. It's all part of life along the tracks on the Northern Plains.
Kent in SD
Railroad Lady:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ZHsMEqy_0
