Winter Spectacular Photoshoot with the Nevada Northern Railway

By Nancy Riedell

For the last 25 years, the Nevada Northern Railway has hosted amateur and professional photographers to take a morning or an afternoon to photograph Engine 93’s impressive steam train. Engine 93 is one of the few active steam trains in the United States. It was built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1909 and was retired in 1961. However, it was restored in 1993 and is active today.

In 2002, Engine 93 made its way to Salt Lake City to be a part of the 2002 Winter Olympics. It was one of several steam trains that provided rides for the tourists and visitors to the games. By doing this, these steam trains not only provided a unique ride but also helped to reduce vehicle traffic to the games.

Photographers come from all over the United States for this photo shoot. This particular group was from Washington, Texas, California, Arizona, and Utah. Many have made this trip several times over the years.

Before the actual Winter Spectacular Photo Shoot train ride, the photographers were expected to meet with the train conductor and personnel to go over the route and find out exactly what the photographers are interested in photographing. Determining factors for the run were weather, the time of day, and the direction the train will be going.

The Nevada Northern Railway was kind enough to provide meals for these weary photographers and they were grateful for that.

This particular photo shoot was organized by photographers Ben Kuhns and Jennifer Fowler from Salt Lake City, Utah. Ben is a professional photographer with a few gallery shows under his belt. He is also an avid train lover. He has been coming to these train photo shoots for years and it never ceases to amaze him how different each trip is. Jennifer Fowler is a wedding photographer and considers herself an amateur. As there are two weekends devoted to this event, both Ben and Jen came back for the second weekend to take even more photographs. You can find Ben’s work at www.benkuhns.com and Jen’s work at www.jfowlerphoto.com.

Due to the small turnout of photographers during this run, there were only two train stops. Thirteen photographers rode a trolley car to two separate locations.

The first location was Tunnel #1. After hiking up a hill to get a better view of the tunnel, the photographers set up their cameras and tripods and waited patiently for Engine 93 to roar through the tunnel, providing a steam spectacle and continued roaring past the photographers while they quickly took pictures and videos of the steam train.

The second stop was at an S-curve on the railroad tracks that runs along Highway 50. The photographers waited near the S in the curve while the steam train approached from a nearby tunnel. Many photographers took shots of the train as it rounded the S curve. Other photographers took photos of the steam train as it roared past them at a very close distance.

Both of these stops were repeated at least three times so that the photographers could get the shot of a lifetime.
At the end of the day, many photographers planned on staying overnight but most went home immediately afterwards and were very happy with the shots they got.