My art mentor and friend, Bob Killen and I were driving south along Kelso Cima Road in the Mojave National Preserve, just before sunrise, looking for unusual things to image. We stopped at Cedar Canyon Road, turned left and crossed over the Union Pacific Railroad, stopping to look both ways for a safe crossing. About 800 feet to the north, we could see the green lights of the Railroad Signal warning us that a train would be coming in the not-too-distant future and more importantly, suggesting that we move along quickly.

Bob and I simultaneously observed how the green light reflected off the twin rails in the dark, and, in that 2018 moment, a project began, pursuing images of and about trains that traversed through the Preserve.

The Mojave National Preserve consists of 1.6 million acres of high desert lands, encompassing the swelling, curved batholith that is Cima Dome, the gorgeous Kelso Dunes, and the Providence Mountains with their layer upon layer of exposed rock strata. Completed in 1905, the Union Pacific Railroad passes through the Preserve, one of the last few active freight lines running through an American national park or preserve.

I had been visiting the Preserve for about a year and was in the formative stages of a contemporary art photo documentary project featuring abandoned and oxidized metals. I eventually completed that project and in 2020, at the start of the Pandemic, exhibited my images of rusted and abandoned metals as the solo show Oxidized!, at the Progress Gallery in Pomona, CA.

My visits to the Mojave National Preserve changed from imaging abandoned and rusted metals to the railroad tracks and their influences on the environment. I began taking night images, approaching trains as they idled on sidings, before they safely proceeded onto the mainline after a passing train. To gain the full essence of these mile long vehicles of commerce, I captured images from as close as I dared stand as they passed by at different speeds, sometimes inadvisedly reaching out and grazing my gloved hand along their metallic surfaces as they sped by. I found that bridge and culvert crossings gave me a distinctly unique perspective of passing trains, and that the red and green railroad lights added another dimension to my night imaging, not just reflections on the rails, but the speed of the passing cars distorting the light.

But most importantly, I briefly glimpsed the lonely job train conductors had, driving their mammoth machines in rainy, windy, or overheated conditions, through the desolate and isolated high desert environment. My favorite places for imaging along the Railroad tracks confirmed significant temporal yet mostly localized impacts the passing trains had, in noise, vibration and just the sense of their immense size.

And as many as 20 or more trains pass through the Preserve on any given day, their passing occurs quickly, and not on a predetermined schedule. Opportunities were missed if I didn’t have my tripod and camera set up to correspond to the current environmental conditions. Occasionally, one could see them approaching from miles away; if crawling up the long grade from the Kelso Depot, the trains seemed to suddenly close the gap and just as suddenly, move past. Was my imagination playing tricks and did a train just pass by? My images confirmed that yes indeed a train just passed, and then it was gone, evidence of its passing limited to a red railroad light and the smell of burnt diesel fuel.

Finally, I came to appreciate the opportunity to image trains in any manner my mind could conjure, without fear of being confronted by officials. My safety was my own concern; I appreciated that imaging trains in this manner was an uncommon privilege, not something I would be allowed to do in an urban area closer to home. Respecting the importance and difficulty of the conductor’s job, I let each conductor know I was in their presence, by waving at both stopped and passing engines, and rarely did I not receive the blast of a horn in recognition.