It finally happened!
I decided late the day before to make a trip up to Knoxville to chase the last day of steam operations on the Knoxville & Holston River Railroad's "Three Rivers Rambler", in part because of a work friend showing me a couple of photos of Southern 154's newly-painted aluminum smokebox, a look that it would be sporting for that day only. After getting some shots of the engine at their depot at University Commons, I decided to set up my first location of the day where the trestle for CSX's KD subdivision crosses over the KXHR line and Tennessee river, a popular spot for photographers due the bridge serving as a natural prop with many hoping that some kind of train would pass over right as the Rambler was passing underneath, with some having to resort to Photoshop to create this scene. Upon arriving there, I discovered that the CSX yard goats were working to assemble a tank car train in the small yard to the right, with the engines going back and forth over the KXHR line. Knowing the opportunity that I had, all I could was wait for the 9:45am trip of the "Christmas Lantern Express" to come to me and hope for the best. As the smoke of the 154 started to get closer, I started to worry that the shot would not happen, but then, seconds before the 154 came in sight, the engineer aboard the former Baltimore & Ohio GP40-2 blew his horn for the train passing below it, indicating that I was indeed going to get the shot. While I knew I managed to get a couple of good and cool shots, in particular, this head on shot with the CSX logo visible and Engineer Scott Ogle leaning out of the cab to see what's ahead of him, I later learned from several of the crew members aboard the train who regularly work and/or chase the Rambler trips that this was the first time ever that a Rambler train had ran through this spot right as a CSX train was passing overhead. So not only did I managed to get a couple of cool shots, I managed to get a couple of unique shots of something that had never happened before, and I was the only person there to get them. Needless to say, I'm glad I ended up having to wake up at 5:30am to drive to Knoxville.
