Freight Weather: The Art of Stalking Trains In his third book, photojournalist D. C. Jesse Burkhardt crosses into a new dimension in his continuing exploration of the "heart and soul" of North America's railroads.
Freight Weather concludes a trilogy that began with Backwoods Railroads in 1994, accelerated into fresh terrain with Rolling Dreams in 1997, and culminates with this volume. Here, he offers a more literary and soulful vision of the tracks and trains that reach across the land.
Snow in the Headlights. A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight moves through the Columbia River Gorge.
The essays included in Freight Weather embrace an affection for freight trains, while the personal narratives reveal a glimpse of the adventures Burkhardt experienced on the boundless steel rails of a continent. Through an alchemy of exertion and surrender, he found freedom and passion in those travels through the railroad night.
In Freight Weather, Burkhardt charts a unique geographic and spiritual journey through a scenic and startling American landscape of moving trains, rural junctions, and abandoned branchlines.
Freight Weather: The Art of Stalking Trains.
120 pages. Hardback (8.5" x 11") including 126 color photos.
$45 plus $4 priority mail shipping.
Signed/numbered copies @ $50
Freight Weather will be available through special order from Rolling Dreams Press and on the web at Amazon.com. It will not be available in most bookstores.
For more information, please contact Rolling Dreams Express.
- rollingdreams@gorge.net
- -- or --
- Rolling Dreams Press
- P.O. Box 1054
- White Salmon, WA 98672
Also available from D.C. Jesse Burkhardt and Rolling Dreams Press:
Between 1988 and 1997, photojournalist D. C. Jesse Burkhardt shot dozens of artistic photos -- most of them in color -- in order to preserve "portraits" of railroad settings in the Pacific Northwest. The result is ROLLING DREAMS, an 88-page book that visually celebrates the region's rail heritage during a time of major realignments in the West's rail transportation network.Included are 78 color photos and 12 b&w photos from Washington and Oregon (with a special focus on the Columbia River Gorge). The book also includes photos from northern California and Nevada, with two scenes from the author's home state of Michigan as well.
More Photos from ROLLING DREAMS: Portraits of the Northwest's Railroad Heritage
"It's amazing how suddenly everything shifted ..."
So begins the introduction to ROLLING DREAMS, a photographic record of active Northwest railroads, as well as those that have been "taken out of service ... sold ... torn up ... the final remnant lost."
"In 1990, SP owned and operated more than 700 miles of branchlines in Oregon. By the beginning of 1995, SP operated essentially none ... And the changes didn't end there ... Similar events were taking place in Washington ...."
Yet, while the major carriers shed track, the shortlines grew -- making the early '90s simultaneously a time of rebirth, opportunity and restoration. A time when locomotives "changed colors."
The purpose of ROLLING DREAMS "is to capture the feeling of what it has meant to witness the sudden transition."
"ROLLING DREAMS is dedicated to the spirit of the Northwest's unfolding railroad tales: boxcars rolling through the star-filled night; moonlight shining off the sides of swaying cars; the sweet scent of woodchips and creosote pulled along in the breezy wake of a passing freight; the faint note of a distant locomotive's air horn reaching back across the open land."
-- D. C. Jesse Burkhardt, September 1, 1997
Also by D. C. Jesse Burkhardt:"BACKWOODS RAILROADS: Branchlines and Shortlines of Western Oregon" (1994).
WSU Press: 1-800-354-7360
