May 5, 2017
Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad was
on the move as numerous, heavily charged electrical storms brewed,
collided and moved through Central and Eastern Washington during the
night of Thursday (Thor’s Day) May 4th and into small hours of
Friday the 5th. Though I myself was not working, I decided to forgo
sleep and exploit the opportunity to follow my colleagues Engineer
Ted Curphey and Conductor Gary Durr headlong – literally – into
the storm(s) to bag some lightning-slash-train images. Early on it
seemed I had made a bad bargain: a previous storm had petered out.
Then, as the crew began setting out empties at Almira, a fierce storm
began exploding on the near south-southwest horizon. Lightning
flashes could be measured less than seconds apart. Thousands of
mostly horizontal intracloud and many vertical, negatively charged
imixed with unmistakable positively charged cloud-to-ground strikes
(as seen in the left background of the image) illuminated the ominous
atmosphere in paroxysms of divine flash bursts. Here, just past MP91,
at Hanson Ted brings the train into the longest tangent on the line
as an intracloud and a stepped leader bolt from Thor's Mjölnir
discharge. Yet there are just a few rain drops. I am dry though the
air is noticeably electrified. Image made, I’m en route to the next
station of Hartline and then all Hell breaks loose as the skies open
and a deluge of biblical proportions with golfball sized hailstones
is unleashed. Wipers: unable to keep up. Fusilladed: like the
business end of a 50 cal. Lightning: strobing in rapid succession. I
am forced to a crawl but make into Hartline before Ted and the train
- itself sustaining numerous strikes - where the inclemency finally
subsides nearly an hour later.
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