A Geologist went on the Railway

July 25th 1999 (ED: previous date was incorrect) was a National Holiday in Venezuela as it was the national election day for the Constituent Assembly.  After Hugo Chavez was elected President, the expats working in the country knew the writing was on the wall for the foreign mining companies then operating in the country.  The Constituent Assembly would be his rubber stamp to reinvent the country. I was working close to the iron ore region of the country in Bolivar State.  I decided to take a day off and (with permission) took a company truck on a trip to try and photograph some of  the rail operations in the area.  Given that pretty much nothing was operating that day I would have to see what I could find.   The main operations are the Ferrominera Orinoco operations between the mines and the port in Puerto Ordaz (I'll cover this operation in a separate post).  I decided to tool around Puerto Ordaz in the industrial areas as I was aware that there were some rail operations there. 

In October 2001 I went to northern Russia to look at a platinum and palladium (and chromite) project near the city of Petrozavodsk.  Initially I was in Moscow at the Company offices for meetings.  One good thing was that my hotel was next door to the Moscow-Kiev railway station.  One bad thing was that I was so jet-lagged (12 hour time change between West Coast Canada and Moscow) that I was falling into bed by 5pm for the first few days I was there so no chance to railfan as during the day I was in meetings.   Finally after I was able to acclimatize somewhat I popped over to the station to have a look.  I was a bit nervous as this was shortly after 9/11 so I was not sure how the Russians would take a guy wandering around taking pictures in a train station.  I memorized "I am a Canadian tourist" in Russian prior to going on the trip "just in case".   Fortunately no one cared that I was there so I wandered the platforms taking photos of the passenger trains there.  Th

 In June 2009 myself and another co-worker went on a geology tour that was part of a conference we had attended.  We spent the better part of two weeks wandering around the desert country looking at rocks and giant holes in the ground.   Rossing Mine - the tiny dots on the bottom are 350T trucks... Like this one.  The tires are about 15 feet tall Containers on flat cars with supplies for the mine Tank cars with chemicals for mineral processing.  Whale belly tank cars are not limited to North America This excavator could be useful for landscaping the yard Trekkopje is the site of a large mine as well as a little known WW1 battle between British (South African and Namibian troops) and German (German and Namibian troops) forces.  Germany held Namibia until around 1916 if I recall correctly.  The war was one of the driving forces in getting the railway system in Namibia built. War graves of British forces German war graves Safari sights Safari sights Hopefully rhinos can't jump.  The w

  Look South...way south This post is the genesis for this blog, I originally posted it on my other blog about the Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale .   One of my ongoing projects has been to scan my slide and negative collection, both my own work and those I have collected over the years.  Recently I scanned slides from one of my favourite work related trips.   In 1998 I was sent to run an exploration drill program in the Chubut Province of Argentina.  Remote and relatively unknown, it is home to some wonderful things.  Specifically the 75cm gauge "La Trochita" or "Old Patagonian Express" narrow gauge steam railway.  This link:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Trochita  has more details.   I spent over two months in Esquel and area.  I worked the morning shift on the drill as the Argentinian geologist I cross shifted with was not a morning person.  This worked perfectly as I was back in town in time to catch "La Trochita" returning from it's daily run.