This series is modeled after the “Interesting Railfan” series in Railroad magazine from years ago. I’m asking each railfan 10 questions, some standard and some customized for the particular person. I hope you enjoy it. (See all in the series).
For this edition, I asked photographer and poet Rick Malo ten questions.
1. Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a 1st Generation Texan, born and raised in the mosquito-riddled confines of Houston, Texas back in the early 1960s before the interstates came to town. I grew up within earshot of Espee’s Sunset Route on the southwest side of town, and many was the time I got to enjoy the trains as they rumbled past the Willowbend Boulevard or Chimney Rock Road crossings, or as they paralleled old South Main Street. Back then the Southern Pacific was still a hodge-podge of motive power—on any given day one might witness covered wagons, Black Widow Geeps, or Halloween and Tiger-striped end-cab switchers leading freights. Those are my earliest memories of trains.
Houston had a lot of railroads coming into it back then; the Burlington-Rock Island lines came in from the north, as did the MOP. The Katy came in from the west, and the Santa Fe had trackage rights on the Sunset Route into Houston from Rosenberg, along with its own line that came up from Alvin. I saw those other lines only occasionally in the early years of childhood. Mostly it was the Espee that I remember, and because of those early encounters, I’ve long held a great affinity for the Southern Pacific and consider it my favorite standard gauge railroad.
Early in life, I knew the big city wasn’t for me, and I knew that I was destined to leave Houston one day, and not look back. I’ve long been afflicted with symptoms of wanderlust, thanks to the click-and-clack of steel wheels on jointed rail, and the sound of big truck tires on a lonely highway fading off into the night.
I never had the inclination to be a railroader, but the pull of the open road began calling hard in my teens. It was then that I knew I was destined to be a trucker.
After honorably serving 5 years in the Army, and suffering through a few odd jobs afterwards, I attended truck driving school in December 1993 and obtained my CDL in January 1994. The first 17 years of my career I spent pulling chemical tankers over the road, 48 States and Canada, in which time I amassed over 2 million safe driving miles. Since March 2011 I’ve been pulling crude oil tankers around the oilfields of Texas, putting on another million or so miles. It’s been a good career.
2. Why do you like trains?
HA! That’s the $64,000 question!
“Trains were my first love, and they shall be my last.”
I said that once, to no one really.
I think it was the early exposure to them, thanks to my mother in particular. Mom and Dad were from Chicago, and it’s kinda hard to get more ‘railroad’ than that. Mom worked at the main information desk in Union Station during World War II, and OH MY! The stories she had to tell! They were simply fantastic to a young boy!
There were the childhood bedtime stories of the Little Engine That Could, then a Golden Book about the building of a railroad shoo-fly so a new overpass could be constructed in Anytown, USA.
There were trips to Houston’s Herman Park Zoo, where Espee F-Class 2-10-2 No.982 was on display in front of the neat little railroad that ran through the park, which was a blast to ride!
Then books from the library started showing up in the Malo household, illustrated with all kinds of neat stuff about railroads. Then, I think I must have been about 5 or 6 or so, 1967-68-ish, one day Mom came home from the Meyer Branch of the Houston Public Library with this MASSIVE book—
The 1st printing, 1st edition of Lucius Beebe’s “The Central Pacific & the Southern Pacific Railroads.”
Hook.
Line.
Sinker.
Last year I scored big on Amazon with the purchase of a 1st Edition, 1st Printing of that book. It is my most favorite—my most prized possession—of all the railroad books I have in my library. Some of our esteemed contemporaries—friends all— have done me a great honor and graced the pages with their signatures, for which I am forever grateful.
This genre of railroad photography has not only broadened my horizons, but it has cultivated many new friendships that would not have been possible otherwise.
Trains, and the rails they run on, joined not only the breadth and width of a nation, but of the entirety of the globe and its peoples as well.
It is a fantastic thing to be a part of.
3. What’s your favorite place to railfan?
Right now, it’s the BNSF Transcon across the Panhandle of Texas. I made my first trip to see it in August of 2020 after I transferred out to West Texas and was hooked. The sheer volume of trains is just mind-boggling!
And while I am a child of the Sunset Route, the anemic nature of the traffic on it west of Spofford, where the Eagle Pass line comes up from Mexico, is disheartening. The portion of the line through the high deserts and mountains of West Texas sees only a few trains each day, along with Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. Yet, I still love to make a few pilgrimages down to Alpine each year to see it and roam around the desert a bit.
All that being said, I got bit by the Narrow Gauge Bug early on, the culprit being Dick Kindig’s images of the Rio Grande’s K-27 No.454 pulling a short train on Colorado’s Cerro Summit in the 1930s. The symptoms worsened in junior high school when I saved up my allowance and went down to the local Mom-and-Pop bookstore, where for $6.95 I purchased a brand-new copy of George Turner’s “Slim Rails Through The Sand” about Espee’s Owens Valley line.
Once again—
Hook.
Line.
Sinker.
The Cumbres & Toltec is by far the most hallowed ground—
The Holy Land of Raildom.
And I’m only an 8-hour drive from it.
For me, it doesn’t get any better. I love anything with an outside frame and heavy counterbalances—especially the K-27s, which are my favorite rod locomotives.
But—
The Eastern Guys, i.e. Oren Helbok, Dennis Livesey, Ken Karlewicz, Eugene Armer, et al, have been after me to venture out their way and check out the East Broad Top and the Reading & Northern, and maybe the WW&F.
Hopefully I’ll be in their company when the leaves change colors next fall.
Shadows on the Plainview Sub – Illustrates the usefulness of the two-camera set-up. This is the DPU of the above train as it slips past the abandoned grain elevator, taken with the 15-30mm lens on the second camera.
4. If you could railfan anywhere, anytime, where and when would it be?
Easy.
The Virginia & Truckee in the 1870s through the 1890s, and by extension the Carson & Colorado narrow gauge in the 1880-1890 period. I’m a big fan of the American-type, and the V&T had some of the most beautiful 4-4-0s in the world! I would love to have seen them in all their glory—polished Russian Iron boiler jackets, brass gleaming bright, balloon stacks chuffing out wood smoke as they steamed out of Carson City, tiptoed over Crown Point trestle at Gold Hill, and rolled into Virginia City with The Lightning Palace Train!
OH MY!
What a thrill that must have been!
To get to there, I certainly would have had to ride the Overland Route from Omaha, changing cars at Ogden, and then again at Reno for the down train to Carson City. That would have been quite the adventure, one which I hope to undertake in modern times. To railfan the extent of the Overland Route from Omaha to the West Coast is the all-time No.1 journey on my bucket list, US Hwy 30 being only slightly less elevated in Raildom standings than Cumbres is in that regard.
My opinion only.
5. Your bio on the wonderful site “The Trackside Photographer” calls you “a late-comer to the rail photography scene.” Can you expand on that?
While I’ve always loved trains, photographing them in my early years wasn’t a priority. I also enjoyed drawing and scale model building—military aircraft and armor, and of course big trucks—along with model railroading. Throw in hunting and hormones, and beer…
And, well…
LOL!
In hindsight, I’ve been a lot of places that I now wish I had taken a camera along, but life is funny that way.
Life can be hard at times.
We’re victims of our own bad choices; our own bad habits.
I’ve skinned a lot of knees and elbows along the way, and I’ve had to shed a lot of skins—
I had to live a whole other life before I was worthy to live this one.
My late wife, Karin, bought me a Nikon CoolPix 610 for Christmas in 2012. It was a fun point-and-shoot digital camera that I used to carry in the truck with me. One day while I’m waiting for a train at the railroad crossing in Luling, Texas, I pulled out the camera, opened the door and stood out on the running board of the big truck and started snapping some photos as a UP freight roared through town on the Sunset Route.
And I thought “Hmmmm…THAT was fun!”
But it wasn’t until 2017, when I purchased a Canon Rebel T6 with some kit lenses for my birthday, that I started to get serious about railroad photography.
So began the learning process—
Rekindling the creative side of me that had been stored and neglected—pretty much left for dead—for many years.
My brother, who himself is a world class bird and wildlife photographer, helped me out with the basics, but pretty much everything I’ve learned has been self-taught and trial and error, along with a lot of help and suggestions from a lot of our contemporaries.
It also was around this time that I entered the world of social media, which has allowed me to view a lot of great railroad photography and cultivate friendships among those wonderful folks who populate this genre.
Photographing trains in the brush-and-tree-lined rights-of-way in southcentral Texas was challenging to say the least, but enjoyable still.
It wasn’t until December of 2019, when I transferred out to Midland in West Texas that things began to click. Railfanning the former Texas & Pacific mainline across the South Plains and the Chihuahuan Desert was, and still is, a blast!
And one day, while I’m in the local Best Buy for something totally unrelated to photography, I found myself wandering over to the camera section where they had this gorgeous Nikon D750 on display. I picked it up and my hand wrapped around it, and it felt perfect in it. It was amazing!
B&H Camera sent me a brand new one within the week, and I became a Nikon Guy for the duration.
Taking inspiration from Dennis Livesey, who has this crazy 3-camera rig for his trifecta of Canons, each with different lenses attached so he’s prepared for whatever might arise, I purchased a second D750, a Tamron 15-30mm f2.8, a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8, and a two-camera rig. This is the range I like to work in.
I love the wide-open spaces of the desert or the High Plains of Texas—up on the Llano Estacado, where there is little more than the sky, the grasses, and the horizon. It’s like a blank canvas just waiting for you. It challenges you to look at things differently; to create something that is worthy of the viewer’s time. I don’t go into the field looking for anything in particular. I like to react to whatever it is I might find.
6. You’ve been called the (Railroad) Poet of The Plains for the poetry that often accompanies your photographs, or stands alone. What do you hope readers take away from your poetry?
I hope they find a piece of themselves that might have become lost or hidden in the daily grind of life or overshadowed by too many details; something that’s been glossed over by adulthood, perhaps a room full of memories in which the door has been closed and locked for years.
I’m a romantic. Always have been.
When I write, I like to reach in and touch the heartstrings, tug on them a bit. Even the staunchest nut-and-bolter has a soft side; a nostalgic connection to trains that sometimes defies definition, yet longs to be awakened.
These words come from within the deepest parts of my heart and my soul, my own experiences and feelings.
And, knowing what I do about writing, I know that not everyone will enjoy what it is that I do. And that’s okay. I still do it.
My dear romance novelist friend, Cj McPherson and I chat about authenticity—about owning the words that we write; about how they make us feel when writing them. Do they make us cry, or laugh as we’re putting them down on paper? If they don’t make US do that, then they certainly won’t make our readers do that. The words have GOT to be the genuine US—carved from our experiences, from our souls. If they are not, the world—the reader—will see right through them.
Someone once said a person has to have a certain fearless quality about them in order to do that.
Perhaps.
Who’s to say?
But for the readers, at the very least, I want them to have a pleasant and enjoyable reading experience. If I take them on a journey through their own heart—their own memories—then I’ve done a good job.
7. Can you name a few writers or poets who have inspired you? What about them drew you to them?
Honestly, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I haven’t read many poets, but I’ve read enough of them to know how I don’t want to do things.
Robert Frost once said that writing free-form verse was like playing tennis without the net.
And on that I cannot disagree.
But, in a way, I compare it to photographing trains up on the Llano Estacado. There are no stunning backdrops of Tehachapi or Cajon or Mojave mountains to compose your trains against.
It is only you and the situation—you and your creativity. The sky—the mind—is the only limit.
I’ve written some Petrarchan sonnets, which is a 14-line piece divided 8-by-6. They’re tough, especially because they were created for the Italian language, and the rhymes don’t match up to the rhymes of the English language. It really makes you think, and it really is quite the task. But I’ve found that the rigidity of the classic formats prevents me from saying what I want to say, and how I want to say it. For me, creativity is stifled in the quest to satisfy a rhyme. It becomes more about the rhyme than it does about the feeling I want to convey. To that end, I toss out the rules and write my own.
I have no formal education. I barely graduated high school, and I did only because of the kindness of my 11th grade English teacher—whose name escapes me now. She saw fit to bless me with a D- instead of the F that I so richly deserved—probably so I wouldn’t show up on her doorstep the following semester.
I hated reading as a youngster. Of all the train books I accumulated, I mostly just enjoyed the pictures and the captions. It wasn’t until I was a Specialist 4 in the Army that I began reading for pleasure. The mud of a cold March 1987 spent in Grafenwohr, Germany makes one do strange things to break the boredom, like wander around the snack bar in Vilseck and have a paperback techno-thriller novel catch your eye. “Flight of the Old Dog” by Dale Brown triggered a voracious appetite for reading. I consumed Tom Clancey like there was no tomorrow. And Stephen Coonts. Then came Steven Ambrose, Hampton Sides, Antony Beevor, and Richard Rhodes.
Once I had digested them, I turned to my railroad library and was engulfed fully in Beebe and Morgan, much later on enjoying an introduction to Ted Benson in his “One Track Mind.”
During this Great Reading Renaissance, I paid attention to how each author told a story; how they wove a tale to maintain the interest of the reader, especially with the factual, historical writings. Richard Rhodes is a master of this, his “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” is one of the most lengthy yet fascinating accounts of the Manhattan Project. He constructs the narrative in such a way as to maintain the reader’s interest throughout the volume. Ditto for Ambrose and Sides and Beevor.
And what more needs to be said about Beebe and David Morgan? They tripped the romantic in me, allowing me to rediscover my ‘railroad roots’. Their prose is inimitable. It flows with grace and style, and is as far from a narrative as a laptop is from a quill and ink well.
Yes. They are quite influential. Their words transcend their untimely passing.
8. I enjoyed your interview with Isaiah Bradford in Railroad Heritage Magazine. What advice would you give young railway photographers?
Isaiah is an incredible, self-made young man who has overcome much adversity in his young life to get where he is today. I’m so very proud of him, and it is one of my life’s greatest joys to know him as a friend. He’s taken his love of trains, and in a few short years seemingly has mastered photography. At just 18 years old, he has his own photography business.
He has caught the eye of Canon and Porsche, and he’s done work for several rock bands and for the City of Decatur, Illinois.
He’s cultivated his own style, yet remains humble and dedicated to his craft.
Early in our relationship I cautioned him about the pitfalls of the teen years, i.e. peer pressure and drugs and alcohol and such things. I urged him to find his true self and stick with that, no matter what the ‘crowd’ was doing. I talked about how addiction can rob you of who you are, destroying your creativity, among other things (don’t ask me how I know this).
He’s got a good head on his shoulders and is on the right track.
I would urge a young railfan in this same direction—
Stay true to who you are.
Enjoy the process of learning your craft.
Embrace your creative side.
Enjoy the love of trains and don’t be afraid to meet others like you—there are a lot of us.
Have fun, and stay safe.
And keep having fun!
And don’t get mired down in the wedgie shot! LOL!
And, in turn, I would urge those of us who are not so young to embrace the new arrivals. Befriend them. Mentor them. Make them feel welcome.
Recently on Facebook, someone posted a shot of Oren Helbok sitting on a railway station bench and having a conversation with a young railfan. Knowing Oren the way that I know him, there could not have been a better person for that young railfan to be chatting about trains with than Oren Helbok.
Young people are the future of this genre, and some day, in the not-too-distant-future, the torch will be theirs to carry.
Let’s make them welcome and help them along their journey to just such a time.
9. You don’t seem to shy away from difficult light conditions, like the harsh shadows of mid-day sun, or shooting into the sun. What do you look for in lighting?
I love good rakish lighting, the kind that you’d get very late in the day, when the sun is just a few minutes above the horizon. It has deep shadows on the folds of the terrain and wonderful highlights, especially on the grasses.
I love to shoot on the shadow side of things, especially when the sun is still fairly high in the sky.
And I love black & white, and more times than not when I go out in the field, that is the state of mind that I am in, so I look for compositions that can incorporate shadows, perhaps of a grain elevator or some trees or some other objects. It’s a different thought process than if I were to stand on a rise and shoot a wide-angle color wedge across the rolling grasses of the Plains. Those are pretty to look at, and they tell a story of their own, but they have little emotion to them. Yet, I still enjoy making those kinds of images. It lets the viewer see more of the terrain that the trains run through. Throw in a dramatic sky with great clouds and you’ve got a neat shot that’s pleasant to look at.
But that environment is not always conducive to black & white. Often times the tones of the colors don’t equate well to b&w; there’s not enough contrast between them to transmute into the different monochrome tones, and they all blend together.
Glint shots are fun, but they’ve become a bit overdone.
What do I look for?
Always something different. I don’t want all my images to look the same, or to look like everyone else’s. Variety is the key. I never know what I’ll find until I get there.
Vanishing points are important, as well as leading lines, but depending on the situation and the composition, those can be a bit offset, or truncated, or even nonexistent.
And storm clouds?
OH MY! You bet!
I like to study the works of Dick Steinheimer and Ted Benson and Jim Shaughnessy. Those guys are masters of light and shadow and composition. Their images are timeless and always a joy to gaze upon.
10. What project(s) do you have on the go, or in the planning?
I keep kicking around the idea of a photo/poetry/prose book, maybe a nice soft cover, 11×13 perfect-bound compilation of 20 or so offerings, not all necessarily railroad-related, but trains would still be well-represented.
John Kirk and Mark O’Connor collaborated on one such hardcover book titled “The Forever Lands”, a magnificent study of their Australian homeland, and your “Dances and Daydreams” is a wonderful addition to my library.
I’m not sure there is a market for the above-mentioned book, but as a romantic, one can always dream.
Steve, I’ve enjoyed this tremendously!
Thanks so much!
—RAM
You can find Rick’s work at On High Iron and on Flickr. Thank you, Rick!