Along US Highway 30 in the western portion of Nebraska that people drive through without stopping, fighting the urge to sleep from all of the corn fields and mostly-dead towns spaced exactly ten miles apart due to the location of the grain silos built next to the railroad tracks parallel to the road, is a nondescript single curve called Point of Rocks.
There is no town. No gas station. No convenience store to stop for a coffee or a Big Gulp. So what is the big deal about a short curve in the road and rail track?
This out of the way spot just happens to be the most-photographed location for taking pictures of trains, especially ones that have appeared on magazine covers.
Between Dix and Potter (both which have a convenient exit on I80), there is a tall bluff that would be too expensive to blast through when they were building the right-of-way, so the crews chipped off the southern piece to make a steep cliff. The tracks, two sets for bidirectional traffic, hug the curve next to the bare rock. Within twenty feet is old Highway 30, which used to be the main drag from the East Coast to northern California and Oregon back before the Interstates were built thanks to Eisenhower.
On any given day, you would have a good chance to catch a photographer setting up their gear to catch the locomotive coming around the bend, framed by the cliff on one side and trees on the other. It is a fabulously scenic point, and yes, on top of the cliff is a pile of rocks.
It's one of those odd locations to stop and see when one is doing a leisurely cross-country trip with some time to spare. Bring a camera.