Spring is a beautiful time of year in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Beautiful blossoming trees can be seen all along the roads and highways.

Finding trees near the tracks is more of a challenge, but not far from our apartment are some of the most rail-proximate photographable specimens .

Sometimes what seems so easy, proves difficult.

Last Monday, I planned to catch a westward Amtrak Keystone passing a beautifully blossoming tree along Jefferson Drive.

I set up a few minutes ahead of the train. However just as the westward train raced into view (cabcar first, ACS-64 electric at the rear), a pickup truck entered the scene. Not only did this truck present a distracting element in my composition, but as the truck passed it threw off the autofocus on my Nikon Z7-II. It changed the center of focus from the train to an indiscriminate point.

This all happened in the blink of an eye. By the time, I recognized there was a problem, it was too late to fix it.

The resulting images were something less than satisfactory. So I knew, I’ll have to try this again . . . .

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!