This morning I’m posting from a NI Railways train en route Bangor, County Down.
I’m reviewing Scandinavian photos for my book on European Railway Travels.
This view of a Finnish intermodal train near Oulu didn’t make the cut.
I exposed it on Fujichrome slide film using my Nikon N90S with 135mm lens.
I could have titled this ‘Dusk in the Rain’.
As it happens I was at Irish Rail’s Portlaoise Station on my way up to Dublin and I needed a few potential illustrations of the 1840s buildings for my book on European railway travel. I thought, ‘what better time than now to make some up to the minute photos?’
Working with my Lumix LX7 I made these views that I feel capture the atmosphere of the station.
Any favorites?
Tracking the Light Posts Daily.
I’m still editing photos for my European Railway Journeys book.
There were more tough choices and this one had to go!
This photo has drama but the light is flat.
Flat light and dead snow just don’t make the cut.
This photo was exposed the narrow gauge Swiss Rhätische Bahn at Küblis .
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I’ve been reviewing hundreds upon hundreds of photos for my book on European Railway Travel.
Here’s a view I like but it didn’t make the cut because I’m using a similar angle that works better. It was one of several views that I made on film, although was also working with my digital cameras that day.
This pictures the famous ‘Hanging Viaduct’ in the Mosel Valley near Bullay.
Two years ago I visited this unusual railway construction with my friends Gerry Conmy, Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe.
Tracking the Light posts every!
Another example of some photos that didn’t make the final cut for my book on European Railway Travel.
You might think that catching a train with medieval castles in the background is pretty neat.
It is.
But I have many photos at this curve at Oberwesel on the busy Rhein left bank route. I’ve selected several potential candidates from this excellent German location and these two just didn’t seem book worthy.
Exposed using my FujiFilm XT1.
Perusing my photos of France and French railways for my up-coming book on European Railway Travel, I was surprised to find how many excellent images I had in my collection.
I’ve made about a half dozen trips through France over the years, and I’ve generally had good weather.
In reviewing my selection I’ve decided to cull these two images from consideration for the book.
This train photo is of an SNCF train but it’s not in France, and rather in Basel, Switzerland. More to the point, the lighting isn’t wonderful, and the setting is awkward.
I chose it because it’s a contemporary photo of an SNCF locomotive-hauled passenger train (which are becoming increasingly rare in France.) I have better SNCF photos than this one for the book.
I liked this Eiffel Tower image because it shows the scale of the structure. However, I have some really stunning views of this Parisian icon that better capture its majesty. This one gets the axe.
Here’s another view that won’t appear in my book on European Railway travel. (Are you missing the mist? Facebook viewers will need to click on the post to get the whole picture).
I’m just days away from submitting my final chapters.
Believe it or not, I substituted a film photo from this same location for consideration in the book instead of this digital photo.
Why?
I felt the film image captured the scene more effectively.
I like the way the mist and rain add depth to this famous location at the Biaschina Loops on the south slope of Switzerland’s Gottard Pass.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily.
An outtake (spelled with two ‘t’s) is a portion of a work removed during editing.
I’m in the final lap of assembling a book on European Railway travel.
Among my ‘outtakes’ from the section on Switzerland is this digital image that I made last year at the famous Wassen curves on the Gotthard Route.
I was traveling with my friends Gerry Conmy, Denis McCabe and Stephen Hirsch.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily.
I realize that today’s title might not catch everyone’s eye.
How about: ‘Clean GM Diesel on a Freight’?
Or, ‘Irish Rail at Rush Hour’ ?
‘Gullet Glint’?
Anyway, this post is about light.
I was waiting on the Up IWT liner (International Warehousing & Transport Ballina, County Mayo to Dublin Northwall container train)with recently painted Irish Rail 071 class diesel number 082.
Just ahead of this Dublin-bound freight was the Up-Galway passenger train with a common set of ICRs (InterCity Railcars).
I was photographing into the sun. My intent was to work the glint effect. (That’s when the sun reflects off the side of the train).
Usually, I find this is most effective when you shade the front element of the lens to minimize flare. Notice the two variations with the ICR.
By the time the freight reached me clouds had partly shaded the sun leaving only a hint of back-lighting.
All the photos were made using my FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm f2.0 lens. The camera RAW Files were all adjusted for colour balance, colour saturation and contrast using the same ratio of change. (In other words, although I’ve manipulated the final result, all the photos have received the same degree of alteration).
I had a few minutes between trains at Belfast Central, so in the interval I made a few photos with my Lumix LX7.
To compensate for less than ideal lighting I made nominal adjustments to the RAW files in post processing using Light room.
Essentially I lightened the shadows, brought down the highlights in the sky, and boosted colour saturation while slightly increasing overall contrast.
Last week Irish Rail class 071 worked the IWT Liner.
Dressed in the 1970s-era heritage livery, this locomotive has been a popular topic with local photographers.
The bright orange locomotive glistens even on a dull day.
I exposed this view on Friday (1September 2017) from Conyngham Road in Dublin (at the entrance to the Phoenix Park Tunnel) using my FujiFilm XT1 with 27mm pancake lens.
A few days ago, my daily Tracking the Light post featured a long distance telephoto view of Irish Rail’s Tara Mines zinc ore train crossing the Malahide causeway.
See: Long View: Tara Mines Zinc Ore Train at Malahide.
In that photo the train is relatively small in a big scene.
Three days later, David Hegarty and I were again out along the old Great Northern line, this time at Drogheda, to photograph the Tara Mines on the move.
In contrast to the distant view in the earlier posting, the photographs displayed here focus tightly on the locomotive and train using more classic three-quarter angle.
In the top photograph, I used my FujiFilm XT1 with a 90mm fixed telephoto for a tight compressed view (what some photographers might term a ‘telewedgie’).
While in bottom photograph I used my Lumix LX7 with zoom lens set with a wide-angle perspective that approximates the angle of view offered by a 35mm focal length lens on a traditional 35mm film camera.
I prefer the telephoto view for overall appeal; this handles the soft lighting conditions more satisfactorily, focuses more closely on the locomotive and train, minimizes bland elements of the scene such as the ballast and white sky, and offers a high impact image of the train in motion. Also it helps emphasize the trackage arrangement with crossovers between the up and down lines.
Irish Rail’s quad-track line southwest of Dublin is a popular place for photos.
Last week, Colm O’Callaghan and I made a trip down to Hazlehatch to make photos of trains on the move in the afternoon.
Belmond’s Grand Hibernian was passing down road when Colm said to me, ‘Quick, it’s the inspection car’. I had only a few seconds. I turned around and with little time to compose I fired off a few frames.
Both the train and the inspection car were in motion.
Only see one photo? That’s because you are not viewing this post on Tracking the Light (Hint: click the link).
Irish Rail maintains its 29000-series diesel railcars (built by CAF) at its Drogheda Depot.
Back in Janaury 2003 I photographed the very first of these trains being lifted out of the boat at Dublin port. (Thanks to the late Norman McAdams who had encouraged me to be dockside to make photos for the Irish Railway Record Society Journal).
I was reminded of that event while crossing the now disused trackage (half paved over) by the old Point Depot along the north Liffey Quays near where I made my photos.
These images were exposed last week at Drogheda using my digital cameras.
On the morning of 25 August 2017, David Hegarty and I were in position at Malahide looking toward the old Great Northern Railway causeway to photograph a laden Tara Mines Zinc Ore Train led by Irish Rail class 071 locomotive number 077.
I liked this location because it allowed me to picture the whole train in a scenic setting. As you can see the Tara Mines train is very short as demonstrated in this broad-side view (if you are viewing on FB you may need to click on Tracking the Light for the full photo).
To make this work I used a medium telephoto and then in post processing cropped the extraneous portions of the sky and water at top and bottom of the image.
I also altered contrast, colour balance and colour saturation.
I’m not fully satisfied though, because the dark locomotive and dull wagons with relatively flat lighting tend to get lost in the overall scene.
Lisburn is a surviving gem among old Great Northern Railway stations in Northern Ireland.
RPSI’s steam crew apologized for the weather, but there was no need. Steam locomotives make for excellent subjects when photographed at dusk in the rain.
This was my reunion with Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s engine 85, a Great Northern compound 4-4-0.
Honer Travers arranged my visit to Lisburn to witness the arrival of the scheduled Steam & Jazz special from Belfast, and introduced me to members of the crew (some of whom I’d met on previous occasions).
Working with three cameras, I made dozens of atmospheric images in the course of about 15 minutes. These photos were made digitally with my FujiFilm XT1 and Panasonic Lumic LX7. In addition, I exposed a handful of black & white photos using a Nikon loaded with Fomapan Classic.
Making the most of the moment: Using my Lumix LX7 I exposed this photograph of an Irish Rail 29000-series CAF-build diesel railcar crossing Dublin’s Loop Line at Gardner Street a few days ago.
Tracking the Light posts every day!
Four Photos:
The old Belfast & Northern Counties Railway Derry Station is adjacent to the contemporary Translink/NI Railways’ station.
Where the modern station is a functional utilitarian facility with all the charm of a small town bus station, the old station sits as an elegant vestige of former times when a railway station was viewed as a city gateway and endowed with suitable architecture.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7.
It had been a long time since I’d last traveled NIR’s Belfast to Derry railway line (in the original version of this post, I’d described this as the ‘Derry Road’ but several readers wrote into correct me, as the phrase ‘Derry Road’ refers to the long abandoned GNR route to Derry and not the present NIR line), and while I’ve been over the whole line between Derry and Belfast in stages, I’d never before actually traveled all the way from Belfast to Derry.
So, two weeks ago, Honer Travers and I organized a day out to Derry. We began our rail journey at Lisburn and traveled to Belfast Great Victoria Street where we changed trains.
After a wander in Derry, we returned by rail the way we had come.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily
Irish Rail’s class 201 General Motors-built diesel-electric number 215 (now technically 92 60 02 10215-6) was recently repainted in fresh green and silver paint.
Over the last few days I had several opportunities to photograph this locomotive up-close, allowing for some detailed images.
Here’s a selection of Lumix LX7 views.
Clear blue dome. Nice view. Short walk.
Islandbridge Junction near Heuston Station in Dublin.
I exposed this photo of Irish Rail’s IWT Liner (Dublin North Wall to Ballina, Co. Mayo) on the morning of 17 August 2017 using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera fitted with a 27mm pancake lens.
The other day I made this view of a CAF-built NI Railways train at the railway’s Adelaide Depot in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Exposed using a Panasonic Lumix LX7 digital camera.
I found it fascinating to finally see a tram negotiating Dublin Cross City trackage having followed the construction of the line over the last few years.
This my third post showing LUAS tram trial on 18 August 2017.
These photos were exposed using my FujiFilm X-T1 fitted with a 27mm pancake lens. That’s right: fixed focal length (no zoom).
Never mind the camera, what amazed me was how completely oblivious most passers by were to the tram. What does it take these days to catch notice?
On Friday August 18, 2017, Mark Healy and I met to document a LUAS 5000-series tram trial on new Cross City trackage.
This was my first experience seeing a tram working recently completed Cross City trackage.
Mark and I have been documenting LUAS Cross City progress for more than two years.
A couple weeks ago, I met fellow photographer Jay Monaghan in Cabra to document the passing of Belmond’s luxury tour train that was making it’s scheduled move to Dublin’s Connolly Station.
Using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera, I opted for this portrait-oriented (vertical) telephoto view to accentuate the Dublin Mountains. In contrast to my view, Jay executed a very nice wide-angle photograph that better shows the cutting and the length of Belmond’s train.
The Grand Hibernian uses 10 custom refurbished former Irish Rail Mark3 carriages, making it the longest regularly scheduled passenger train in Ireland.
In this instance an Irish Rail class 071 diesel is working the train, but for most moves Irish Rail 216 specially painted in Belmond navy-blue is assigned to it.
In season, Belmond’s high-end excursion train makes tours of Irish railways.
This afternoon Mark Healy and I were in the Dublin city centre to observe a LUAS tram trial on new Cross City trackage.
The trial was delayed when the tram was blocked by what appeared to be an illegally parked white Toyota Prius occupying the tracks on Parnell Street.
Eventually the driver of the automobile arrived to remove it from the tracks and the tram resumed testing.
I’ll post more LUAS Cross City trial photos in the coming days.
Here’s another instance where I was working with two cameras and two very different photographic media.
My Lumix LX7 is an easy tool to capture images digitally, while the Leica IIIa I carry requires a bit more work and yields a very different result using traditional 35mm black & white film.
Newcastle, County Down is a classic sea-side resort on the Irish Sea at Dundrum Bay.
It’s been many years since the old Belfast & County Down Railway branch line saw activity, yet the station-building survives.
A couple of weeks ago, Honer Travers brought me on a tour of rural County Down and was keen to point out the old Newcastle Station and nearby railway hotel.
Today, the old station has been repurposed to house a Lidl market, while the old railway hotel remains as a resort hotel (sans railway traffic).
My intent was to document these historic structures in their present roles.
It was raining.
I had the Leica IIIa fitted with a vintage Nikkor f3.5 35mm screw-mount lens and loaded with Kodak Tri-X.
And yes, I had a digital camera with me. Two, really. And I also made some colour views. I’ll tend to cover my bases when at a special location.
Honer Travers and I traveled down from Dublin on the Enterprise, having changed at Portadown to an NIR (Northern Ireland Railways) 4000-series CAF built railcar. Arriving at Lisburn, I paused to make these two black & photos of our train.
In Dublin, I processed the film using Agfa-mix Rodinal Special (not to be confused for bog-standard Agfa-mix Rodinal) mixed with water 1 to 31 at 68F for 3 minutes.
I like to play with developer to see what I can get with different combinations of chemistry. Agfa Rodinal Special with short development time allows for fine grain and a metallic tonality. While not as rich as Kodak HC110 (dilution B), the grain appears finer with Rodinal Special.
What? Not another of those InterCity Railcars?!
Yep.
I made these views from the St. John’s Road Roundabout bridge at Killmainham/Islandbridge in Dublin.
The light was fading, the train was shadowed and the situation routine: Irish Rail’s ICR pass this spot dozens of times daily. In fact, these trains rumble up and down all day long.
What initially caught my interest was the sunset glow in the north-west sky.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7, which exposes a RAW file.
After the fact, I made some heavy handed adjustments to exposure, contrast, colour balance and colour saturation to show what is possible with post processing.
In addition to enhancing the sky, I lightened the train and cutting while making a variety of localize adjustments, such as to the flowers at lower left.
I’m using the same essential approach that I used to apply to my black & white photography when making prints in the darkroom, except its now done digitally on the computer.
The graffiti at lower right is bit of an annoyance. In my final version, I’ve darkened the area around the graffiti to minimize it.
My first modified RAW image (presented as scaled JPG).
My twin posts focused on Lena, Illinois drew considerable interest and answers.
Regarding the monster eastward Canadian National freight; the actual number of cars carried on this one train was 280 (plus three leading locomotives and a lone DPU). That’s a real whopper at 1,144 axles (24 are the locomotives)!
A number of Tracking the Light readers wrote to me about the unusual GREX drawbar connected maintenance train. I’ve compiled these below into a brief essay.
The curious maintenance train was built by Georgetown Industries (a spinoff of Texas-based Georgetown Railroad), which uses the GREX reporting marks. This train is described by the manufacturer as a Self-Powered SlotMachine® and commonly as ‘slot train’ which is designed to distribute materials. Instead of conventional gondolas, this is in effect a string of permanently connected articulated gondolas with the ends removed.
Since there are no bulkheads between cars an excavator can be used to traverse the entire length to load or unload material. The train is especially useful when a railroad is faced with limited track access time or locations that are inaccessible by road. One application is to dump ballast between the rails on ‘skeletonized’ track.
One flaw with the train is that the solid draw bar and articulated connections between cars make it impossible to set out a car in case of defect.
The Slot train’s power is a relatively new creation and appears to be based on LORAM’S boxy power unit. Georgetown has several Slot train sets that work at various places around the country, the machinery is still being evaluated or leased an as of yet, these trains are a rare sight on American rails.
Another Georgetown creation is its Dump Train, which is a series of drawbar-connected hoppers featuring a conveyor belt running under the length of the train and a swing out conveyor belt at the unloading end to deliver aggregate line-side. The style of construction gives the train a nearly European appearance.
A thick layer of fog in Stafford, Connecticut made for an excellent environment for dramatic photos.
New England Central 608 (Willimantic – Palmer way freight) was on its northward leg, when I caught it approaching Connecticut Route 319 at Orcuttville.
A lone GP38 was at work this day with more than 20 cars in tow.
During the long days of July, I made a point of being up and OUT as early as there was light in the sky.
Those trains that go bump in the night in Winter have a bit of light on them in July.
I made this view before 6 am of the New England Central local crossing the Palmer diamond. The popular Steaming Tender restaurant is located in the old Palmer, Massachusetts Union Station station at left.
In July (2017), John Gruber and I visited the old Chicago & North Western at Jefferson Junction, Wisconsin. I was surprised to find that the railroad’s old mailbox remained.
It has been more than 22 years since the old C&NW was absorbed by Union Pacific. In 1995 at the end of C&NW’s independent operations I’d made photos of this same mailbox, which for me served as a symbol of the railroad.
Now it’s a faded vestige of another era. More than just the paint has changed.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily.
As noted in yesterday’s post, I’d been inspecting a maintenance train parked on the siding at Lena, when lo and behold, the signal cleared to green.
I alerted John Gruber and we took positions to make photographs.
So there we were along the old Illinois Central at Lena, Illinois in the fading glow of the evening sun. This had been IC’s line from Chicago via Dubuque to Council Bluffs, Iowa and Back in the mid-1990s it had been operated as a regional called the Chicago, Central & Pacific, before being re-incorporated into Illinois Central on the eve of IC being absorbed by Canadian National.
A headlight twinkled into view, and I could see that a freight was coming, but not very fast.
As it grew closer I had the innate sense that it was a really huge train.
Finally it roared by with CN SD70M-2 in the lead. Many cars into the train was a lone CN DASH8-40C employed as a DPU (distributed power unit, modern railroad lingo for a radio controlled remote.)
I’ll let you in on a secret: I counted the cars. And do you know what? This was the largest/longest train I’d ever seen on the move. That’s with more than 40 years of watching trains. Any guesses as to how many cars? Trust me, it was a doosie!
(To those of you that I’ve told about this already, please keep the correct answer under your hat. And if anyone was working this monster, perhaps you have greater appreciation for its size than I do.)
The answers will be revealed in an up-coming post!
A few weeks back, John Gruber and I were on our way back to Madison, Wisconsin from the Mississippi River Valley. We’d followed the old Milwaukee Road up to Lanark, Illinois, then cut northward on Illinois State highways.
The sun was a golden globe in the western sky above rolling corn fields.
At Lena we intersected Canadian National’s former Illinois Central east-west line that connects Chicago with Council Bluffs, Iowa. I noticed that the signals were lit red and that there was something unusual in the siding.
Unusual indeed! It was a self-propelled draw-bar connected train of articulated flatcars for maintenance service. I’d never seen anything like it.
I’d love to tell you all about it, except I know precious little, except that the ‘locomotive’ had EMD Blomberg trucks and the whole machinery carried GREX reporting marks. Perhaps if I do another book on railroad maintenance equipment, I’ll have the opportunity to research this train more thoroughly.
While I was studying this unusual railway machine, the eastward signals at the end of the siding changed aspects; the cleared from all red to ‘green over red.’ A train had been lined! Hooray!
Stay tuned!
A long long time ago, back in the 1990s, I’d travel with Mike and Tom Danneman (and others) to the Mississippi River Valley to photograph the old Chicago, Burlington & Quincy route to the Twin Cities.
Among our favorite vantage points were river-side bluffs in the Mississippi Palisades State Park north of Savanna, Illinois.
The line on the east bank was Burlington Northern back then. Today it is BNSF Railway (reflecting the 1995 merger between Burlington Northern and Santa Fe).
On a bright afternoon in July, John Gruber and I returned to this old haunt and put ourselves in position to make a few photographs.
As hoped, BNSF operated several trains, and we exposed views from the tops of the bluffs. I made these with my FujiFilm X-T1.
Any favorites?
