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& Hummelstown

Yesterday’s post featured the Middletown & Hummelstown, a classic shortline that connects its namesake Pennsylvania towns.

Over the last 18 years, I’ve paid more than a dozen visits to Middletown. However until last Sunday I hadn’t visited Hummelstown.

[That’s not precisely accurate. Back in 1992, I traveled through Hummelstown by rail on the way to Pittsburgh. I recall passing the nearby Hershey plant.]

Kris had suggested that we take a drive to see if we could find a train on the move.

As we drove into Hummelstown for our first visit, we heard a distant horn sounding for a crossing. We made our way to the tracks, arriving in time to spot the headlights of an eastward Norfolk Southern double-stack container freight. Evening sun made for a nicely glinting silhoette. Talk about lucky!

I reached for my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm zoom and exposed a series of photos.

In post-processing, I cropped the distant image. Below are three versions of the distant view plus a closer image.

Full-frame without cropping.
Same image as above cropped to emphasize horizontal elements. The M&H track is at the left.
This is the same file with a few adjustements to contrast and exposure, plus cropping to emphasize vertical elements.
Closer view of the same train at Hummelstown.

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