Extra! Extra! Irish Rail 077 in the new Livery makes one its first daylight runs.
Irish Rail locomotive number 0117077 leads a wagon transfer over the River Liffey at Islandbridge at 4:25pm on April 10, 2013. Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens.
A few minutes ago, at 4:25 pm, April 10, 2013, I caught Irish Rail’s 071 class locomotive 0117077 working a wagon transfer from Inchicore to Dublin’s Northwall . While the locomotive has worn this new paint for about a month, today it finally left its sequester at Inchicore works. It was understood to have worked a trial to Sallins (on the Cork road) earlier in the day.
Irish Rail locomotive number 0117077 leads a wagon transfer over the River Liffey at Islandbridge at 4:25pm on April 10, 2013. Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens.
The locomotive’s expanded number is intended to comply with European numbering conventions.
Irish Rail 0117077 leads a wagon transfer over the River Liffey at Islandbridge at 4:25pm on April 10, 2013. Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens.
It was a rare day in Dublin. After what has been reported as the coldest March on record (and, undoubtedly one of the grayest), waking up to a clear blue dome was a joy. As a weekday, Irish Rail had fair bit on the move, above its normal schedule of passenger trains.
Irish Rail Class 201 number 224 rolls through Islandbridge Junction with the Dublin-Ballina IWT-Liner on April 2, 2013.
My first move was to catch the ‘down IWT Liner’ (Dublin to Ballina International Warehousing and Transport container train) from my usual spot. This place is easy, too easy, so has often become my default location. Not to linger, I hopped on the LUAS (Dublin’s tram system) to meet my friend Colm O’Callaghan down (at) the North Wall (near Dublin port).
We proceeded to a favored overhead bridge at Claude Road on Dublin’s North Side to catch Irish Rail’s last orange 071 (number 084) working a long welded rail train up from the permanent way depot (track maintenance yard). This was delayed coming across from Islandbridge by the passage of scheduled trains on the Sligo Line.
A Sligo to Dublin Connolly passenger train passes Claude Road, Dublin.The long welded rail train approaches Claude Road in Dublin on April 2, 2013. Once standard, orange trains have all but vanished from Irish Rail in recent years. General Motors-built class 071 number 084 is the last locomotive in traffic to wear orange paint. A new livery is being applied to the 071 class presently.
After catching this unusual train, we moved down to the Cork Line at Lucan South to wait for the ‘Up IWT Liner’ from Ballina led by another of the 071 Class General Motors diesels.
All of these images were exposed with my Canon EOS 7D. Had I anticipated such a productive venture, I would have brought along a film camera. Perhaps next time!
The Ballina to Dublin IWT liner works ‘up road’ on the slow line near Lucan South in west suburban Dublin. Not far behind is a Cork to Dublin-Heuston Mark4 on the fast line. This will overtake the freight in a few minutes.
I’ll be presenting my illustrated talk “Ireland through American Eyes 1998-2008 My first Decade in Ireland” to the London area Irish Railway Record Society on April 18, 2013.
The program begins at 1900 (7pm) upstairs at the Exmouth Arms, 1 Starcross Street, LONDON NW1, (advertised as a 5 minute walk from London’s Euston station). A nominal donation of £3.50 is asked of non-IRRS members (members £2.50)
GS&WR 186 with Easter Eggspress at the Dalkey Tunnel April 1, 2013. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D fitted with 28-135mm lens, ISO 800.
This morning (April 1, 2013), I rode Irish Rail’s Dublin Area Rapid Transit service from Dublin to Dalkey, and walked out via Sorrento and Vico Roads to an overlook on the old Dublin & South Eastern line near the Dalkey Tunnel. While I photographed the parade of passenger trains, my primary objective was to catch GS&WR 186 exiting the tunnel with the Railway Preservation Society Ireland’s Easter Eggspress.
I featured this 19th century 0-6-0 in my book Steam Power (published by Voyageur Press in 2009) on pages 158-159 and 180-181. While I’ve made many photos of this engine over the years, I wanted to catch it at least one last time, as it’s my understanding that the locomotive is due to be withdrawn soon and may not be returned to traffic in the near future.
Using two cameras, I exposed two parallel sequences of digital images, which required some ambidextrous action on my part. I positioned my Lumix LX3 on a pocket tripod, and operated this with my left hand, while with my right hand I worked my Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens. Displayed here are selected results from both cameras.
Lumix LX3 wide angle view.
Just a reminder:
I’ll be presenting my illustrated talk “Ireland through American Eyes 1998-2008 My first Decade in Ireland” to the London area Irish Railway Record Society on April 18, 2013.
The program begins at 1900 (7pm) upstairs at the Exmouth Arms, 1 Starcross Street, LONDON NW1, (advertised as a 5 minute walk from London’s Euston station). A nominal donation of £3.50 is asked of non-IRRS members (members £2.50).
This time last week (Thursday March 21) I was getting ready to fly to Brussels. My bag was packed; my passport and tickets were organized. Then word came over the telegraph that an 071 was to work Irish Rail’s second Dublin-Ballina IWT Liner (International Warehousing and Transport)
As previously mentioned on Tracking the Light (see: Irish Rail at Clondalkin, February 21, 2013), Irish Rail runs a weekday container train between Dublin and Ballina. On Thursdays, traffic demands a second Dublin-Ballina train.
In recent months, Irish Rail has largely assigned its common 1994-1995 General Motors 201-Class diesels to this freight service, and the older General Motors 071-Class have only worked it infrequently. So, when I heard that Irish Rail 075 was on the train, I was keen to make some photos.
I had two hours before I needed to aim for Dublin Airport—plenty of time. On the downside, the weather wasn’t so cooperative. It was overcast, very windy, and spitting rain. Not my favorite conditions, but I’ll make photos in just about any circumstances. So, when my friend Colm O’Callaghan suggested we make the effort, I grabbed my travel bag and cameras and headed out the door.
This would require only a very short wait, or so we thought! When we arrived at Cherry Orchard, an industrial area in the west Dublin suburbs, the telegraph informed us that the second IWT was still in the yard at the North Wall. In other words, it hadn’t left yet, and was still at least 20 minutes away. An hour ticked by. In the mean time we caught the Ballina-Dublin ‘up IWT’ liner with a 201-class.
Then my phone rang; a client needed a photo immediately. A difficult proposition considering that the photo was buried on a hard-drive that I hadn’t planned to access for another week! My plans changed, I had to head home and address this request before making for the airport. My two-hour cushion had just been eroded. Still no IWT liner, and time was running out.
We gave up and were about to leave, when the telegraph came to life: the IWT had passed Islandbridge! It was on its way and not far off. Unfortunately, a clattering of passenger trains preceded it. Another 10 minutes gone. Finally, we heard the approaching roar of a 12-645 turbocharged diesel! Our perseverance paid off: 075 with the ‘down IWT’.
Irish Rail 075 leads the 2nd IWT Liner at Cherry Orchard on Thursday March 21, 2013. Photo exposed with a Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens, contrast and color balance adjusted in Photoshop.Photo exposed with a Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens, no post-processing adjustment, except for scaling.
I dashed home, sent off the requested photo, then made for Dublin Airport on the 747 Airport Bus. Stay tuned for my photographs of Belgian railways . . .
Trailing view of the 2nd IWT Liner at Cherry Orchard.
I’ll be presenting my illustrated talk “Ireland through American Eyes 1998-2008 My first Decade in Ireland” to the London area Irish Railway Record Society on April 18, 2013.
The program begins at 1900 (7pm) upstairs at the Exmouth Arms, 1 Starcross Street, LONDON NW1, (advertised as a 5 minute walk from London’s Euston station). A nominal donation of £3.50 is asked of non-IRRS members (members £2.50)
An Irish Rail six-piece Intercity Railcar works down road at milepost 4 1/4 near Clondalkin. Canon 7D with 100 f2.0 lens. ISO 200 1/500th second at f5.6.
This morning (February 21, 2013), Dublin dawned frosty and dull. On Thursdays, Irish Rail runs a pair of intermodal freight liners between Dublin port and Ballina, County Mayo for shipping company IWT (International Warehousing and Transport). Today, the first of the two IWT Liners (as the freights are generally known) departed the yards at the North Wall just after 9:31 am. As it was led by a common 201-class diesel and the weather remained especially dull outside, I opted to let it pass undocumented, as I’ve often photographed this train in nice light. The second train, however, was running with Irish Rail 074, one of the 1970s-era General Motors-built 071 class diesels, which is of greater interest to me. So this afternoon, my friend Colm O’Callaghan and I went to a favored spot near Clondalkin in the western suburbs at milepost 4 ¼ , where we waited patiently in Baltic conditions. While the temperature was a balmy 3 degrees Celsius (about 37 Fahrenheit), the biting wind and general dampness made it feel much colder. Just ten days ago I was out in much colder conditions at Palmer, Massachusetts (USA), where it was about -17 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit), and it hadn’t felt so bad. There’s nothing like a raw Irish day to cut through you.
Irish Rail 074 leads the second Dublin-Ballina IWT liner near Clondalkin on February 21, 2013 at 1:20 pm. Canon 7D with 40mm pancake lens; ISO 200 1/500th at f5.0.
Clondalkin is on the short stretch of quad-track mainline between Cherry Orchard (no cherries near the place!) and Hazelhatch that was expanded from the old double-line at the end of the Celtic Tiger-era boom years. The slight curve at the end of a long tangent in an area of industrial estates makes for an interesting setting to capture trains on the roll. However, it isn’t the nicest place to stand around exposed on a cold day. Complicating photography are high palisade fences and other fencing on the bridge that requires some creative solutions to overcome. While waiting for the down IWT liner, we witnessed the usual parade of passenger trains, all running to time, on the new Irish Rail time table.
The mildly overcast conditions encouraged us to make a cross-lit view of the liner from the north side of the line, rather than the more traditional three-quarter angle from the south side. I like the north side view on a dull day because it offers a better angle on the quad track and signaling.
Irish Rail ICR near Islandbridge, Dublin, February 18, 2013. Canon 7D with 40mm pancake lens; ISO 200, f11 at 1/30th second.
Here’s a panned view of an Irish Rail intercity railcar near Islandbridge, Dublin that I exposed a little while ago (February 18, 2013). A pan of a 22K-series ICR? No, this isn’t a litany of complaint regarding the common Rotem-built Irish Rail intercity vehicle. Rather, it’s an example of one of my favorite techniques for showing motion. I learned to pan from my father, who used the technique to compensate for slow speed Kodachrome film. In the early 1960s, he made some stunning rainy-day images of Pennsylvania Railroad’s Baldwin ‘Sharknose’ diesels working the New York & Long Branch. Check my Vintage Diesel Power by Voyageur Press to view some of these photos.
The trick to making a successful pan is to manually select a moderately slow shutter speed (1/15th to 1/60th of a second), then follow a train with the camera, gently releasing the shutter at an appropriate moment. I find that pivoting my whole body helps makes for smoother motion. Key to this exercise is planning to continue the panning motion after the shutter is released. Stopping too soon may result in unplanned blurring of the main subject. Also, I usually pick a fixed point in the frame to follow the front of the train. My Canon 7D has lines on the viewfinder screen that aids this effort. I’ll discuss the panning technique in greater detail in a future post.
In 2003, Irish Rail operated its sugar beet trains via Kildare because the normal routing between Waterford and Limerick Junction was closed as result of a bridge collapse at Cahir, County Tipperary. On December 6, 2003, I was in place at Cherryville Junction (where the Waterford Road joins the Cork Road—a few miles west of Kildare Station) to catch a laden sugar beet train on its way from Wellingtonbridge, County Wexford to Mallow, County Cork. (Since there is no direct chord at Cherryville to allow a movement from the Waterford Road onto the Cork Road in the down direction, this sugar beet train would continue up to Kildare where the locomotive would run around, thus allowing the train to reverse direction for its onward journey to Mallow.)
Irish Rail laden sugar beet train at Cherryville, Junction 6 December 2003.That same day, I was also fortunate to intercept locomotive 124 and a three-piece Mark3 push-pull, normally assigned to the Limerick-Limerick Junction shuttle, returning from Dublin after working a ‘relief’ from Limerick Junction.
It was a characteristically dull day. I was working with a Rollei Model T (120 size roll film fitted with a f3.5 Zeiss Tessar) and Fuji Neopan™ 400 film. Key to obtaining the desired tonality was my process. For developer I used Agfa Rodinal Special™ 1:32 with water for 7 minutes, then after dual fixing baths, Perma Wash™ for 3 minutes, and 10 minutes in running water, I toned the negatives in selenium solution (mixed 1:9 with water) for 9 minutes, then re-washed for 20 minutes in running water. (Warning: selenium is poisonous and should be handled with extreme care in a well-ventilated room). See: Installment 6: Black & White revisited; Old Tech for a New Era part 2—Secrets Revealed!.
For comparison, I’ve scanned the entire 120 size negative strip. This is in color and unmodified during scanning. The slightly purple tone is a result of the selenium toner. The two primary benefits from toning negatives with selenium solution are improved highlight density and better archival quality. While the effect is subtle, it adds snap to photographs exposed on a dull day.
Irish Rail class 141 diesels 160 and 148 lead empty beet wagons at Cherryville Junction on 6 December 2003. The train has taken the switch and is headed toward Waterford.
