Low clouds, bright city lights, and lots of freight on the move; that was my brief experience touring Houston’s railroad yards on the evening of December 18, 2018.
Tom Kline gave my father and me a whirlwind tour and I made atmospheric grab shots as we drove around.
The photos here were made using high-ISO on my FujiFilm XT1. These were made ‘on the fly’, handheld from Tom’s truck without benefit of a tripod or set up time.
I was delighted with my results and I’ve promised Tom that someday I’ll return for some daylight photography.
In August 2011, Chris Guss and I were exploring Kansas City Southern’s mainline south of Neosho, Missouri.
We made a series of night photos around Ginger Blue. This place gets points for its evocative name. The classic search light signals were another bonus.
As Chris set up and tested his synchronized strobes, I made a series of photos of the signals and surrounding farm yard.
Exposed using a Canon EOS 7D mounted on a tripod. Synchronized strobe lighting was blended with a long time exposure to allow for effects of existing light, including the focused beam of the searchlight signal.
My ‘behind the scenes’ image. The white streaks are traces of Chris Guss’s flash light. This was a five minute exposure made digitally and largely with available light. If you look closely, you can see some of the lighting stands and at left, one of the signals. Note the star trails in the sky.
My new book Classic Railroad Signals from Voyageur Press covers the search lights, semaphores and other types of historic signal hardware. I’m looking forward to perusing my author’s copy!
An eastward KCS train 29 works its way upgrade through a tunnel and kudzu covered cutting. It was the dead of winter so the vines had died. I wonder what it’s like here in July? This is the former Mid South, nee Illinois Central east-west route, now part of the KCS-Norfolk Southern Meridian Speedway joint-venture.
KCS 29 had changed power and crews at the Vicksburg Yard and at 1pm on January 21, 1996 was working east upgrade. Exposed on Fujichrome 100 using a Nikkormatt FTN with Nikkor 35mm PC lens. Lens set at f4.5, camera at 1/125th of a second. Slide scanned with an Epson V600. Contrast adjusted in post processing.
In January 1996, I was the guest of Gerald Hook. He’d invited me to Baton Rouge to give a presentation on how a magazine was produced to the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. At the time I was Editor of Pacific RailNews and had a bit of insight into these matters.
Gerald gave me a tour of area railroads. On January 21, 1996, we drove from Baton Rouge to Vicksburg, Mississippi to meet with Danny Johnson, who led our expedition.
It was a great day to explore railroads! Thanks guys!
