Tag Archives: #Perryville

photography

A More Traditional Approach to Railroad Night Photography

Yesterday on Tracking the Light, I posted high-ISO action photos of MARC train 544 rolling into the former Pennsylvania Railroad station at Perryville, Maryland. Those photos were made handheld at ISO 20,000.

After the train came to a full stop, I returned to our car to retrieve my 3Pod tripod and swapped lenses, exchanging my “fast 50” for the slower, but more versatile, 24–70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom.

With ample time to set up, I exposed a series of static, long-exposure, relatively low-ISO images with the camera solidly fixed on the tripod.

This is among my favorites. It was made from a low angle with the zoom set to 33mm. I processed the RAW file using PureRAW and made contrast adjustments in Lightroom. On the big screen, you can see stars in the sky.

Nikon Z6-III with Nikkor Z 24-70mm f4.0 S  Zoom, set at ISO 500, f4, 1.6 seconds.

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Wye at Perryville, Maryland

Arriving at Port Deposit, we heard that Norfolk Southern’s 38V (Enola to Baltimore) was at Perryville and preparing to enter Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. To intercept it, we made the short drive to the former Pennsylvania Railroad station in Perryville on the east side of the Susquehanna River.

Although the Baltimore leg of the wye runs adjacent to the station parking lot, it doesn’t offer a good view because of a fence and some unkempt trees. To get a better angle, I walked to where the line crosses the road on an overhead bridge.

Not every image is calendar photo. My goal was simply to document a train and its location with interesting photos, and these images do exactly that.

Norfolk Southern 8021 leads freight 38V as it is about to leave the Port Road Secondary at Perryville, Maryland. The passenger station is behind me.

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Four Susquehanna Bridges

Hot weather last week made for sauna-like conditions along the Susquehanna River.

We pulled into Port Deposit, where a riverside park offers views of the four long-span bridges that cross the river between Perryville and Havre de Grace, Maryland.

I made this photograph using my Nikon Z7-II with a 70–200mm lens, then cropped the image to better feature an Amtrak Regional train crossing the most distant bridge. The train was powered by ACS-64 electric locomotives at each end.

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Amtrak’s Crescent Under Wire

The Crescent is Amtrak’s daily long-distance train that connects New York City with Atlanta and New Orleans.

Nearly five years ago, my father and I traveled overnight on the Crescent between Wilmington, Delaware and New Orleans as part of a three-day Amtrak epic that began at Windsor Locks, Connecticut and concluded at Houston, Texas.

During mid-October, Kris and I spent the afternoon following the Susquehanna River down to Perryville, Maryland. I navigated our way to the MARC commuter rail station from memory. (I’d last stopped there in 1992). This is situated along Amtrak’s former Pennsylvania Railroad’s Northeast Corridor. Upon arrival, I saw there was a train coming, alerted Kris and grabbed my Nikon Z6 to make telephoto views.

As the train approached, I made this sequence of digital images, while Kris filmed its passing with her phone. It was the southward Crescent with Viewliner sleepers and diner at the back.

Crosslit late autumn sun made for dramatic images as the train braked for the slow order over the Susquehanna River bridge. The challenge was capturing the light on the train between shadows from the electrification supports. (Tip: It helps to have a rapid release setting to take bursts of images.)

Another train was approaching from the far side of the river. But I’ll save that for a later post.

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