Tag Archives: #railphoto

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

The March of a Twelve-Wheeler

Over the last month of so, Kris and I have paid weekly visits to Pennsylvania’s Strasburg Rail Road to observe and photograph their trains.

During this time, former Canadian National Mogul-type 89 has been the star attraction. However, on Friday, we observed the 5 and 7pm trains that ran with former Norfolk & Western 4-8-0 number 475.

I really like the way this locomotive looks and sounds. It had a long tapered boiler and smoke box that gives it a classic appearance, while its whistle makes a low mournful cry that stirs a vision of the past.

We waited at Esbenshade road for the return of the 7pm train, listening to the engine work upgrade and sound for the crossings.

I made this sequence of photos with my Nikon Z digital cameras as the train approached.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!

photography

Grand Central—Times Square Shuttle revisited in Four Photos.

1 Comment

A short, curious, and heavily traveled part of the New York City subway system, is the two-stop Grand Central—Times Square Shuttle that runs solely between its namesake points.

Last week, Honer Travers and I made the journey on this relic.

Historically, two of my big challenges for color subway photography were exposure and color balance/color temperature.

Today, the Grand Central—Times Square Shuttle stations are brightly lit. I set my Lumix LX7 color temperature control to ‘auto white balance,’ which obviates most unwanted color temperature spikes caused by artificial light.

Other than scaling for internet presentation, I didn’t modify these images post processing for color temperature/color balance, contrast or exposure.

Lumix LX7 photo: f1.6 1/30th second.

Lumix LX7 photo: f1.6 1/20th second.

Lumix LX7 photo: f1.6 1/20th second.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily.

photography

Irish Rail 214: Two Sunrise Views, Dublin and Mallow.

3 Comments

This pair of photos depict Irish Rail class 201, engine number 214 at work on passenger and freight.

The top photo was exposed in July 2005. I wanted to make a photo of the 0700 (7am) Dublin-Cork passenger train departing Dublin Heuston, before the service was changed to one of the new Mark4 sets.

My theory was that this service was rarely photographed leaving Dublin owing to the early hour and backlit sun. I had months left to do this, but by July the days were getting shorter, and by the following summer the Mark 4s would be in traffic. (It pays to think ahead).

So I went to my favorite spot on the St. John’s Road, and used my Contax G2 with 28mm lens and exposed a few frames of Fujichrome Sensia (100).

Irish Rail 214 departs Dublin with the 0700 train for Cork. Today the Mark3 carriages are a memory and 214 is stored at Inchicore.

The bottom photo was exposed at Mallow on 18 July, 2003 at 0622 (6:22am). I’d gone out for another train, but instead caught this late running cement that was carrying some containers at the front. The train paused for three minutes at Mallow to change crews.

Here, I worked with Fujchrome Sensia (100 ISO) using my Nikon F3 with a 180mm Nikkor telephoto lens.

These are part of my continuing series on the Irish Rail 201 class locomotives aimed to mark my 20 years of railway photography in Ireland (1998-2018).

Tracking the Light posts daily.