The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland operated a steam charter last week using former Great Northern Railway engine 85 Merlin.
Rich afternoon sun and a colourful train made for easy photos at Killarney on 3 September 2018.
These views were among the digital photos I exposed with my FujiFilm XT1.
I was playing with scale and focus while working with the light to make the most of shadows.
Which is your favorite?
Learn more about the RPSI: https://www.steamtrainsireland.com
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).
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.
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).
