Exposed with a Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera with 18-135mm lens at 135mm.
This train originated in Boston the night before. I recall in the 1980s, when this run used to be named the Night Owl. Back in those times it ran Boston-Washington and carried a sleeping car.
At some point it was re-named the Twilight Shoreliner and carried a Viewliner. These days it’s the nameless train 67, which runs from Boston to Newport News, Virginia., sans Viewliner.
It’s a pity there’s no Amtrak sleeping car service overnight on the Corridor anymore.
Doug Riddell provided this location for Pat Yough and me during our Virginia-tour in early June. Eleven years earlier, Doug and I photographed a CSX coal train from nearly the same spot.
Yesterday’s post (see: A Thoroughbred versus a Heron) featured a series of photos of a Norfolk Southern freight on the lift bridge in the foreground that were made just a few minutes before I exposed this image.
I’d spotted the Heron standing on the old Southern Railway lift-bridge at Richmond’s Great Ship Lock Park, before I heard the low throb of the 645 diesel.
“There’s a train coming.”
Doug Riddell was giving Pat Yough and me a thorough tour of the area, and we were looking for an angle to photograph Amtrak 67 on the nearby Chesapeake & Ohio viaduct.
I focused on the bird. Would it stay still long enough to catch it with the locomotive?
Here my zoom lens was invaluable. I made tight angle of the heron, and then pulled back to include the scene.
Exposed using a Fuji X-T1.
The SD40-2 eased around the bend. I kept my eye on the bird. How long would it stand there? Finally as the train drew closer the bird raised its wings and with a squawk took flight. I exposed a short burst of images. The tightest is a cropped view.
This is the full-frame un-cropped image. In the blink of an eye the Heron took flight and was gone.
It was 30 years ago this morning that I exposed this black & white photo of a northward Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac piggyback train at Alexandria, Virginia.
RF&P was among the railroads melded into the CSX system.
Exposed on Kodak black & white film with a Leica 3A fitted with an old 50mm Elmar with non-standard f stop settings. Among the other challenges of using this lens was its lack of modern color coatings. However, it was a very sharp piece of glass.
I was on a personal tour of Richmond hosted by my friend Doug Riddell. This was aimed at making photographs, while exploring some history of the area and the nuts and bolts of real railroading.
We paused at Richmond’s Main Street Station to make this photograph of an Amtrak train bound for Newport News. Hoppers roll by on an adjacent bridge.
I was intrigued by the technological contrast between the Genesis diesel-electric and the old Budd-built baggage car behind it. Now, ten years later, Amtrak is replacing its old baggage cars with new cars.
Exposed on Fujichrome with a Nikon F3 with Nikkor f2.8 24mm lens.
The old baggage were among Amtrak’s last heritage equipment inherited from the private railroads when it assumed passenger operations more than four decades ago.
Hmm, sounds like the chorus to a song. It was cool and damp when Amtrak’s Carolinian departed Trenton a little after 8am this morning (May 28, 2014). Now, its 94 degrees Fahrenheit outside!
We’ve been traveling at a reduced speed because of the heat. An customer (passenger?) announcement was made in this regard, shortly after we crossed the diamonds at Doswell (historically where the Chesapeake & Ohio crossed the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac).
There’s lots of CSX freight on the line, if not moving particularly fast.
Amtrak’s streamliner-era Budd-baggage car on train 79 at Richmond, Virginia at 1:31 pm May 28, 2014. Lumix LX-7 photo.
At Richmond, Staple Mills Station, we stopped for a crew change and a ‘smoke brake’. (If burning through the pixels with the LX-7 counts as ‘smoke,’ I’m in.)
A northward CSX trash train with an AC6000CW was parked near the head-end of Amtrak 79, Carolinian. It was a bit of shock to step out of the air-conditioned Amfleet car and into the heat.
Amtrak 79’s crew change at Richmond. Lumix LX-7 photo.CSX AC6000CW leads an empty trash train bound for The Bronx at Staples Mills Station, Richmond, Virginia. Lumix LX-7 photo.The AC6000CW features a pronounce radiator overhang that helps identify this locomotive. For a number of years these machines were common on the Boston & Albany route. Today, I saw no less than three in Richmond. Exposed on May 28, 2014 with a Lumix LX-7.Among the features of the Panasonic Lumix LX-7 is a ‘digital zoom’ which allows for the effect of a much longer lens than offered optically. While this is really simply cropping in on the sensor, it does make photos like this one possible on site. I used the digital zoom as a composition tool, but I made another image the limits of the optical zoom as well. What I like about this long-telephoto angle is the signals to the right and the picket-fence effect of the canopy supports on the left. LX-7 photo.
Our baggage car belongs to the streamlined era. Appropriate, since we are going to the North Carolina Transportation Museum’s Streamliners at Spencer event. Later this year I’ll be writing a book on American railroad’s streamlined era to be published by Voyageur Press!
