Sunlight? What’s that? After weeks of cold, wet, windy weather, we had a rare sunny afternoon in Ireland on Wednesday 8 March 2017.
Irish Rail class 201 number 232 was in fresh paint and working the up International Warehousing & Transport liner from Ballina to Dublin.
I traveled with Colm O’Callaghan to Stacumni Bridge near Hazelhatch on Irish Rail’s Dublin-Cork mainline. This is the section that was rebuilt with quad track a few years ago.
I made these images using my Fujifilm X-T1 with f2.0 90mm prime lens.
While waiting for the up-IWT Liner, I made this view of an Irish Rail ICR (Intercity Rail Car) heading down road from Dublin.Irish Rail 232 is in fresh green and silver paint. Exposed digitally using FujiFilm X-T1 with 90mm fixed lens.
This quiet overhead crossing of the quad-track is just past the 8 ¾ milepost from Dublin’s Heuston Station.
It offers an open view of the line with a favorable angle for down (traveling away from Dublin) trains mid-morning.
Milepost 8 3/4 as measured from Heuston Station, Dublin. Here an ICR passes en route to Portlaoise. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.An up ICR is only minutes away from Heuston Station. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.Cross lit view of another up ICR. The wire across the line south of bridge can be problematic.Always nice to catch an old 071 working the IWT liner. Here 088 does the honors. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.These days you can often IWT boxes on the liner of the same name.
It takes a tuned interest in Irish Rail’s operations and a bit of luck. to time a visit to coincide with passage of the weekday IWT Liner (International Warehousing & Transport container train between Dublin and Ballina) and the more elusive HOBS (high output ballast system).
Getting the clouds to cooperate is trickier yet again.
Clear blue sky for the down Mark4 to Cork. But in Ireland the clouds cross the sky at an alarming rate. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.A mix of sun and cloud greeted the up HOBS. It can drive you batty. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.And there it goes! Soon the HOBS will be stabled in the old Guinness sidings at Heuston. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.
A couple of weeks ago Colm O’Callaghan and I spent a strategic 45 minutes at Stucumny Bridge.
Even if you fail at catching the freight on the move, there’s always a steady parade of passenger trains.
In November 2009, I was at Stucumny Bridge near Hazelhatch (west of Dublin on the Cork line) to take a look at the recently opened quad track. It was a clear evening and the sun was an orange ball hanging in the western sky.
Shortly before sunset, up and down Mark 4 trains (Dublin-Cork) passed each other making for a nice illustration of the relatively busy line. I’ve always like glint photos where trains reflect low sunlight but these are hard to execute in Ireland for a variety of reasons.
An unmodified view; Irish Rail Mark 4 trains pass on the quad track at Hazelhatch in November 2009, exposed on Fujichrome Velvia 100 slide film using a Canon EOS 3 and f2.8 200mm telephoto .
I exposed this with my Canon EOS 3 and f2.8 200mm telephoto on Fujichrome Velvia 100 slide film. (Velvia has a super-saturated color palate that tends to enhance the sunset glow).
I calculated the exposure based on the sky rather than taking an overall reading that would tend to over expose the image. Here a bit of experience working with low sun really helps.
For me the real problem with the photo is the difficult wire cutting across the middle of the frame. There may have been an angle to avoid this altogether, but with the two trains moving, I had only a few moments to release the shutter. The electrical pylons and high voltage wires in the distance don’t bother me, these are part of the scene.
Here’s the same scan of Mark 4 trains at Hazelhatch, but modified using Photoshop to effectively erase the cable cutting across the middle of the frame. This image is an experiment, and by far the exception to the rule. I very rarely alter the content of my images.
I’ve taken the liberty of making an adjusted version of the photo by using Photoshop to extract the wire. I enlarged the scan of the slide and using the ‘Healing Brush’ and ‘Clone’ tools, I effectively blended the offending wire out of the image.
This is not something I normally do. Typically, I don’t apply visual surgery to alter my photos. However, with modern tools and a sense for retouching this is not especially difficult. It’s taken me twice as long to write up this post than it took to erase the wire. You can be the judge.
