Tag Archives: #Tyrone

Foliage at Tyrone

In mid-October, Kris and I intercepted the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society’s excursion on the Nittany & Bald Eagle. This paused at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where I made photos of Lycoming Valley 2011 (a former Southern Pacific GP35) surrounded by backlit brightly colored leaves of trees along the line.

In an earlier time I might have refrained from making these images because of the chain link fence between me and the tracks. In this instance, I accepted the fence as a feature of the location. The leaves more than made up for it.

A week later we returned to Tyrone. It was late in the day and the sunlight was low and foliage was brilliant. But during that brief visit, not a wheel turned, neither on the Main Line nor the Bald Eagle Branch, so I photographed the tracks with trees.

Main Line at Tyrone

Between Huntingdon and Tyrone, Pa., the old Pennsylvania Railroad Middle Division follows a path carved by the Little Juniata River.

By contrast, we took a more direct route by driving west via Routes 22 and 453. This allowed us to get well ahead of the westward Norfolk Southern freight that we rolled by at Huntingdon.

On arrival at Tyrone, an eastward NS intermodal was approaching, Kris photographed this from the window of the car with her Fuji X-T4.

With time to spare, I set up for a dynamic view of the westward train, exposed from a postion on the Amtrak platform using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm zoom.

I’ve included two versions of the photo that exhibit varying degrees of post processing to make the most of the image.

I’m on the fence on this photo. I also exposed a color slide using my F3 with an f2.0 135mm telephoto. I’ll be curious to see how this came out.

Uncrossed version with only moderate post processing changes. Exposed at 70mm f4 1/1000 sec.
This version exhibits a variety of changes to the original file, including the selective cropping to eliminate the sky and make the most of autumn foliage. Both photos were processed from the same Nikon NEF RAW file. I think I like the top (uncropped) version better.

Getting to Tyrone was on the day’s agenda, and here we had a more elusive quarry to capture. The NS trains were just a bonus.

Stay tuned . . .

Tracking the Light is a daily Work in Progress!

Stack Train at Tyrone

It had been about 20 years since my last visit to the Main Line at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where Norfolk Southern’s former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks make a sharp curve through the narrow valley along the Little Juniata River the south end of town.

Last month, Kris and I pulled up to theTyrone Amtrak station, and when I stepped out of the car I could hear the distant sounds of General Electric diesels chugging east.

We didn’t have long to wait and soon a headlight appeared.

Working with my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm zoom, I made this series of photos. Telephoto compression in the tight curve at the station makes it look like I was much closer to the tracks that I really was.

Auto focus made it much easier to keep the locomotives looking sharp.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!