#Washington Boro | Tracking the Light

Last night Kris suggested we drive around to find a train on the move, so we went over to Washington Boro, Pa., on Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Branch to check the signals.

We were in luck! And as soon as I saw that these had been cleared for an eastward move, I set up my 3Pod tripod.

Manipulating the camera in the inky darkness is easier said than done. As the train whistle announced its approach, I struggled to find my desired setting. I couldn’t see the dial and I was fighting with the camera to get the shutter speed, ISO, and lens settings where I wanted them.

Ultimately, I selected a default setting where the camera automatically set the ISO to 25,600 and allowed me to adjust the aperature.

All very well, but unable to see what I was doing led me to select some ‘random’ mode in the darkness that only exposed photos as JPG, rather than my usual setting that exposes both JPG and NEF (RAW) files simultaneously.

As the coal cars rolled by at speed on continuous welded rail, I finally got the camera into ‘M’ (manual mode), which enabled me to set the ISO to 200, the shutter speed to 90 seconds, and the aperture to f4. Unfortunately the White Balance was set to a daylight setting rather than an automatic, so I needed to fix the White Balance in post-processing.

It was pretty cool to finally catch a train here in darkness.

Auto ISO at 25,600-in camera JPG scaled for internet presentation.

Final frame; ISO 200 in Manual Mode. 90 sec exposure at f4.0. White balance corrected in Lightroom.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!

Over the course of recent weeks, Kris and I have explored locations on the Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Branch. This is a portion of former Pennsylvania Railroad that follows the Susquehanna River between the Harrisburg area and a connection with the Northeast Corridor at Perryville, Maryland.

PRR electrified the route in the 1930s, and it handled electrically powered freights until the Conrail era. The old electric catenary supports are evidence of this by-gone era. It has been more than 40 years since electric operations ended on this portion of the former Conrail system.

Daylight freight moves on the Port Road seem to be relatively rare, owing to an Amtrak daytime curfew on the Northeast Corridor route.

Last week, I left Lancaster very early and made my way to Columbia, PA where I picked up the Norfolk Southern Port Road line. In the morning glow, I found that home signal was lit ‘clear’ for a train movement toward Harrisburg. Expecting a train, I proceeded against it on the parallel highway to Washington Boro, PA, where I scoped a suitable location near a local park.

I waited for a few minutes, and soon heard the approaching freight.

I set up with my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens and exposed this sequence of an NS empty coal train rolling up river.

Since the train wasn’t moving more than about 25 mph, I followed it along the adjacent highway. Stay tuned for more!