{"id":29311,"date":"2020-06-14T11:43:18","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T15:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=29311"},"modified":"2020-06-14T11:43:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T15:43:18","slug":"sundays-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/sundays-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday\u2019s Surprise."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I needed a topic for today\u2019s Tracking the Light, so I reached in to a sorting file of un-scanned slides and found this photo: Surprise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 13, 2004, photographer Mike Gardner and I chased New England Central Railroad’s 608 south from Palmer, through my hometown of Monson, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a chase I\u2019ve done countless times over the last 40 years, but just because you\u2019ve done something before, doesn\u2019t mean that you shouldn\u2019t try to find a new angle on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Robbins Road in Monson, I made this dramatic trailing view of the train’s locomotives. Here we have a selection of NECR GP38s roaring away in \u2018Run-8\u2019\u2014maximum throttle on the tooth of the grade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The train was moving 10-12 mph, producing a rush of engine exhaust along with traction motors blowers blowing to keep the motors cool. (And prevent them from over heating) These blasts of hot air, combined with the wind from the train\u2019s approach and passage, plus and sand from the sanders to maintain adhesion all helped stir up the ballast and fallen leaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a good chase and I wish I was there now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I scanned the photo using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 and VueScan software. My initial scan produced a 4000 dpi TIF file, which I then imported to Lightroom in order to scale it for presentation here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 2020 Trains Magazine features my 8-page article on New England Central.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Robbins Road in Monson, I made this dramatic trailing view of the locomotives. Here we have a selection of NECR GP38s roaring away in \u2018Run-8\u2019\u2014maximum throttle on the tooth of the grade. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,6108,48],"tags":[5188,5699,5060,5047,7535],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/NECR_608_State_Line_hill_at_Robbins_Road_Monson_MA_13Oct2004\u00a9BrianSolomon_200280-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1727","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-7CL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29311"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29314,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29311\/revisions\/29314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}