{"id":44140,"date":"2026-04-29T05:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T09:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44140"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:47:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T02:47:50","slug":"lucky-break-at-cola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/lucky-break-at-cola\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Break at Cola."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In early April, I had about 30 minutes to wait trackside along the Port Road Branch near the old Cola Tower in Columbia, Pa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the clock ticked down, my scanner had crackled a few times, which was probably an approaching train calling signals. About 28 minutes into my wait, I started the car to head away on my next errand . . . then I heard the radio, “clear signal Cola.” There was a train very close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments later the crossing lights for Walnut Street began to flash. With little time to squander, I grabbed my Nikons and made my way to the tower’s shadow, where a couple of years earlier I exposed some nice photos in the glint light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just after 7pm, this Norfolk Southern loaded coal train passed me on its way from the coal fields to Baltimore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time was right and I was ready<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Just after 7pm, this Norfolk Southern loaded coal train passed me on its way from the coal fields to Baltimore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","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":[6060,10,6108,48],"tags":[6568,8411,5383,6630,8396],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/NS_9846_w_coal_train_at_Cola_Tower_Columbia_PA\u00a9BrianSolomon_DSC_7334.jpg?fit=2048%2C1254","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-btW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44140"}],"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=44140"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44148,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44140\/revisions\/44148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}