{"id":44871,"date":"2026-08-10T07:44:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44871"},"modified":"2026-08-10T07:44:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:44:54","slug":"under-the-light-at-peachbottom-second-post-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/under-the-light-at-peachbottom-second-post-attempt\/","title":{"rendered":"Under the Light at Peachbottom-second post attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Based on past timings (where you gauge the progress of a train by the relative times between locations), I was confident we could beat the loaded coal train that we\u2019d rolled by on the Port Road Secondary at Washington Boro to the boat launch at Peach Bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the old days, I\u2019d have been trying to navigate the back roads using a DeLorme atlas. These days, we cheat and let Google Maps do the work for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We arrived at the grade crossing for the boat launch with plenty of time to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously, I\u2019d identified the light near the grade crossing as an aid to existing-light night photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the chug of GE diesels announced the heavy train\u2019s approach, I positioned the car, set up my tripod, and made a few test shots with my Nikon Z6-III and 50mm f\/1.4 lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The head-end views were exposed at f\/1.4, 1\/100th of a second, at ISO 32,000. The laser-beam effect of the headlights gained me about a half stop. In comparison, I used 1\/60th of a second for the views of the mid-train DPU (distributed power units), as these photos didn\u2019t benefit from the bright headlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tracking the Light Explores the Darkness!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the old days, I\u2019d be trying to navigate the backroad using a DeLorme atlas. These days we cheat and let Google Maps do the work for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","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],"tags":[4143,7555,5383,8484,7980],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bFJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44871"}],"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=44871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44876,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44871\/revisions\/44876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}