{"id":45091,"date":"2026-09-16T07:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T11:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=45091"},"modified":"2026-09-16T07:38:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T11:38:02","slug":"variation-on-a-nocturnal-theme-coal-train-at-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/variation-on-a-nocturnal-theme-coal-train-at-columbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Variation on a Nocturnal Theme\u2014Coal Train at Columbia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Under the cover of darkness, Norfolk Southern unit coal train 632 (Keating to Baltimore) was rolling down the Royalton Branch. Kris and I waited for it in Columbia, Pa., and when we heard it was getting close, I moved into position opposite Pennsylvania Railroad’s old Cola tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried this angle several weeks ago and felt it had potential for another try. I like it because the location is readily visually identifiable and has a lot of railroad history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the challenges at this location at night is trying to compensate for the locomotives’ excessively bright headlights. This evening, I was also facing high humidity, stemming from damp conditions along the Susquehanna River, which kept causing condensation on the lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My result is atmospheric, if imperfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon Z6-III, 50mm f\/1.4 lens, set at ISO 40,000, 1\/160th of a second, f\/1.4. NEF RAW file processed using PureRaw 9 with DeepPRIME 3 digital corrections.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

I moved into position opposite Pennsylvania Railroad’s old Cola tower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[6568,8411,7979],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bJh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45091"}],"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=45091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45093,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45091\/revisions\/45093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}