FL9

Sunday Feb 26 2006

Southern Pacific, Sun and Semaphores on February 22nd

Filed under Daily Doings | Posted by KenFL9 at 11:17 pm

After work on Wednesday I drove three hours west to Sweetwater in the fog and rain to visit my father. The weather did not change except for a few minutes of sun Saturday morning before I drove home to Benbrook in more fog and rain. That did not deter me from getting out trackside, as there were plenty of trains running while I was there. Today on Sunday the 26th it was clear and beautiful all day, so rather than staying home and catching up on these entries, I snuck out for an afternoon at Saginaw. I will get everything caught up in the next day or so, and in the meantime for today’s entry here is a sunny shot from 1997 of a westbound UP train with a still prevalent SP C44-9W #8107 on the point splitting a pair of semaphores just north of Coyote, NM. The track is still there today, but the SP and the semaphores have all vanished into the history books.

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Wednesday Feb 22 2006

Making the Most of the Situation on February 21st

Filed under Daily Doings | Posted by KenFL9 at 10:47 am

Today is our fifth day in a row of overcast weather, and we are supposed to have several more in store before seeing the sun again. I am headed out to Sweetwater after work on Wednesday to spend Thursday and Friday with my father, and I’ll be back on Saturday. I only have a dialup connection at his house, so it may be this weekend before I post any more web logs with photographs.

Yesterday I promised some better examples of making use of low light. There is nothing wrong with perfectly lit roster shots, but I always try to take advantage of the seemingly less than perfect conditions to record those special moments in railroading. A case in point was the last time I went to Sweetwater on December 30, 2005. I was looking at a colorful sunset ahead of me as I got off of I20 just west of Clyde, knowing I had a westbound UP auto rack train close behind me. I stopped at a set of signals on a curve that I already had in mind, and quickly set up the tripod to take a few test shots and make some exposure adjustments based on the histogram. This is where digital really comes in handy!

The approach-lit signal snapped on showing green, and less than a minute later the UP 4205 is coming right at me in the twilight as he nears the curve.

I got the first shot and wheeled around to get the going away shot with the green signal and the sunset. Traveling at 60mph, his power and most of the first car passed the signal with the green aspect reflecting off of the shiny side of the auto rack before it dropped to red in the next instant.

A check of the viewing screen allowed me to travel on to Sweetwater in the darkness content that I had nailed (in my opinion anyway) the photographs I had quickly planned for.

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Wednesday Feb 22 2006

Cabin Fever on February 20th

Filed under Daily Doings | Posted by KenFL9 at 10:01 am

I learned to drive in Connecticut with its snowy and icy winters, so I’m not too worried when the weather gets bad; but I do worry about the crazy drivers here that still drive 70 mph and then don’t understand why they could not stop before they crashed into you. So I waited until the temperatures got above freezing on Monday before succumbing to my cabin fever and getting out for a few trains.

I personally like to get out and photograph in any kind of weather, and try to compose shots that can’t be done on sunny days, which Monday definitely was not. This may be a good thing, as the subject for this year’s Trains Magazine/Canon Photo Contest is “The Elements.” Today though I pretty much stuck to the conventional angles, but I’m not afraid to show the overcast results here. Check tomorrow’s web log for better examples of how to use low light to your advantage.

I left the house a little after 2:00pm with the intention of meeting up with Troy Minnick around Saginaw. The radio indicated there was a southbound UP waiting on two northbound BNSF’s at Saginaw, but I knew I probably could not get there in time for that, so I decided to cruise Centennial Yard on the way up. A UP signal crew had the mainline red flagged at the west end, and they were programming the CTC signals for the new bypass tracks as the heads were now turned into working position and lit up.

The MFWOD train was made up and sitting at the west end in the yard. He had a NS GE on the point, but his third unit caught my attention as it was a new NS SD70M-2, my first in that paint scheme. I parked and walked across Vickery Boulevard for this broadside shot.

(Read on …)

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Sunday Feb 19 2006

Eastern Ohio on February 19th

Filed under Daily Doings | Posted by KenFL9 at 8:04 pm

It was a good time to stay at home and organize my files as a freezing drizzle fell outside all day. I spun the wheel and came up with these three views from the not to distant past in eastern Ohio. I always liked the Rio Grande’s paint scheme, and so when some of their management took over at the Wheeling & Lake Erie, it was refreshing to see a new version of that classic emerge.

First we see a freshly painted SD40-2 climbing the eastbound grade on the Rook Subdivision between Jewett and Pittsburgh Junction with traffic for Mingo Juction on the Ohio River. I could hear him coming for miles as he snaked up the narrow run at walking speed in 2003.