Adventures in Digital Photography

Adventures in Digital Photography
November 8-2002

This weekend, I've managed to commandeer the digital camera, a Sony 3.3 MegaPixel Mavica with CD RW drive, again, and it looks like it might be a nice enough to attempt some pictures. So, after some minor clouds cleared out this morning, I headed west to Galesburg to see what BNSF might be running today. Making the usual rounds of The Burg revealed not much of interest, or anything that might be worth testing the camera on. The only trains running were either westbound or northbound, away from the sun. There was a U-MADALL taconite train heading north and an E-MEKBTM going west (with a single MAC on the head end, something the crew seemed a little concerned about). I think an EB UP stack train snuck through on the passenger main too, but I managed to miss him, thinking it was going to hold at Henderson St. for a re-crew. Not a big loss, as the binocs revealed a very(typically) grimy set of UP SD70Ms. So, I messed around at Thirwell, taking some miscellaneous shots and seeing what kind of stuff this camera does. I think I would rather have a straight viewfinder to look through rather than relying on the LCD screen on the camera. When the sun is out, the screen is really hard to see, and having peripheral vision still while taking a picture kind of messed with my head at first. I was trying to rosterize the yard switcher at the depot and another foamer pulled up at the last minute, temporarily distracting me just as I pressed the shutter. Lets just say that it's good there's an erase function.

Any ways, the first train that I managed to shoot today was this mixed up consist looking like it's straight from a
Four Ways West BNSF Motive Power Annual. I think this is the M-CHIGAL or M-NTWGAL with
Dash 8-40-B/SW12/GP60B/SD40/Dash 8-40-B:

BNSF 8626 W

Just out of the frame to the left is another UP stack train coming up the passenger main. I almost missed this one too, thanks to them not stopping for a new crew at Henderson St. They must have gotten more Ft. Mad crews trained up the Mainline. So, I had to settle for a going out of the sun shot at I-74. Had I not had the digital, I wouldn't have even chased this train, but I was just trying to do as many different things as possible with the camera. Here is the UP 4358 E @ I-74:

UP 4358 E

    Wow, that one pretty much sucks, I hadn't realized until now. Not only is it going away from the sun, I also managed to get a shadow from the signal bridge right on the nose. Oh well, it's on here now, but don't let that scare you away, there are better shots just down the page, I promise. After this shot, it was off for lunch.
   During lunch, things started to pick up over on the Santa Fe. Now, I had been reluctant to try a shot of a train over on the Santa Fe with it's higher mainline speeds. I just wasn't sure of how this shutter delay would work, as with my previous attempt of the TP&W at Yates City, I didn't want to cut off the lead unit. But, I headed over that way.
    Thankfully there was MoW working on a crossing near E. Galesburg, so I could hear every train coming as they called the Foreman for permission through his limits. I barely missed, like by 30 seconds, a WB stacker, most likely the Z-NYCLAC, with the PRR 8444 in Conrail blue. Really would have been a nice shot too, on the big S curve at Main St. I'll have to remember that one. Probably three minutes later, the UP 5110 East calls the Foreman to come through his limits. So, off to E. Galesburg it was to try to find a shot. I had a place in mind, something that would be fairly open and I hadn't done before. With the 5110 close behind me, I headed to the only access to the south side of the tracks. Jumping up into the back of the SportTrac, I set up this shot of this brand new "Flagged Flare" SD70M:

UP 5110 E

    5110 looks nice now, but just give it a few trips to SoCal and back to give it that nice grime and graffiti combo.
    After this guy was by, I headed back to the yard to see what was up. No sooner had I gotten there than the M-GALLIN decided to pull. He had a nice BN consist of Oakway/Green SD40-2, so I headed to W. Graham to see what it looked like. There was a farmer in the field right next to the tracks, and I thought that would make a good prop. I had put the camera on 3 frame burst to see what that could do. But, I hit the shutter too early, when the train was far away, not what I had planned on. I would have been fine if it wasn't on burst, but, by the time the camera was recovered from recording the three images to disk, the train was already by. Needless to say, that shot is not going on here. I was hoping that the 3 frame burst would be equate to about 3 fps, but it turned out to be more like 1.5 fps, if even that. I think it is faster than that if the subject is not moving, something that wouldn't come in very handy for train photos.
    All was not lost however. Ottumwa Sub dispatcher KRS had imposed a 10mph slow order on the switches at CP 1699, the south east end of the Cameron Connector. That allowed me to head down the blacktop into Cameron proper and attempt a shot at this train again. Here is the EMD 9058 on the M-GALLIN1-08 @ Cameron:

EMD 9058 W

This ended up being a much better shot than W. Graham anyway. Oh, and if you ever doubted Cameron's existence as a "railroad town", check this out, from the intersection of Railroad and Depot Streets:

Intersection

The GALLIN met a manifest train coming around the connector that was already underway by the time I got back east. Yet, right behind that guy was Amtrak 4 running on the manifest's approach signal. So, I attempted some lame shot at Graham that I won't put on here to save space.
The next train in the camera is another UP train, this time a WB just east of CP 1750. It seemed like the UP ran tons of trains on the BNSF today. Here is UP 4455 W, the A-GBPX1-08 :

UP 4455 W

Now, from observing patterns up on the Santa Fe at Williamsfield, I kind of expected that there would be a WB BNSF "shooter" right behind the A train. So, I started off west to look for a new shot, and noticed the increasing cloudiness. I almost gave up and turned around, but just as I was about to pull off and turn around, the detector at 175 goes off on M1. Sure enough, there he was, now would there be enough light left? Oh, the suspense! On through the village of Cameron I go, where I meet a familiar looking coal train. It's a Grinstein MAC and a pair of CSX ACs(one in the new "Dark Future" scheme) that it looks like Grumpy got yesterday at Ruby, NE. Ahh, Nebraska... But, I've got to say, 24 hours for BNSF to get a heavily powered load across IoWa? Creston mustta been outta crews. I attempted a grab shot out of the truck, but that just wasn't happening with this camera. On to W. Cameron and the approaching BNSF Z. With the A-GBPX stopped at Oromonde to let him around(this is their railroad after all). Here comes the Z flying over the Ottumwa Sub bump and down the back side:

As you can tell, the clouds were setting in by now, so no late afternoon light today. Overall, I think this camera is nice, but I'm not sure how well I would like it for railroad photography. For now, I'm just excited to be able to get some decent pics(ones's that put my slide scans to shame) back immediately, and post these on the internet. Pretty cool really. Hopefully more tomorrow!

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