Last Light at Palmer Lake

Here is just a quick highlight of a photo that looks so nice it's worth sharing. 

This photo of a BNSF GE unit at Palmer Lake is from Flickr user Bob, whose recent work on the Joint Line shows a good deal of promise. He shoots army tanks in the fog, too! If nothing else, his buying an SLR would not be wasted money! Great work, Bob! I hope to see more soon. ⚒

Sunday Video: Between the Rails With D&RGW 486

David Schneider of Fringe Photography in New Mexico posted his very first video on YouTube about a month ago now and it was on a very agreeable subject. He tweeted me (@COrailroads) the link. If this is your first time between the rails, you're going to find it a unique experience!



I tweeted back that I felt 486 looked a lot better like this than sitting in the parking lot at the Royal Gorge.

@corailroads yikes! Can't image 486 just sitting. Glad you enjoyed the video!
— david (@ifringe) March 5, 2014

Follow my twitter account here.◊

Hovercams Growing From Toy To Tool

I get a little excited about a new technology on occasion, or an old technology that suddenly made the leap into an affordable price bracket. Since yesterday, I've been contemplating the Parrot AR Drone 2.0. Yes, you read that right: a drone.

Looking more like an insect than a camera, is a drone
the next step in railroad photography and video? 

Like a model helicopter, it flies using rotating blades. Like some copters, the drone takes pictures or video in HD. Unlike a helicopter, it has software and a hi-tech control suite that keeps the drone from crashing as easily. Notice I didn't stop at the word crashing, because I'm sure it's possible to crash these. Yet how many potential photographers have shied at the prospect of model aircraft or rotorcraft due to the likely prospect of turning a $1,500 work of art into a decorative bench ornament or worse, that eyesore sticking out of a neighbor's roof.

Head gear? Guards give the drone a
more visible if ungainly appearance

Is a Parrot Drone or any of its competitor's creations just a toy or is it a valuable tool that photographers can use to check out locations or even use to produce an image? Could this toy/tool be used to photograph trains, or capture video of sufficient quality? One store is already quite willing to let serious photographers find out.

Imagine a dolly shot starting on one side, going up and over a moving intermodal and down the other side moving against the trains direction of travel ...without the dolly or the time and effort it takes to build such a rig and put it in place. What about programming a course to fly via GPS when the train comes by, hitting "Go" as the train passes a certain spot and, while the drone does it's thing, you rip as many frames as your dSLR will let you, just like before?

I'm beginning to wonder about other uses. How could Union Pacific or BNSF, or even San Luis & Rio Grande use this? Railroad police could use it to inspect those areas of the yard that aren't as accessible or safe as they'd like it to be. What about using one with a track crew to survey ahead of a boulder that's blocking their high rail vehicle or getting access to see if the string of coal cars are all empty and not just the first three? Some benefits might just be worth the expense, especially if a company smartphone or tablet can control it with no special training for the employee. There are applications that may only present themselves after they spend a few weeks out there. I wonder if there's a division or sub already using these.

What about you? Would you buy one or rent one?

Thanks to B&H for letting me steal the photos of their fine product.◊

RTD Photo Contest For Denver Union Station Light Rail Plaza

Friday is the deadline for RTD's DUS light rail station photo contest. For those who haven't heard about this contest, the details are below in an RTD press release.

Tennessee Pass Update: Rust, Dust, Weeds and Little Else

If you wonder, like I sometimes do, what Tennessee Pass looks like about now, with all the aspens aglow and fluttering in the early fall breezes, head on over to Colorado Railfan and check out Kevin Morgan's pictures taken just last Saturday. The rails are 15 years rusted and the signals are shot, but the colors are beautiful!

POTD - One Train - Part V

Today is Friday before Labor Day (Yeah!), and so we're wrapping up the theme for the week of One Train. Five different photographs of one train by Kevin Morgan of ColoradoRailfan.com have illustrated different aspects of railroad photography.

Perspective seems to be my favorite aspect of railroad photography, I guess, because I've been talking about it for most of the week. This shot illustrates a near perfect vanishing point.

Thanks to Mr. Morgan for the great shots and for use of these photographs to illustrate my points on perspective and railroad photography. It was awesome that even without any planning this whole series worked so well. Spontaneity sometimes works wonders, something you can also take to heart in photography. Experiment, try new things, and be willing to live with the results. You never know what you'll come away with until you try!

A meet between BNSF trains in Boulder yields a great perspective shot as
a double stack passes a dormant unit train on the siding on August 24, 2011
Photo: Kevin Morgan

If I don't post later this weekend, have a great Labor Day! Enjoy summer while it lasts, and if you can't find anything better to do, pop on by your local railroad museum. I'm sure they'd be glad to have you!

POTD - One Train, Part IV

For POTD this Thursday, I'm continuing the theme of One Train. Today's is very similar to yesterday's in terms of angle, but it has something very different. It's from a lower angle, which leaves room for the inclusion of a very unique cloud formation. While there may or may not be a statement in including the cloud, such as wings, for Boeing's cargo in the first car, at right, there can always be such angles if you work for it, using the right focal length, and so on. The elements that you include that are non-train related give you the ability to express your art however you want.

A BNSF double stack train rolls past a tied down unit coal train. The first
car of the double stack is bound for Boeing in the Pacific Northwest.

Photo: Kevin Morgan

POTD - One Train, Part III

Continuing with part III of this week's theme:

One train.

Perhaps the most classic pictures known in railroad photography circles are the approach photos, where a train is approaching on a single set of rails toward the photographer's position. It's a simple shot that a lot of photographers rely on as their "go-to" shot when capturing a train. It doesn't depend much on topography or distance available, unlike the previous two POTDs.

The feeling is one of imminent anticipation. The train is a traveler, passing in only moments. It bears a load from incognito toward parts unknown. It is arriving in only seconds, unrelenting and unhesitating toward its eventual destination. In the moment, it is everything we know of railroads.  It can be a brawny diesel, like this one, or a speeding 4-8-4, a miniature 4-4-0 of the wood-burning, narrow gauge variety, or an F-7 (or even an E-8) with the graceful curves and beauty that made her an icon of American railroading.

By stepping down next to the right of way, Kevin Morgan has put the point of view into the same vantage point most of the world sees trains in their most powerful and acclimated setting. 

Headed by locomotive 5338, a BNSF double-stack intermodal train comes in
for a meet, holding the main with a rather quiet train tied down on the siding
Photo: Kevin Morgan

POTD - One Train, Part II

This week's theme is:

One train.

I have always been an acolyte of long lens work. There's something about being able to take a great distance and smash it into one 2-dimensional image. It's photography doing what it does best, and photographer Kevin Morgan makes it work well here.

In this case, a telephoto shot that doesn't close the distance, but instead takes a great distance of rail (a half mile?) and shows all the wobbles, variances and sags in something that--at least conceptually--should be stable, straight and strong. The haze on the horizon and subtle air distortions close to the rails makes the shot feel all the more heat laden as the rails all but melt into pools of silver.

A BNSF stack train trundles along under an ardent August sun
toward a meet over rails that look too hot to ride this afternoon
Photo: Kevin Morgan

POTD - One Train

I've had this idea for a theme of POTD, and I'm going to try it out. It's simple:

One train.

That's it. One train for the week. Obviously, we'd need five photos, and not just any photos. Five good photos that show different aspects. What's even better? The guy doesn't even know he did it for me.

Kevin and I have spoke very seldom, but he knows I am a fan. If you've read here for any period, you'd know it too. His web exposure is great because he has his own web site. This site lets you do searches by railroad, location, and even by weather. He e-mails his subscribers when he has new work, describing--sometimes in great detail--his shots and the stories behind them. He's doing what he can to get a core of loyal followers that take an interest in his work. Is he a regular producer? No, but if your work is of sufficient quality, that shouldn't matter. My point in this little diatribe is that it takes more than a good camera and average skills in railroad photography to make things happen.

In the decades before the internet, it took photographers the effort to find receptive clubs to come display their work, to sit down and organize their slides in trays, then haul them off in their car to the club meeting place, usually in the dead of winter, set up a projector and sit in the dark with a bunch of other grown men, and even women, and put your talent on display in front of everyone. Today, it requires a little less physical work, but effort is still a vital part. Learn how to use the tools like Blogger, Twitter, Flickr/SmugMug, Facebook, FeedBurner, Constant Contact, web forums and other, often free tools to increase your ability to interact and bring out your better photos. Making full use of the internet can change everything for you as a photographer and artist.

Diatribe over. Thanks!

Today's Photo of the Day is the basic high-angle, shot from a hill, overpass or other feature that enables a high view showing the tops of the locomotives and cars. Shot usually from the same side as sunlight, the effect is to show the train in the context of it's route. Interesting features of landscape fall second to the features of the train itself. This particular shot has the added benefit of the train curving between two trees that create a natural frame for the shot. The train is now part of the land, not just passing over or through it. What looks like just a shot of train at first glance is instead a carefully composed subject in its context.

Time: 11:52 AM

BNSF Double stacks are rare on the Front Range of Colorado
but this train seems as much a part of the land as the earth itself
Photo: Kevin Morgan

Announcing Photo of the Day

Rio Grande narrow-gauge #475 crosses the road's
namesake in Otawi NM by Otto Perry, DPL

Railroad photography is an art that I wholeheartedly support here on Colorado Railroads. Photographers like O. Winston Link and Colorado's own Otto Perry not only preserved history with their work, but also elevated such preservation to an art form. Countless more railfans aspire to have their work so regarded.