It was the first day of fall, September 23, 2010. I had just completed my commute from Los Angeles Union Station to Upland, CA aboard Metrolink train #322 and as I walked to my car I was grabbed by the scene of the sun setting near the tracks…
iPhone HDR: Metrolink
Here are two recent HDR efforts made from an Apple iPhone 3GS telephone with the application called “Pro HDR for the iPhone 3GS.” The application currently sells for $1.99.
NOTE: Apple iPhone 4 users will now have native HDR support built-in to their camera upon updating to iOS version 4.1 which is now available for download…
Tehachapi Pass in HDR: Caliente
A long-time favorite spot to watch and photograph trains of mine is the Tehachapi Mountains, located between Mojave and Bakersfield, California. I have made countless trips to the golden hills of Tehachapi over the decades and the area is on my list of places where I would like to live. The area features hard-core mountain railroading, a storied past, and four seasons complete with all the changes that brings…
Poster Art: Passenger Service
I have been sick for two weeks now and I haven’t been able to go out and shoot photos lately. As I lounge on the sofa or bed, trying my best to recover, I have been playing around with some of my older photos. One technique I have been toying with is making poster art.
I like these posters and thought that others might like to see them as well. Let me know what you think. Today’s theme is “Passenger Service…”
Convergence at Crookton
After leaving the Canyon Diablo bridge we meandered west along Interstate 40 towards Williams, Arizona. By this point it was late afternoon and the lighting was getting good. I was hoping to shot at a location we discovered during our last trip to this area in 2006. It is a cool spot near Williams that affords a semblance of solitude and the railroad track alignment offers some great curves to accentuate the struggle trains face climbing the Arizona Divide. We dubbed this area “Scary Bear Road” because the area was remote and certainly seemed like bear country to us. (We have “friendly names” for many of our railfanning locations to help differentiate them and make them easier to remember…)
I Finally Met the Devil
The date was August 11, 2010. I awoke earlier than Deb, as is the usual case because she likes to stargaze into the wee morning hours. I was feeling a bit anxious. I knew the day’s activities could be challenging based on all that I read and heard.
I let her sleep in as I made preparations for us to leave the Meteor Crater RV Park where we had stayed the night. We were there to witness the Perseid meteor shower and since we were in northern Arizona we concluded that there was no more appropriate place to see the meteor shower than at Meteor Crater, Arizona, some forty miles east of Flagstaff…
It's All About Character - The EMD SD40-2
The BNSF 4311 West Became Everyone's Bad Day
The radio crackled as an assertive and calm voice made a call for help, “Fort Worth Mechanical, this is BNSF forty-three eleven West.” (We later learned that the voice belonged to the BNSF engineer of a westbound manifest train. His name is Leonard.)
In short order the reply came in loud and clear, “Fort Worth Mechanical, go ahead BNSF forty-three eleven West.” (Fort Worth Mechanical is BNSF’s Mechanical Department which is based in Fort Worth, Texas and is a help-desk of sorts for the operating crews out on the rails.)
Leonard then proceeded to describe the predicament that he, his conductor, and their manifest train were in, some thirty-five miles west of the crew change point at Needles, California, “I keep getting a wheel-slip alarm on one of the units. If I go over 5 miles-per-hour then the alarm goes off.”
Pseudo-HDR Images from Cajon Pass
During my deep-dive into the realm of High Dynamic Range photography I have been forced to test with pseudo-HDR images which are the byproduct of a single RAW image file. (See my previous blog post, “Going to the Next Level: Learning HDR,” for a detailed explanation.) I am learning the nuances and challenges of the process, the various techniques and softwares packages available, and developing a maintainable workflow process. Above all else though, I am becoming inspired…
Changing the Paint Scheme
I recently began to make better use of my commute time by bringing along my MacBook Pro. I now have a few hours each day when I can focus on post processing my photos and enhancing my graphics abilities. As an example of this effort, I decided to create a new landing page for ChasingSteel.com as a means to learn some new packages that I have purchased. Consequently, yesterday I updated the main page of the site, which has traditionally been a place to showcase one of my specific photographs, with new graphics as seen below on an iPad…
Sunrise East of Cadiz, CA
When out chasing along BNSF’s Needles Subdivision, as a matter of survival, well at least comfort, I prefer to shoot photos when the sun in lower in the sky, say about within 15 degrees of the horizon or so, that occurs at sunrise and sunset. In part to oversome the harsher summer light but also because it is much cooler…
Sepia is for Summer
Review: Pentrex's "Doublestacks over Donner"
One of Pentrex’s latest releases, Doublestacks over Donner.
Back in May, when I ordered the “At the Throttle Cab Ride Volume 5 - The Surfline” from Pentrex, I also ordered their latest release, at the time, Doublestacks over Donner.
Donner Pass has always been one of my favorite locations for vacations with the family. The area is steeped in history and offers a myriad of outdoor activities to do and breathtaking vistas to behold.
For the railfan, Donner Pass is one of the premier locations due to the arduous climb that trains must make through tunnel and snow sheds to conquer the pass. This route dates back to the original transcontinental route that the Central Pacific Railroad completed in the late 1860’s to meet up with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.
Considering most of the line was built back in the 1860’s, many of the tunnels can no longer accommodate the longer and larger containers that are part of today’s international transportation system. As such, this line saw a marked decrease in traffic with many of the doublestack trains being rerouted through the longer, yet less-restrictive, Feather River Canyon route.
Through the years of mergers and acquisitions, this line eventually became part the Union Pacific Railroad and remains a core east-west corridor for the Union Pacific Railroad today. As such, UP decided it was profitable to increase the tunnel clearances on Donner Pass to accommodate the new doublestacks and shorten the distance for trains heading over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So in 2008, UP began modifying the tunnel portals and linings accordingly.
This video documents the renewed life that the line over Donner Pass is experiencing thanks to Union Pacific’s work in the tunnels. I couldn’t be happier. There’s little that rivals seeing Theodore Judah’s dream of a railroad over the Sierras come true with a nearly 2-mile long doublestack train clawing at the grade! But I digress…
The video presents the glory and splendor of the Donner Pass region unlike any other video I’ve seen in recent memory. The video quality and post-production work is good and the 16x9 format lends itself nicely to wide vistas and spectacle that is Donner Pass. The piece is well written and the narration is spot on. A nice surprise of the DVD is the little bits of historical and operational datum that the narration provides.
If I could be critical of one aspect of the production, it would be the maps displayed in the video. They are just not on par with all of the other aspects this gem. A rework of the maps, with more details and a fresh look, would have completed this effort perfectly.
However, this is one of my favorite videos from any railfan video publisher. I highly recommend it. A job well done Pentrex, it is truly fun to watch. I will watch it often until I can get back to Donner personally.
My Rating: A+
2 Hours
In Color with Stereo Sound and Narration
Presented in High Definition 16x9 Format
ISBN: 1-56342-295-6
UPC: 7-48268-00578-7
The Circus Has Come to Greater Los Angeles, On a Train
On Monday, February 12, 2010, I learned from a railfan site that a special train was arriving from Fresno about the time I would be getting home. The train, known on the Union Pacific Railroad as SFRLA-12, was a special, customer unit train - the “Blue Unit” of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Circus…
The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 5
It felt good to rest. So much so that I rested the entire next day, Sunday, as well. I took that time to reflect on the trials of the Cima Subdivision experience and the triumphs from the Needles Subdivision. I still did not have my fill of chasing steel yet so I sat down with my iPad and made plans for Monday, Memorial Day…
The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 4
The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 3
(Continued from: The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 2)
After stopping in at the Kelso Depot Visitor’s Center of the Mojave National Preserve and talking with the ranger, I had to devise a new plan. I wouldn’t be able to follow the Cima Subdivision’s trackage, nor camp along the route, as I had hoped to do…
The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 2
(Continued from: The Memorial Day Weekend Mega Tour - Part 1)
With the high traffic level I encountered at Daggett in short order, I drove north on the Daggett-Yermo Road towards Yermo hoping that the Cima Subdivision provided ample traffic and photo opportunities. I had already seen two eastbound Union Pacific trains return to home rails and head off towards Yermo and I was in pursuit…