mickoo
Western Thunderer
Day two was a prospecting trip to Kirkwood and then Eureka.
As Richard noted, traffic was slow, possibly due to the derailment in the area and being a Saturday.
However, Kirkwood is a lovely little town with a nice park that has plenty of shade from the trees, easy parking and a vibrant market alongside, there are plenty of angles to work from the park and Amtrak station but you need trains to do that. All in all a thoroughly agreeable place to spend a few hours.
Ironically the two shots above on the iphone dealt with the cloud cover cast much better than the DSLR.
Although it was sunny, there was enough thin cloud to taint the colour cast, it didn't help that the lead unit had faded so badly to a near mustard colour.
After a wait and nothing showing it was on to Eureka.
Coming out of the sun at a fair old trot was the Amtrak, I got lucky and basically walked out of the rental as soon as we arrived to take a look and he was virtually there, just a few seconds later and I'd have missed him.
The going away shot was more for the Budd Amfleet car, you don't see so many of them around any more.
Next up the 'secret' Heritage UP unit the foamers refused to disclose, jerks! Again out of the sun and the thin cloud casts a horrible taint. I can probably work it some more on the editing suite to get rid of the putrid colour cast.
I'd rather have 60% fluffy cloud cover or full cloud, but this thin stuff is just junk, not helped by the very high sun angle.
Mid train DPU, nothing special other than a grab shot to record the event, so composure and location just went out of the window.
As Richard noted, there had been a high green on the BNSF line into the sun, that would have been the money shot but the sound of the passing UP train drowned out the approaching BNSF train until it was virtually on the crossing. Infuriatingly whilst walking back from the wide head end heritage shot to the crossing I almost walked over to the BNSF line. If I had I'd would have got the money shot, I didn't and it pi55ed me right off and I had to be content with the going away DPU.
Next up a west bound Amtrak, again trotting along at line speed and you don't get many seconds notice to get the shot.
Finally the eastbound manifest, by now I'd given up trying to take good train photos due to the cloud and opted for a record shot and the following 50 or so rolling stock images.
Photo count - 105
As Richard noted, traffic was slow, possibly due to the derailment in the area and being a Saturday.
However, Kirkwood is a lovely little town with a nice park that has plenty of shade from the trees, easy parking and a vibrant market alongside, there are plenty of angles to work from the park and Amtrak station but you need trains to do that. All in all a thoroughly agreeable place to spend a few hours.
Ironically the two shots above on the iphone dealt with the cloud cover cast much better than the DSLR.
Although it was sunny, there was enough thin cloud to taint the colour cast, it didn't help that the lead unit had faded so badly to a near mustard colour.
After a wait and nothing showing it was on to Eureka.
Coming out of the sun at a fair old trot was the Amtrak, I got lucky and basically walked out of the rental as soon as we arrived to take a look and he was virtually there, just a few seconds later and I'd have missed him.
The going away shot was more for the Budd Amfleet car, you don't see so many of them around any more.
Next up the 'secret' Heritage UP unit the foamers refused to disclose, jerks! Again out of the sun and the thin cloud casts a horrible taint. I can probably work it some more on the editing suite to get rid of the putrid colour cast.
I'd rather have 60% fluffy cloud cover or full cloud, but this thin stuff is just junk, not helped by the very high sun angle.
Mid train DPU, nothing special other than a grab shot to record the event, so composure and location just went out of the window.
As Richard noted, there had been a high green on the BNSF line into the sun, that would have been the money shot but the sound of the passing UP train drowned out the approaching BNSF train until it was virtually on the crossing. Infuriatingly whilst walking back from the wide head end heritage shot to the crossing I almost walked over to the BNSF line. If I had I'd would have got the money shot, I didn't and it pi55ed me right off and I had to be content with the going away DPU.
Next up a west bound Amtrak, again trotting along at line speed and you don't get many seconds notice to get the shot.
Finally the eastbound manifest, by now I'd given up trying to take good train photos due to the cloud and opted for a record shot and the following 50 or so rolling stock images.
Photo count - 105
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