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Teen Railfan Place

  • Nicely done! I never knew how impressive ore trains looked!

    Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296

    Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/

  • Very nice indeed James! I still got to get up to the DMIR and the iron range someday too. Every time I see pictures, it makes me want to make a trip up there even more. It's only about a five hour trip one way, but I've yet to ever make it up there...

    Congrats on your first rp.net photo too. I saw that photo over there last night and thought it might be yours, but I wasn't sure.

    Had a pretty good day yesterday myself. A friend and I went railfanning over in the Eastern Part of the state, and we managed to catch a few UP and CP trains, including the ugliest looking UP locomotive I've ever seen, the CNW Wyoming unit, a MILW bandit, and a 8 unit CP consist, the majority of it SOO! It was a good day for railfanning alright...

    Noah

  • Pics man, pics!
    Edit: It's early in the morning, and I'm off to fan 2816! But....it's CLOUDY! #&$#*@#!!!!!!

    Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296

    Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/

  • Anyone, feel free to comment or critize this picture.

     

    Horseshoe Curve Altoona Pa

     

    K-Line The Difference is in the Details
  • The photo looks good. But to me it seems kinda foggy and the light hitting the ground and the ballast is kinda bright. Other wise it's a farly good photo.

  • Alex: It doesn't really do it for me. It's a tiny bit blurry, a tiny bit overexposed, a tiny bit sidelit with vertical sun, and you really need to include a lot more train in the shot. It wouldn't even do for a roster shot the way you've got it cropped! Try to include the train until it disappears naturally or at least feels like it is. 

    Well, 2816 went good, but not great. All my pics were rejected from arpy....for the same reason....here they are. As well as a couple of cloudy freight shots...

     

     

     

    All of them had further corrections to them before being submitted, working from the original picture. I've got some more pics on film!

    And I made a video also.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37eZxyqEQw

    Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296

    Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/

  • Nice pictures Matt, even if rp.net didn't like them. I'm looking forward to shooting the 2816 myself in August and September when it makes it's USA swing to Chicago, and the doublehead with it and the 261. Definately a nice looking steam locomotive!

    And since you asked, here are the photos. I finally got around to editing them and uploading them this morning:

    First shot of the day was at Portage Junction, which is just outside of Portage. It's where the M&P sub (for Madison & Portage) from Madison, Wisconsin comes up to join the CP's Chicago-Twin Cities main line. We caught a light power movement of the local that switches Portage - Watertown, and he had a MILW bandit as a second unit!

    Normally there is only one train a day on the M&P sub that I mentioned, a local that works to a interchange point in Madison with the Wisconsin and Southern. The M&P job, as it's known, is called for 1700 and works mainly at night, so photos of it are few and far between. Even rarer though is catching the train getting hauled in early in the morning because the crew died on hours the night before, but we got lucky enough to catch just such a thing:

    Three SOO units on the train is relatively uncommon anymore too, so it was a nice catch from my standpoint.

    Next we headed for a UP branch line that's a little ways a away. The line runs maybe 20 miles to a old Malt Plant at a place called Jefferson Junction. The crew of the local for the branch is based out of here. We knew about what time he was supposed to get up to the main line to do some interchange work, and sure enough, he showed up on cue. Clyman Junction is a unique place in Wisconsin in that it still has a old coaling tower on the main line, and I grabbed a shot as the local backed under it:

    Switching out cars on the main line:

    We thought he was going to have a pick up to make with his drop off, but he ended up not taking anything. It's hard to get enthused about a light engine movement, but we chased him a few miles anyway:

    After that we heard a train get a warrent back up on the main line, so we went up to see what was going on. It turned out to be the Adams to Bulter (UP yard in Milwaukee) Wayfreight, and we caught him at South Beaver Dam:

    The Engineer of the local was kind enough to tell us that they were going to be letting a eastbound go by them here that they were going to be following that train out. Since the light was bad here we took off for a place a little ways down the line where we could get a better shot. While we were on the way we heard the eastbound go by, and we also heard a westbound get a warrent out of Milwaukee headed West. This mean there had to be a meet taking place somewhere, and the track warrents issued told us it must have been at Rock, which is a siding about 20 miles outside of Milwaukee. So we went for Rock, and we ended up nailing all three trains, the westbound, the local, and the eastbound:

    The Westbound frieght, MDMPR, passes by a house and a farm just west of Rock:

    The Meet takes place:

    The local leaves the siding after the MDMPR has already left. This has to be the most horrible UP locomotive paint job I've ever seen....

    With that we headed back towards the CP, because the UP action was drying up. We caught a few more trains before calling it a day:

    This train actually had 8 units on it, and 4 of them were SOO, although it's hard to tell because of the angle of the photos:

    It was a pretty good day. Enjoy the photos!

    Noah

  • Nice pics! Good to see some SOO. Well I have pictures, but some aren't that good. Don't have photo shop.

    Well this was a plesent suprise. A SOO SD60 at Rochelle. (Photo is off center)

     

    The most number of units I have ever seen on a train was 9. Hard to tell. The lead unit is Just going under the bridge.

    This was also pretty nice to see. 2 UP SD60Ms leading a Ballast train.

    And last, I got to see a UP hertage. UP 1996. (It isn't the best photo. A little too much light.)

  • That makes it look alot better. But I have some feeling in me that says somthings wrong. But I don't know what.
  • Alex, the edit is better as it isn't as overexposed, but like Matt said, something still just doesn't do it for me. It's a little bit blurry (probably due to too low a shutter speed or shaking of the camera while the picture was being taken), and the lighting is less than optimal; usually the rule is to try and keep the sun behind you and shoot the sunny side of the train.

    And again, like Matt said, you usually don't want to cut the locomotive or train off, you want to keep the whole thing in the picture. Let a building or a tree line naturally cut the train off, not at the edge of the frame. If you must cut something off, try to include the whole of the locomotive at least. Of course there are acceptions to this, but for the most part that's the standards that I try and stick too.

    Noah

  • Plus, there's a bit much space on the front of the loco, too...

    Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296

    Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/

  • i am an avid teen railfan at age of 14. 

    monday & tuesday i was in milwaukee to visit my grandma, on my way down i stopped in shops in fond du lac. saw some intresting stuff.  i checked in at shops at 7:57 am 7-2-07

    first i see GTW 4629 switching nice to see some GTW power & a GP9R

    next i see that 2 SW1500's were hiding behind the string of cars 4629 had

    one was WC 1561 & CN/WC 1571

    heres the 2 going up to get some cars

    later when they park i get 1571 by its self

    i see 336 leaving shops to head south it was told to have the helpers go out to valley to wait so i see the 2 helpers Fake WC 6901 & GTW 6420

    checked out of shops at 8:40 & headed to byron hill

    checked in byron at 9:02

    waited for a bit & i we in no hurry to get to milwaukee since we planned on arriving in milwaukee around noon.

    well i stood on the side of rd & i listen close to the scanner. i hear the beaper go off & i see farther down it was comming. i hear a horn in the distance so i got ready. the leader was grey fake gtw i call them 5949 & cn/gtw 5931

    checked out of byron at 9:42

    i go down hwy 175 & get stopped at the crossing. wait for it to go by then go on well i get stopped at hwy 49 again. i got ahead of it & got to far ahead of it. i do know it had to pull over at marsh. well  a few hours later in waukesha while me & my mom were taking my grandma shopping i see the gates go down on main st & grews were taking the old yard tracks away & it goes through the time was around 1:30

    later i decided to walk to the cp tracks in brookfield since my grandma lives a nmile 7 ah lf south of the crosssing.

    i caught amtrak 8 west.

    later a cp  west bound train rolls by but i didnt push the button all the way on my camera to get the shot

    so i hear on the radio that CN's L510 could preceed on to the CP main at dupyville. IC 3101 was on that. this contained 3 cars. 

    end of mondays railfanning

    tuesday well time to head home but before i left milwaukee i wanted to sit in duplainville for a bit. so i did. i mainly wanted to see some cp trains & catch amtrak. well amtrak 7 was 4 hours behind when it was suppose to arrive in milwaukee at 2:07 when i called amtraks tracker yes  you can track their trains over phone i called at 2:30 when l left both 7 & 8 were delayed 4 hours. i missed a short cp auto stack train go by it got me on suprise i also met a railfan here we talked & we see down farther some train lights so i decided to try to havesome fun so i got a penny & put it on the tracks ( the train was about 3 miles away) so it gave me time wel the train went by it had all older cp engines on it

    well after it goes by  go loof for the penny well  me & the other railfan look for 5 minutes couldnt find it. then we hear a horn on the cn line a cn train goes by. my zoom on my camera didnt go that far so it didnt turn out well. then i left dupyville at 2:30 then i start to head back home. in fond du lac i stopp at the train store in the mall to see what they had then i headed back over to shops

    Checked in at 4:16

    i see 2 WC SW 1500's up farther & i knew thye owuld come back down well they did & it was 1561 & 1558.

    heres 1558

    the 2 together

    it was very slow at shops at this time

    i see 411 comming south out of the north yard i get a pic of this. the lead happend to eb a ES44DC & the trailer A SD70M

    then i left shops at 4:50.

    this ended my railfanning for the day.

     

     

  • Heres another one, I call it "Summit Meeting"

     

     

    I know, I still chopped off the loco's backs

    K-Line The Difference is in the Details
  • I like this one a lot better though. To me at least, this is one of those photos where it's okay to break from the norm and loose the back of the locomotive. Don't know why, but I think it looks better this way than the way I imagine it if both of the full locomotive were included.

    Noah

  • Definitely agree with Noah here. While rules are good, artistic judgement must be used to know when to break them! Remember, some of the best photos break a lot of rules. Wink [;)]

    Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296

    Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/