Biweekly photo competition, Trackside with Trains.com, now live!

[Matt Quandt]

Seven photographers submitted images to vol. 143 of our biweekly photo competition, Trackside with Trains.com. This round's theme: Colorful consists.

View the selection and vote for your favorite here.

[samfp1943]

You Editorial Folks keep doing it to us readers! 

Andy?  Kathi?  Drew?    WHO TO PICK? 

 It is a little like 'pin the tail on the donkey!'

Liked all three of these and the others as well, but you gotta pick one-  

For years I had a real liking for CN power ( and those wonderful air chimes they used).                                        In the late 1970's I lived next to the former NC&StL line through East Memphis (Tn), and for about a week the Local ( Leawood Yd to Eads, Tn and then back to Leawood Yd, and then out to Brownsville, Tn.  back to Leawood Yd)  The crew all held NC&StL senority, and that was their run on the then L&N/CSX Memphis line.   

Anyway, they managed to come up with a CN Locomotive as assigned power, and the engineer was a real artist with  an air horn.  It was almost as good as organ music in Church to hear him coming through, and back!  It was at least thrty years ago, but the memory is still fresh! 

THANKS TO ALL Y'all  FOR SHARING YOUR PHOTOS! 

[Modelcar]

After sizing up all the photos.....I chose Kathi's.  Plenty of varied color along with the beautiful deep blue sky.  Nice sharp photo too.

Must mention Tom's as my next choice, the Good Morning Ameica's train....That photo has a complete colorful presence to it.....Not so much the train itself, but the total composition.

Several other very nice renditions too.

[CShaveRR]

I chose Drew's simply because he had the best angle for displaying the variety of paint schemes. Had to chuckle at his mention of Alex's choice, whatever it is. His was good, too, and he seemed to be the only one who thought of adding color from autumn leaves (isn't that cheating?).

Anyone else notice that with BN disappearing fast, there are no major railroads that use green in their color schemes? IMHO, that's a major omission!

[tree68]

Had to go with Drew, in no small part because of his choice of angle for the shot - which is to say it's not the standard 3/4 wedge shot.

 

[CNW 6000]

Went for Drew.  Couldn't get any more colorful unless you threw in a BN loco in green & black.  Perfect!

[zardoz]

I ahve no particular comments on any of the photos this week, except that they all were interesting.

But what I would like to point out to whomever runs this contest is that the page where we vote takes a very long time to load, at least for those of us that cannot afford the highest-speed internet comnnection.  When the page for voting comes up, it has to load the image and links from all of the photo contests back to at least 2005.

May I suggest shortening the currently used page to perhaps a year or less, with maybe links provided to the previous year's contests.

Note: A few months ago the "Humor" thread was closed by the site administrators due to it's lengthy existence (both in time and number of pages). The reason given was that it took up too much resources to open the 220+ pages of the thread.

 

[prk166]

For the ICE train.... were those oil cars or was it an ethanol unit train?

[gemotor]

 For just plain color, snap, and pop, Kathi's got this one.  I thought that was the subject of this round, at least.

[jrhambone]

Drew's submission indeed surpasses Alex's this time out and got my vote.  Quite a colorful presentation, all told.

[Richard]

 Drew nailed this one with a beautiful photograph. I liked Kathi's as a close second. It sure is tough to pick a winner when all the entries are that good.

[TOMinTN]

 Drew aces this one!

Wow...talk about a "dog's breakfast" of color schemes.

Shots like that don't come along often...good work.

TJB - Nashville, TN

[edblysard]

Worked it down to Kathi and Drew...but the War Bonnet won out, besides, I from Texas....

[Choo Choo Aussie]

Drew's most definitely this week!  Lots of colour, best angel, best photo.  Well done.

[DonHO MD]

All good shots, even some in not-so-ideal conditions.  

Drew's shot got my vote - good angle, blue sky above, green cornstalks below, and very colorful locomotives in between.

 

[LU-Trains]

 Loved Tom Nanos’ station shot.  Unfortunately in this day and age, scenes like that show up on model train layouts more often than real life.  There were some neat shots.  (I just arrived home from a visit to Ft. Worth and Kathi’s right, there are great shots available in the yards at FW.)  But growing up on a farm does color one’s perception and I have to go for Drew’s Cornfield panorama.

[drgw17]

Not that I don't enjoy the photos, but--sorry folks--this week's contest is much more about luck than photography. Usually, with subject matter themes, the shooters have a fair degree of control. Here, unless you're a roadmaster, you get whatever units the railroad runs. Not my favorite kind of competition. That said, things like shooting angles and foregrounds play a part, and Drew takes it both for his content and his composition.

[tree68]

drgw17

Not that I don't enjoy the photos, but--sorry folks--this week's contest is much more about luck than photography.

True enough - but many of the shots in previous competitions have been the result of some plain old dumb luck - lighting, timing, heat waves, etc. 

As has been noted, there were several good shots.  Even Alex managed to submit a topical entry.  Drew just happened to have been in the right place at the right time - and got a good shot besides.

[drgw17]

Agreed about the lucky shots. Goodness knows I've had my share of luck as well. My point was simply that the premise of this contest--unlike, say, stations, broadside, junctions, and coal to name a few others--was something that was largely out of the shooters' control, and more difficult to express in creative fashion. Then again, when Alex wins with a "broadside" shot that isn't, I guess I should just relax and enjoy the show for what it is, eh?