Larry - That second image is absolutely stunning! Well done!
Dan - LOL...I don't know about that. I haven't been doing so hot lately!
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
Larry,
If you were on the "3um" (PM me if you want that info) the second pic you've got above would dominate in the photo contest (This Week's Photo) that is run there. Ask CopCar...usually he kicks 'em and takes names....
Dan
Lots of track, but very few trains for me today--we went on a shopping trip into Berrien County, Michigan. Saw nothing on CSX from St. Joe to New Buffalo, nothing on Amtrak from New Buffalo to Michigan City (we did see where the new station platform is being built, south of Whittaker by the tracks), nothing on the South Shore (except for a little movement around the shops--we also saw some of the new double-deck cars back in on a shop track), and nothing on the CN at Valparaiso. Our best luck was on NS at Chesterton and Porter--a couple of manifests, a coal train, and a stack train.
A question for somebody who might know such things: why would I have caught sight of a NIPSCO (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) coal train, loaded, northbound, on UP's former C&EI line south of Yard Center? Seems like a strange route for Powder River coal, so perhaps it wasn't?
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Back to taking pictures in the snow at night.
OK, this is what happens if it's snowing hard and you use the flash on the camera (yes, that's me, yes, that's a real railroad lantern, and yes, we were running in that mess):
This, on the other hand, is what happens if you use the available light:
That's not me with the lantern - I was taking the picture. I had the engineer kill the ditch lights and dim the headlight, or you wouldn't have seen anything else. The location was the "North Pole" for our "Polar Express" trains last December.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Evening all,
I thought it was Chris. I recentley got a DVD on the Moffat line. I just got a new DVD today from Trains on The Cascade Crossin. I have yet to watch it, it is seting in front of me now. Cool day but nice,54*. Well getting ready to go on a walk with mummy. See yall later.
The road to to success is always under construction. _____________________________________________________________________________ When the going gets tough, the tough use duct tape.
Morning All,
Zardoz - Thanks for the kind words. I really am spoiled to live out here. If and when you make it out this way, let me know and we'll be sure to give your photo equipment a good workout!
The panorama was stitched in Photoshop Elements 6.0. It has an automatic panorama stitcher included with it. All I had to do was do the RAW conversion and then dump the images into PSE and let it do all the hard work! One of these days, I have a 17 image panorama of College Fjord in Alaska to stitch together by that process. I'm just worried that my aging laptop might explode on me when I dump 17 14.7MP images into a panorama!
Quentin - The Ski Train cars are the only ones that I've ever seen the outboard disc brakes on, but I don't know an awful lot about passenger equipment. I do seem to remember that the Superliner cars feature both inboard discs and conventional wheel brakes. Anybody know about that?
Brian - Thanks! One of these days I will have some images for you!
Carl - The temperatures weren't too bad up there. The wind was blowing enough to make it a little brisk up by Tolland, but I still don't think it was too bad. Thanks for the comment!
Justin - Thanks for the kind words. That is indeed the Moffat Sub. The coal drag is in the Cliff siding, which is in the small town of Pinecliff, CO. The Ski Train is passing through Tolland, just a little ways east of the Moffat Tunnel.
Modelcar Yes, I've been aware for quite some time many passenger cars have inboard disks....but this is the first I've eyeballed the external ones...Strange looking but easy to get to to service. Actually they look a little vulnerable to me.
Yah I agree. If someone wanted to sabatoge them it would be fairly easy. God forbid that ever happen thogh.
Yes, I've been aware for quite some time many passenger cars have inboard disks....but this is the first I've eyeballed the external ones...Strange looking but easy to get to to service. Actually they look a little vulnerable to me.
Quentin
Evening everybody!
Very blah, and ickey day today. Didn't see a single train. Wintery mix and 32* right now. Chris: Awesome shots man. If my sences are right that's up on the UP Moffat line on the Tunnel Sub. Right? I like the Ski train, the breaks are diffrent, but I really like the shot's of the UP AC4400CW's with a coal drag! Awesome shots Budd! Also Carl, I have noticed the wheels on the Amfleets are diffent looking. How do the breaks work on these types of cars? Are the loco's the same way?
Well back to the daily grind tommorow. Today is the end of my spring break. I am just thinking positive that there is only 50 some days left in school! Were on the home strech! Mom did order my MSTS add on last night after messing up our virus software. Thank goodness it's fixed now. I got the Cajon Pass Route High Desert Rails Edition. I should be rolling down the Palmdale Cuttoff by the end of the week!
Have a good rest of youre weekend everybody!
Quentin, LA Metrolink's cars also have the disc brakes outboard of the wheels--until I saw those in 2007, I'd never seen anything like it. A lot of Amtrak cars (Amfleet for sure) have inboard disc brakes. Metra's cars still have conventional brake shoes clasping the tread.
Chris, I don't know whether to shiver or drool! Nice shots!
We had a little snow this morning--enough to turn the roads miserable in time for the drive to work--our conductor didn't make it in because he was involved in a wreck that totaled his vehicle (was in the hospital, but is out now). Right now, the snow that fell is all but gone.
Great shots, Chris- the panorama has been added to my wallpaper collection!
Quentin, I've noticed those brakes myself a few years ago, when they used to borrow the ski train to run as the Hawkeye Express for Iowa home football games.
Here's a closer shot of those brakes:
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Chris, I especially like your ski train shot....On the ski train passenger cars I see strange looking disk brakes.....Anyone know if this is unique to this train. Perhaps it's normal on some equipment and I am not aware of it....
Chris, I am so jealous of you. Such wonderful scenery to shoot in! I lived in Boulder for a while back in the early 80's, and really loved the terrain. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to afford to shoot much. But what I did shoot, I still enjoy seeing. I anticipate the time when I will be able to get out there again with my good camera.
I really like the stitched image; was that done in photoshop?
I went out chasing along the Moffat Line yesterday morning, though I'm not entirely sure why. While listening to the radio chatter, I learned that I only had two eastbounds from Denver all the way up to Kremmling. That's not a good recipe for morning shoots. Still, the snow was nice and the light was lovely, so up Coal Creek Canyon I went.
I caught one of the eastbounds in the siding at Cliff waiting for three trains -- the BNSF manifest, the Ski Train and Amtrak #5. Since he wasn't going anywhere for awhile, I was able to play around with some different shots of him. Probably the favorite was this three image stitched panorama:
There's a bigger version of that available here
I also shot more of a head on shot:
From there, I headed up to Rollinsville to see how passable the road up to East Portal was. It wasn't bad...but parking was nigh onto impossible with only two wheel drive. Because of that, I kept driving back and forth between a wide point in the road east of Tolland where I could turn around and the parking area by the old Rollins Pass. The dispatcher put the Ski Train in the siding at Rollins for #5. I had intended to shoot both of them, but becuase I was driving back and forth, I missed my opportunity to shoot the Zephyr. I timed the Ski Train better, though, and was able to grab this shot at Tolland:
I had intended to stay up there for a bit, but you can see the cloud cover already working its way over the Continental Divide. Because of that, and because I had cantor duties at church, I headed back down into town. Not a terribly productive day, but at least it was a pretty drive up there and back!
CNW 6000Morning all. Had some trouble getting in here last night. I could read but not post! Life moves on... Carl I'm with you on the snow thing and am glad that we are down to 1-3 inches tonight instead of the originally called for 5-8. Hopefully it won't last more than a day or two! Have you heard of Clarks or "Buttermilk Curve" in Nebraska? I hear that both are places where freights move at a good clip and that Buttermilk Curve is quite busy (triple track main). Not sure how much UP you want to see on vacation but I thought I'd mention it. Video of Clarks, Nebraska:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmQo6wtSffc Video of Buttermilk Curve:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jyk8ebZ6Nc On the subject of trains, I was out looking for interesting stuff on CN this morning and came across three 40' hoppers marked "YARD BRAKE CAR" in Shops Yard (NFDL). Exactly what is that? Are they tied on certain tracks to help hold cars in place? If so why wouldn't the brakes on the cars that are there be enough?
Morning all. Had some trouble getting in here last night. I could read but not post! Life moves on...
Carl I'm with you on the snow thing and am glad that we are down to 1-3 inches tonight instead of the originally called for 5-8. Hopefully it won't last more than a day or two! Have you heard of Clarks or "Buttermilk Curve" in Nebraska? I hear that both are places where freights move at a good clip and that Buttermilk Curve is quite busy (triple track main). Not sure how much UP you want to see on vacation but I thought I'd mention it.
Video of Clarks, Nebraska:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmQo6wtSffc
Video of Buttermilk Curve:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jyk8ebZ6Nc
On the subject of trains, I was out looking for interesting stuff on CN this morning and came across three 40' hoppers marked "YARD BRAKE CAR" in Shops Yard (NFDL). Exactly what is that? Are they tied on certain tracks to help hold cars in place? If so why wouldn't the brakes on the cars that are there be enough?
Lots of responses to get through tonight, before we turn the lights out at 8:30. Right now I'm listening to A Prairie Home Companion, being broadcast live from Appleton. I know a little about that place--my baby girl went to Lawrence for two years.
Weather: we'll get a bit of everything before this is over--just now we had a clap of thunder. And yes, they're calling for two to four inches of snow overnight. Rain now, sleet later, snow on top of that. And we're not even under the storm watch!
I don't know those places along the UP by name, but I'm sure we'll see them. When I'm on vacation, the railroad doesn't matter--as long as it's trains! And as far as I'm concerned, that three-track main line and the yard in the middle of it have to be the modern-day Standard Railroad of the World, so I'm there!
As to those "Yard Brake Cars", they're cars that currently serve no other purpose to the company, so they're put on a track that would otherwise be clear, to keep cars from rolling out. We have a similar deal here at Proviso, except that the three cars are empty covered hoppers (surprisingly, among the newest CNW cars), and they're termed "post" cars. The bowl tracks are not supposed to be pulled clear, but in the days of slim business, you don't want to delay cars by cutting them off and using them as posts. So you use these cars instead. I'm not sure that your hoppers are used the same way in a flat-switching yard, but at least it's a possibility.
I was thinking today about how dull things were around the yard, if you were a railfan looking for excitement. As noted elsewhere, UP 1995, which used to be a regular around here, was heading a company special in Texas or California or somewhere. So I just looked around...to the south we had a long manifest going out of town, with the two Olympic SD70Ms backing in to Global 2 between me and them. I then faced forward in time to see two brand-new AC4400CWs headed to the shop from the receiving yard. They were followed by ZEMCH, the RoadRailer train, headed by two NS units. So things weren't so dull after all, for maybe five minutes.
Cold wet and rainy today. Saw a NS norhbound train just about an hour ago. It was sitting at the siding a t West Point waiting for a southbound. Carl, My grandpah lives somewhere in the ballpark of 15 miles from Attica IN. There is the NS that runs through there. Same tracks that run through Lafayette. Dan I can't think what BREAK CAR could mean. Especially since ti was a hopper.? Besides the name were there any speciall qualites that the car had?
Morning all. Had some trouble getting in here last night. I could read but not post! Life moves on...
Carl I'm with you on the snow thing and am glad that we are down to 1-3 inches tonight instead of the originally called for 5-8. Hopefully it won't last more than a day or two! Have you heard of Clarks or "Buttermilk Curve" in Nebraska? I hear that both are places where freights move at a good clip and that Buttermilk Curve is quite busy (triple track main). Not sure how much UP you want to see on vacation but I thought I'd mention it.
On the subject of trains, I was out looking for interesting stuff on CN this morning and came across three 40' hoppers marked "YARD BRAKE CAR" in Shops Yard (NFDL). Exactly what is that? Are they tied on certain tracks to help hold cars in place? If so why wouldn't the brakes on the cars that are there be enough?
We don't often have emergencies like that to deal with, Johnny (and protecting locomotives and crews is a routine part of the job). But we often have to deal with extra cars, cars that don't roll as well as they should for whatever reason, bad-order cars that hadn't been marked up on the list yet, and stuff like that. We can divert the cars quickly if a track should fill up, or if a car should stop to foul it. And where I am, I can often make the other CROs' jobs easier by "tweaking" the spacing on the cars to give them more time to handle the cars properly. I don't think an automated system can just speed up and slow down cars beyond what a computer tells it to do.
Every once in a while I get surprised by a major job being done without me around the house. One really appreciates when that happens!
We may dine at Two Toots in Downers Grove after work this afternoon. It will be rainy by then, and we're supposed to get between one and three inches of snow overnight.
Planning is under way for a vacation trip to Nebraska late next month. Looking forward to seeing Willy and Mookie, as well as the new tower in North Platte. Pat is looking forward to seeing the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln. We'll also be covering some new territory in Iowa, and hope to meat some Forum friends in Boone.
CShaveRRModelcar ....That looks like some "tonque in cheek" play on words Carl... By the way....A real question. By what means does a CRO {actually}, slow said rail cars riding down the hump and to their proper track location. Is there a devise of some sort that clamps against the inside of the flanges to provide friction to slow the movement.....? Those devices would be the retarders we operate, Quentin. They actually squeeze the wheels from both sides, using the flat vertical surfaces of the wheels that can be found there. In our yard, we throw our own switches and set up and release our own retarders--most yards have automated these functions to some degree, or switched to passive retarders, such as Dowty. We, on the other hand, can cope with unexpected changes by making split-second decisions that a pre-programed computer would find impossible.
Modelcar ....That looks like some "tonque in cheek" play on words Carl... By the way....A real question. By what means does a CRO {actually}, slow said rail cars riding down the hump and to their proper track location. Is there a devise of some sort that clamps against the inside of the flanges to provide friction to slow the movement.....?
....That looks like some "tonque in cheek" play on words Carl...
By the way....A real question. By what means does a CRO {actually}, slow said rail cars riding down the hump and to their proper track location. Is there a devise of some sort that clamps against the inside of the flanges to provide friction to slow the movement.....?
You can put all sorts of information into a computer, but what programmer knows every possible situation that can come up? I think of a situation that an air traffic controller handled more than forty years ago (told me by a woman who had worked with her). Briefly, the controller suddenly realized that two airplanes were on a collision course and screamed (by radio) to each pilot, telling each what course alteration was necessary to avoid the collision; they complied with her instruction. A computer might have detected the error sooner, but it could not have given the instructions as quickly as she did.
As to home work, when I went out this morning to grocery stores, I saw that the front shutters had been put back up, and when I returned home, I saw that the back shutters also were up again. It was nice work.
Johnny
Modelcar....That looks like some "tonque in cheek" play on words Carl... By the way....A real question. By what means does a CRO {actually}, slow said rail cars riding down the hump and to their proper track location. Is there a devise of some sort that clamps against the inside of the flanges to provide friction to slow the movement.....?
By the way....A real question. By what means does a CRO {actually}, slow said rail cars riding down the hump and to their proper track location. Is there a devise of some sort that clamps against the inside of the flanges to provide friction to slow the movement.....?
CShaveRR CRO = Car Retarder Operator. A vanishing art, and nobody else in the country does it like we do. Semiconductor = Most of the people up on the hump--all of the real conductors are CROs!
CRO = Car Retarder Operator. A vanishing art, and nobody else in the country does it like we do.
Semiconductor = Most of the people up on the hump--all of the real conductors are CROs!
Brian, I started working with National Semiconductor and ended working for Fairchild Semiconductor. During my time with National, the company bought Fairchild, kept some and closed some of the plants. About twelve-thirteen years ago, the plants here and in South Portland, Maine, were sold to a group of investors who revived the name "Fairchild." I understand the people who had been working there were glad to be back under their old name.
Carl, when I was a senior in high school, I thought that a conductor was the best work possible. However, I failed the mule leg test, and made it just half-way, ending up in the semiconductor industry.
Today, I get to put the shutters back up, after the outside caulking on the windows has dried. It's bright and sunny here, with a low in the low twenties this morning.
Semiconductors, eh Johnny? Familiar product in my line of work here at Rockwell Collins. Which company do you work for?
Justin, I'm glad to hear that your mom is doing better. We will keep praying for her.
Today was an interesting day. We stayed home all day, but had company--window installers. I was not sure they would come because of the promised snow, but they came about mid-morning--and proceeded to take the north kitchen window out. Brrrr. They finished the whole job (eleven windows) before supper, and we have more insulation now than ever before.
Carl, what is a CRO? Twenty-four years ago, I was involved in the manufacture of 32k RAMs--until the bottom fell out of the market. I went home at the end of one week, having worked with about thirteen other people in my area (diffusion). When I went back to work the next week, there were four other people to work with, and I had not worked with any of them before, and we were, of course, starting to work on other products. I am thankful that in my thirty-one and a quarter years in the semiconductor industry, I was never laid off in any of the all-to-often workforce reductions.
Let your mom do it with the card, Justin--might have added warranty protection that way.
Whereabouts are you when visiting your grandpa? Any trains nearby? It sounds cold!
Made another one-way bicycle trip home from work today. Boy, do I need to get back into shape--it took 'way too long!
Things are still shaking out at work from the job repositioning--only one CRO position is eliminated, but it seems like more, for some reason. Found out today that one of my favorite people to work with will be joining us on the day shift starting tomorrow.
My parents are bonkers!!! I have enough $$$ to get the add on but she says she won't do it tonoght. She will do it tommorow with a prepaid card she says... Ugh parents are silly!
I have 30 some $$. Going to see if there is any add ons for MSTS now. I'm still here though. ^~^... As mrs. mook would say..
Good evenig everybody! I spent the day with grandpah... Whent fishin. Didn't get a nibble though. Had fun however. Cool in thw wind and wind. Cooler today 57*. Well have a god night might be back later. Mom is doing better just so you know.
My knowledge of the technical aspects of the sensors in digital cameras is limited, to say the least.
That said, I should think that unless the sensor or software is capable of grouping multiple sensor segments the only method of increasing the apparent speed is to amplify the output from each segment, which, of course, introduces noise. It would seem to be rather parallel to "pushing" film, which I have had done.
The bottom line being that digitally the 'grain' is the same at ISO 64 as it is at ISO 12800. The difference is the quality of each grain.
Or not.
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