(Pix Heavy) Trip Report for the Adventures of July 27th - July 29th.

[CopCarSS]

OK, as promised in the diner, here's a little write up on the weekend's adventures involving the UP 1989 and the GLRR. Please excuse any cutting and pasting I do from the text of the pix from my PBase site...it'll save me a little typing:

Sor I started by heading out Thursday morning (around 2:00 AM) looking for the UP 1989 on the Joint Line. Alas! she never made it out of Pueblo. So, what's a body to do after driving a lot and not catching what one was intending? Why get a sunrise shot near Palmer Lake of course:

This is one of those rare occasions when I wish I had a film body with me. Digital just doesn't do well with sunrise and sunset shots (unless the sun is really enveloped in haze or such). Oh well...still kind of an interesting shot.

Carl informed me that 1989 was due into North Yard the next day. I didn't have the energy to get up at 2:00 again, so I reset my alarm clock. Being the genius that I am, I set it for 4:00 PM. Yeah...so I woke up about 10 minutes before sunrise. Doh! I quickly ran over to North Yard, hoping that she might have been a little early there, as I had a meeting at work and couldn't wait for her, or use much time chasing the Joint Line trying to find her. Again, I turned up nothing, but did get another early morning shot:

Later that day, while driving on I-70 through the Mouse Trap, I noticed that 1989 was there. I made plans to get there a little after sunset for an evening shot. When I got to the yard, she was positioned perfectly. However, by the time I had parked the car on the other side of the 48th Ave. bridge and walked up onto the bridge she had disappeared. Oh well...guess I need to get a shot while the light is decent. Besides, there's some DRGW power in the shot!:

BTW, the mountain on the left side of the background is Long's Peak, which happens to be one of the 14ers I've conquered (sorry...had to pat myself on the back for that). Finally, while looking around the yard, I saw 1989 had been put on her train, due to head back to Pueblo in a few hours:

I was really happy to get that shot, though white balancing a scene mostly lit by Sodium Vapor lighting proved to bit a little difficult. I could've chased her down to Pueblo. However, her departure time is 11:00 PM, and arrival is estimated around 7:00, that would mean I'd be headed pretty far south for a sunrise shot.

Also, the sun is still popping up in the East Northeast this time of year. Since she was running south, that would have meant getting creative at sunrise to utilize the sun as best as possible. I guess if she's still on the Denver Pueblo run in winter, I'll be chasing the southbound run then!

Anyways, I decided to take a trip up to the Georgetown Loop RR since I haven't done that since No. 9 has been brought back to life.

While they were getting ready to roll No. 9 out, I wandered through the empty yard, and grabbed a couple quick shots:

When they got No. 9 out to water and fuel her, I took the opportunity to duplicate a couple of my shots that I did on the 844 shoot:

Well...now that I've got the artsty-fartsy stuff out of the way, how about a couple more traditional train photos from the train ride:

After my trip, it was getting close to high sun, and my stomach was telling me it was lunchtime. Lo and behold, there was an Irish Festival going on in Silver Plume. I had some Corned Beef and Cabbage and a Murphy's Irish Stout and listened to some Celtic music! Woo hoo! There are some pictures taken at the fest, and of Silver Plume on my site. This is getting a little long, and picture heavy, so I won't post them here. Anyways, after that, the sun was starting to drop into the western sky, which means it's time to focus on getting some decent pictures (sorry about the pun). Taken in Georgetown:

Ah yes...walk softly and carry a big lens. While not too far into the zoom range of my Tamron SP 200-500mm, it was at 375mm, which works out to be a 600mm equivalent in 35mm terms. After that shot, I zoomed out and got this one which I modified in Lightroom:

So Adobe Lightroom has some presets that one can apply to an image. One of the options is a preset called "Antique Grayscale" (or something to that effect). I think it would be easy to be overused and look gimmicky. However, used in moderation, in might be kind of cool.

I'm not sure it actually works here. For one thing, even though it attempts to, it doesn't look "period." The biggest problem I see is that the Tammy is way too good to duplicate the look of vintage optics. A lot of older pictures are actually quite sharp in the center, but positively awful at the edges. They usually vignette something terrible (which I tried to duplicate in this shot...not really effectively though). I think the traditional 3/4 angle "wedge" was used much more in classic shots, rather than an in your face, head-on tele as this shot is. Finally, my biggest concern is that I had way too much shutter speed (which was necessary, as the loco is in motion). A vintage shot like this would have probably been shot at something like ISO 2 or something. 1/250th of a second would have been a dream.

Additionally, I don't think any vintage photographer would be shooting with this much focal length. This was taken at 200mm, which works out to be 320mm in 35mm terms. Translated into 4x5 terms, thats around 960mm. On larger formats, it's even more. 4x5 is bad enough, though. Shooting a 960mm lens would mean needing more than 3 feet of bellows just to focus at infinity! Yeah...not likely. Additionally, the optics would have probably been very high speed (what else would you expect with such low ISOs?), so depth of field would have been next to nothing.

Oh well...I have some ideas on how utilize this feature better in the future.

Anyways, if any of you are still reading, I'll reward you with a couple nice shots of a new favorite loco, C&S No. 9:

and finally...my signature, "use your Wide Angle to Force the Perspective a Bit" shot:

All in all, it was a great weekend. I do plan to do some more chasing of 1989, especially if she gets out on the Moffat Line during daylight hours.

Sorry about the long post, and I really apologize to those of you with dial-up. Hopefully you enjoyed the shots a little bit, though.

[blhanel]

Definitely!  Looking forward to seeing some of this in person next month!

[CopCarSS]

I thought you might enjoy those Brian. I'm looking forward to your trip!

[chad thomas]

Outstanding work as usual Chris.

[CopCarSS]

Thanks Chad!

[Kozzie]

Chris, a big thank you for those pictures.  I particularly enjoyed the shot from the rear of the train whilst it was crossing the curved bridge!  Much appreciated.  Good to see steam in action.

Dave 

[youngengineer]

outstanding pics, thank you.

I lived in Denver for a long itme but moved before number 9 ran again. I remember going to Silver Plume and walking back down the grade to look at #9 when she first arrived there, I belive it was about 10 degrees out. I never thought at the time she would ever run again.

 

Thank you for the pics of #9, steam is always more beautiful than diesel. I was also wondering what other engines are running up their now?

 

[CopCarSS]

Dave and Youngengineer,

Thanks for the kind words. It's always fun to go out and take the pix. It's always even better when others appreciate it too!

YE, currently RailStar is running #9 (obviously), #12 (the Prairie that they brought in from Hawaii), and the Center Cab diesel (#21 if I remember correctly). The locos that formerly ran the tracks up there are currently hanging out at the Colorado Rail Museum in Golden:

Thanks again!