LOOKING GOOD ON THE MARKER

This seems to be a common occurrence when I specifically go to document things along the railroad such as signals. I’ll come away with something totally different which adds to the excitement of night shooting. In a PREVIOUS POST I talked about documenting the Norfolk and Western Color Position Light signals at Shepherdstown on the Norfolk Southern H Line in January 2015. Well, in late 2014, I had gone to document the signals at Shenandoah Junction as their immediate retirement was near. Norfolk Southern had been extending the siding the signals here controlled to the north and their replacements were moved from staging at Charles Town to the Junction sometime in August.

After multiple trips over the course of the month, I set out for one final night along the rails. I arrived and decided to shoot the northbound signals that sit roughly 100 yards south of a road crossing. There are 3 tracks here, facing north left to right are the siding, the main, and the lead into the former N&W/B&O interchange yard.

NS 994619

Upon arrival I found NS had parked some ballast cars on the interchange track. 12R was in the area so I turned the camera around to face south and got set. The red hue on the rear of the hopper is the reflection from the light of the dual bracket mast signals immediately behind me and 12R’s headlights light up the main and siding tracks as a gentle fog rolls by.

FOGGY VISIONS: The headlights of 213 illuminate the dense fog at Shenandoah Junction, WV

As the night wore on and into the early morning hours as I focused my attention to the signals. The fog was heavy at times and non-existent at others. The traffic on the rails however was somewhat lacking which is unusual for this stretch at night, Finally, a southbound train could be heard rumbling far off in the distance through the very thick fog. It’s sounding horn, very faint until its arrival.

APPROACH ILLUMINATED: Shenandoah Junction, WV

The dense fog let up quite a bit by the time southbound manifest train 15T arrived on the scene. The dispatcher previously notified the crew on board they were to wait for a northbound and take the siding.  It was as 15T rolled past I had an idea but it hinged on where exactly the rear of the train would stop, how fast the approaching train would be going and of course the fog. Sure enough, the train stopped in an almost perfect location, With it being so dark, i could not gather any intel on the density of the fog other than my visibility with my headlamp ceasing at about 10 feet. So there I waited and took a few test shots to try and time the blinking end of train or EOT device as I know I did not want the light to blow out its exposure. “214 clear Daniels” was announced on the radio and i began my finishing touches, including focus. Soon the headlights of 214 announced it’s presence and I held my shutter trigger cable release in my hand. I quickly again checked the focus through the viewfinder and noticed to my surprise the fog was very light. I picked a spot to begin firing off the shutter in succession. The scene to the naked eye looked awesome! I began hitting the shutter in coordination with the EOT device.

214 passed by, giving a salute of the horn to myself and the grade crossing ahead, I looked at the cameras lcd display and was very pleased with the result. Soon after, 15T disappeared into the again heavy fog. I packed up my things and headed back to the car. I downloaded the SD card contents to my desktop and played with the photo on Lightroom. After only a few minor tweaks, the final version can be seen below.

LOOKING GOOD ON THE MARKER, SHENANDOAH JUNCTION WV

CANON T3i
EXPOSURE: 3/1
ISO: 1600
APERTURE: f6.3
FOCAL LENGTH: 123mm