Trains

At The Ready

Black And White Photography, Don, Photography

They are in tall stockpiles in rail yards. And you can see them in small stacks spaced out along railroad mainlines, secondaries, and spurs. They are railroad ties waiting their turn. From a distance they are carefully arranged stacks of lumber. Move in closer and patterns and textures start to become apparent. Look even more closely and those patterns and textures come into sharper focus, and you realize you have a picture.
Railroad ties have a finite life and have to be replaced with some regularity. Hence the stockpiling. These stacks of ties, complete with the baseplates that the rail sits on, were in a small train yard about 40 miles southwest of Houston, Texas.

Freight Train At Dusk

Black And White Photography, Don, Photography

“Freight train, freight train goin’ so fast
Please don’t tell what train I’m on
So they won’t know where I’ve gone”
– Peter, Paul, and Mary
Few things can conjure up romantic thoughts of wandering as a freight train passing by at dusk. This train of tank cars was out of Houston and heading southwest to parts unknown.

The Zephyr

Black And White Photography, Don, Photography
The Burlington Zephyr changed passenger rail travel forever. Built in 1934, it is both the first diesel-powered train and the first stainless-steel train. It set speed records and new standards for style and comfort. Streamlined, very fast, and stainless-steel, it became known as the Silver Streak. This is Number 9900, the first Zephyr built. It was built by the Budd Company where my dad was the electrical foreman for its construction. The complete train is in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where this photo was taken. The kind folks at the museum allowed me to come in early to photograph it.

Crew change

Black And White Photography, David, Photography

20190728-untitled shoot-113-Edit

One of the things we did on our holiday was to take the steam train on the North Yorkshire moors railway. It runs from Pickering to Whitby. It stops at 6 stations. We had had a long day in Whitby and I was a bit tired, I nearly didn’t make the effort to get off and take this shot. I’m glad I did.  It’s so atmospheric and typical of a bygone age.
Nikon D800
Nikon 14-24 mm f/2.8 @24mm.
ISO 200
1/60 at F/8
PP Silver efex Pro II

Street Car Yard

Black And White Photography, Devon, Photography

street_yard2-1-of-1

I love my tripod but sometimes there is an image that just needs to be taken, and it doesn’t matter how dark and tripod-less you are that moment. I took this on a Canon 7D at 1000 ISO!! With all the fine details, and especially all the black space I was super worried that this shot would be way too noisy. Though, as luck would have it, my camera handled this light level just perfectly, and I can’t believe I was able to get it so sharp at only 1/15th of a second.

Anyway, I won’t ramble – I just think this is one of my all time favorite images. I can’t wait for you all to see it.