RSS Feedlinks for 2005-11-30
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 by Aaron Hockley-
14 photos which appear 3D when viewed with 3D glasses
Apparently someone doesn’t like their locomotive:
The highlight of the lunch hour was a Centralia Coal empty with a brand new ES44AC on the point. I heard him get permission to come through the yard and wanted to get a couple shots. I still think the “power bar” looks like shit on the nose of these things, but at least it was clean.
My first shot was entering CTC at 8th Street. One of these days I’ll remember to do something different here like climb up onto my truck for some elevation:
I drove out to Wintler where this guy was going to stop and wait before heading east. A few months ago they put in a bunch of concrete barriers where foamers used to park, along with huge “No Parking — Tow Away Zone” signs all along any area for parking. Sure, I could’ve drove down near Wintler Park and used one of the official parking lots, but I’m a lazy guy on a lunch break. When in doubt, just stop your pickup in the middle of the (not at all busy) road, hop out, take your shot, and get back in:
With a new monitor, I’m back to editing photos. Here are a few from last week:
A couple CEFX leasers sit in the old NP yard:
A friendly wave from an engineer at 11th street (all 5 fingers!):
I’m really starting to play more with head-on telephoto shots using my 300mm F4L:
BNSF 572 leads a stack train at Jefferson Street:
In case anyone cares, here’s what I typically have with me when out railfanning for the day:
I’m thankful I live in one of the busiest railroad areas around this part of the country. I’m thankful I work less than a mile from the tracks. I’m thankful I have the abilities and means to frequently watch trains and take photographs.
And I’m thankful that somebody out there reads the words and looks at the pictures.
Having a charity event to raise money for a rail-related cause? Trying to figure out how to annoy potential customers? Just setup your ticketing so would-be ticket buyers pay a 20% service fee when buying tickets to your event! I’m trying to find a way to buy tickets for the ORHF’s Santa Train without getting bent over… right now it looks like my only option is to drive over to southeast Portland to OMSI to buy the tickets in person (which really isn’t an option).
I’ve configured a new service which will automatically post my bookmarks I’ve saved on del.icio.us to this blog. This will be an easy way to automatically share new railroad or photo-related links here without having to manually post each one, plus it will consolidate several links for one day into one post. The only downside is an occasional off-topic link might show up (one I’ve posted, but not related to railroads or photography) but I’ll clean that up as soon as I can.
Brought to you by the “random things to occupy more time on the intarweb” department 
Every day in this country, someone is hit and killed by a train. Sometimes it’s suicide, sometimes it’s a pedestrian with headphones foolishly jogging down the right-of-way, and sometimes it’s some impatient driver who decided that risking their life was more important than waiting a few minutes for a train to pass. For the most part, the common theme is someone who, for whatever reason, makes a choice not to look for trains, and dies as a result. I usually don’t have too much sympathy for these folks, instead feeling sorry for the train crew who is powerless in these situations, or for the families of the victims whose lives are forever changed by a moment of carelessness.
Yesterday a situation occurred in California for which I not only feel sorry for the victim, but also extreme anger at the person whose negligence put the victim in the situation. A two-year old child was killed yesterday… hit by the Amtrak Coast Starlight traveling close to the 79mph speed limit.
The child’s regular babysitter had her roomate watch the child while the babysitter went for a job interview. The roommate took the kids out, chose to illegally cross the railroad tracks, left children unsupervised on one side of the tracks while she crossed again to get another child, and the child that was killed walked back across the tracks as the train approached.
Police are now charging the woman with criminal charges.
Use some common sense! Cross the railroad tracks at designated crossings. Don’t walk along railroad tracks. If you are crossing the tracks (anywhere), look both ways for oncoming trains. If you’re with children, protect them. Trains are big, heavy, and take huge distances to stop. A little healthy fear never hurt anyone. It really pisses me off that a child is dead because an adult who should have known better was in such a big hurry to get to McDonald’s that she couldn’t make intelligent decisions about the safety of the children.
Here are some links to news articles:
Initial Report
Charges Filed
I had a decent lunch break today, seeing a few trains and some interesting power around Vancouver. No photos for now until I have a monitor that’s properly displaying colors (will be ordered sometime this week).
I headed down to the depot, with radio silence and no trains visible even as I arrived 
Fortunately things started moving, right on time… someone got clearance into the yard… that someone turned out to be the shipyard job.
Shortly thereafter, the ZSEMN pulled down to wait for the Columbia River Drawbridge to close, with an assortment of power: UP 3826, 5438, and 2730 (patch speed-lettered SD40-2).
I cruised down to 8th street to get a telephoto shot of the next eastbound as he left the middle lead. Telephoto shots across two grade crossings can be tricky, because inevitably some assclown will drive right into your shot. I think I did okay… results will be posted next week once I am in happy-monitor land. The train was the M-EVEPAS with BNSF 3717, 140, 7074, and 6709, each in a different paint scheme. As I turned to go back to my truck I noticed that wacky caboose guy (I mean that in a friendly way, Bob) down at the other end of the parking lot.
We chatted a bit and I then shot the next eastbound. I knew it had a B40-8W on the point and was hoping it would be some nice clean Orange… it was. The consist was BNSF 572, 7332, and CSX 7536, a C40-8. At that point I looped under the tracks, noting the power on a G-somethingKAL (BNSF 9460, 619, 920) and headed back to the job.
Grumpysworld.com now works in Firefox. Yay!
The monitor on my main PC at home (the one I use for photo editing) is dying, and in the process of dying it’s botching the colors and contrast. Photos which I edit and look great at home look like crap when viewed on a correctly-functioning monitor. As a result, you’ll likely see a few less photos posted here for a week or two until I can come up with a better monitor at home.
A couple months ago I mentioned that I’d acquired some sensor dust, and then I was a bad blogger by not following up on that post with more information or what I’d learned.
I talked to a couple of my friends with DSLRs and did some research online and the method and system mentioned most often was the “Copper Hill” system. The short version is that the guy behind the method did some research and found a combination of tool, cloth, and solution which easily and effectively cleans dust from a DSLR sensor. He has created special tools for various sized sensors, and offers the materials in a kit. You can read through his tutorials and either acquire the materials on your own, or purchase a ready-to-go kit from his website.
Not wanting to botch things up on my own, I purchased one of his kits. I was very impressed by the super-fast shipping and set out to clean away… it was pretty easy and I must say the results were impressive. After two swipes with the cleaning pad, I couldn’t find any noticable sensor dust on a test shot of a white wall.
Here’s the link to the website for anyone needing to clean their DSLR: Copper Hill Cleaning Method.
I use del.icio.us to manage my bookmarks… which means if anyone wants to know what I’ve tagged, you can see. My railroad-related bookmarks can be found at http://del.icio.us/ahockley/railroad
A visitor from the east leads a stack train off the Vancouver yard lead and onto the CTC-controlled BNSF Fallbridge Sub at 8th Street earlier this morning.
I’ve been slacking on the photography this week, but here’s a colorful Z-CHCPTL, shot at 8th street on Thursday 11/10.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110900643.html
I guess that’s what happens when you’re more interested in running a railroad than playing politics.
A couple shots from today at lunch… it was slow… three Dash 9s went south as light power (likely for tonight’s outbound Z train) and a southbound UP manifest came through town.
An overview of Vancouver center… from left to right… a couple geeps parked on the tail track. In the background a couple UP SD90 MACs sit at the south end of the NP yard, and the UP manifest begins crossing over at the center.
Closer shot as the lead SD40-2 comes under the old SP&S signal bridge.
Reflecting The Times:
Fast Trains:
Tracks in the Snow:
Organizer to Lightroom...Complete!: