My calendar for July 2018

20T charges toward MO. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—“Let’s go to ‘MO,’” my brother said. “MO” are the old telegraph call-letters of a trackside tower once at that location. Now it’s just crossovers, plus where I think Track Four ends. The railroad also has a service facility nearby for helper locomotives — helpers for Allegheny Mountain. Branches, once Pennsy but now Corman, connect there.
Eastbound toward MO passes Cresson on a long tangent. It’s also uphill, but not dreadful. Some eastbounds get helpers. The track is Allegheny Mountain’s west slope.
The July 2018 entry in my calendar is Norfolk Southern doublestack 20T past Cresson approaching MO. Signals are at MO, and 20T’s engineer called ‘em. We got that on our railroad-radio scanners, which is how we got the train-number.
I set up my tripod looking railroad-west down Track One, which is only eastbound approaching. “How come I never saw this before?” Usually I avoid long straightaways, but this looked fabulous.
Here it comes: snap-snap-snap-snap! The picture is my second-to-last.
“In-yer-face” is what my brother shoots. But my last is too “in-yer-face.” The fact I can do multiple shots offsets shooting too early. Multiple shots are great, but my iPhone can do “bursts;” perhaps 10-20 exposures out of which I get get one useable. The others I delete.
I was at a location not long ago, wide-angle with trains doing 60+. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, and hope I can use one. My Nikon is fairly fast, but not “bursts.”


Got it! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It’s digital photography dudes. When are Nikon and Canon gonna catch up?
It helps 20T is solid doublestacks. Often the well-cars have only one single container. If the train is “mixed” it wouldn’t be artistic.
My brother always shoots the other direction: westbounds approaching past MO. That gets MO’s signals. Lighting always favors westbounds through MO, which illuminates locomotive fronts.
My direction could be backlit, especially if the sun were strong.
But as my railfan friend from Altoona says “If it’s cloudy you can successfully shoot anything.”