Steam Saturday: The J at Night

Norfolk & Western Class J 4-8-4 No. 611 was a primary star on Norfolk Southern’s steam schedule in 1984.

It’s first set of excursions near us were roundtrip Erie, Pennsylvania, and Buffalo, New York, trips, the weekend of Aug. 11 and 12, 1984.

We learned that the locomotive was laying over near downtown Erie prior to the trips. After work on Friday, Aug. 10, I joined Marty Surdyk and his brothers Robert and John to capture some night photography in Erie prior to the weekend excursions that we chased.

Dan Pluta had recently hooked up as a volunteer with the steam crew and aided us with our photography. We were happy with our results that night along with images captured on the next day’s excursion. Above are a couple of my night shots.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

The Map Must Have Been Upside Down

Continuing with my 1984 night photography highlights, I always remember this next adventure. I joined up with Dan Pluta for a weekend railfan trip to southeastern Ohio.

We had no definite destination, just pot luck. We ended up in the Buffalo, New York, area. To this day I can’t explain how we ended up there.

The map had to be upside down. However with our strange mistake, I ended up with probably my favorite and one of my best night photos.

On the night of July 28,1984, we caught Arcade & Attica 4-6-0 No. 14 simmering at the engine house at Arcade in preparation for its weekend trips.

The steamer had been built by Baldwin in 1917 for the Escanaba & Lake Superior.

The A&A acquired it in 1963. I always remember Dan shining a flashlight beam into the headlight to make it appear it was on.

I also enjoy seeing the stars in the clear sky appear as streaks due to the Earth’s rotation.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Night Photo Shoot on the Buffalo Southern

After seeing the article about the 2010 night photography outing with Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 at Fitzwater, it prompted me to look up my early attempts at night photography.

I found several sessions from 1984. When Dan Pluta still lived in the area, I teamed up with him, Marty Surdyk, Robert Surdyk and John Surdyk for one of those night photo shoots.

The May 26, 1984, event was arranged by Dan. At this time the RS3 that was previously on the Adirondack was operating on the Buffalo Southern (ex-Erie) out of Hamburg, New York.

We rode it six miles down to Eden to conduct our makeshift night photos using existing light and flashlights.

For a first time the results were pretty good. It’s hard to say which outing was a favorite. This and others to follow over the next week or two are probably all favorites.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Steam Saturday: Remembering a 2010 Night Photo Shoot

Let’s take a trip back to September 2010. Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 has arrived on the property of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad for the first of what has turned out be an almost annual ritual.

Someone – I don’t remember who – arranged with CVSR officials for a night photo shoot of the 765 at the CVSR’s Fitzwater Shops, where the Berkshire-type locomotive spends its time between excursions.

Night photo shoots used to be a thing with some railfan photographers back in the day.

The photographers would set up their cameras on tripods and one member of the party would run around the object of the photographs – usually a locomotive – firing off a series of flashbulbs while the camera shutters were held open on the bulb setting.

The late O. Winston Link is well-known for having used a similar technique to record the final years of steam operations on the Norfolk & Western.

The Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts used to engage in night photo shoots here and there. One memorable one occurred in Youngstown on Jan. 14, 1977, to mark the end of the Cleveland-Youngstown commuter train on the former Erie Lackawanna route.

That photo shoot is remembered in Trackside Around Cleveland 1965-1979 with Dave McKay.

Another memorable night photo shoot occurred Sept. 10, 1988, in Brecksville when the then-named Cuyahoga Valley Line staged Grand Trunk Western 2-8-2 No. 4070 along the Cuyahoga River with the iconic Ohio Route 82 bridge in the background.

That night is recalled in my book Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad in an Edward Ribinskas photograph.

Fast forward 22 year to the evening of Sept. 16, 2010. RRE and Akron Railroad Club members brought their cameras and tripods to Fitzwater at dusk to photograph the 765 with two CVSR FPA-4 locomotives.

There was a small fee charged for the event with the proceeds going to the CVSR if I remember correctly.

CVSR trainmaster and director of operations Larry Blanchard brought the 6777 and 800 out of the shop and posed them with the 765, which was not in steam on this evening.

We picked our spots and set up our cameras and awaited the command of “open them up.” Then someone ran around firing off a flash gun a few times.

I was still a slide film shooter in 2010 and although my results were satisfactory not all of the images I made were necessarily top quality. In some instances light from the open shop doors cast a yellow glow over the scene despite the use of daylight balanced flash bulbs.

It was my first and thus far only night photo shoot in which flash bulbs were used.

The night photo shoot at Fitzwater would be the last of its kind staged by the RRE.

There are still photographers out there who use flash to create night photographs but they use strobes rather than flashbulbs.

During the most recent visit of the 765 to the CVSR, a night photo shoot was staged at Northside Station in Akron, but the lighting was provided by floodlights rather than flashes.

I’m not sure that the CVSR would allow the RRE/ARRC to replicate today what happened on that September 2010 evening at Fitzwater. Whatever the case, nothing like it has happened since, which makes these images all the more valuable and memorable.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Pa. Trolley Museum Sets Annual Meet

The Pennsylvania Trolly Museum will be conducting its annual Western Pennsylvania Trolley Meet on June 1-3.

Admission each day is $10 per person although a three-day pass can be purchased for $25.

Throughout the meet, cars from various transit companies and agencies will be in operation and on display.

A night photo shoot will be held on Saturday night and coordinated by Steve Barry, editor of Railfan & Railroad magazine.

There will also be model railway vendors, traction memorabilia dealers, presentations, demonstrations, a model contest, and hourly door prizes.

The museum is located at 1 Museum Road in Washington, Pennsylvania. Further information is available at  patrolley.org

Night Trains

Back in early August I had some magazines that had been donated to the Akron Railroad Club to convey to Marty Surdyk, who stores the inventory of merchandise that we sell at trains shows.

We arranged to meet in the evening at Olmsted Falls, where we would also spend some time railfanning the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

It was reminiscent of an outing we had in the Falls several years ago when I brought my tripod and dabbled with night photography.

I admire the work of those who have mastered the art, but that hasn’t motivated me to do much of it myself.

But my appetite for night photography was whetted earlier this summer during a night photo shoot at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.

I’ve also wondered what I could do with a digital SLR camera. One advantage of digital is that you will know right away if what you tried worked.

In North East I was working with steady light. That would not be the case in Olmsted Falls.

I was fortunate that much of the NS traffic on this evening was moving west.

I was able to get some late day images with natural lighting that didn’t require a tripod.

But along about 9 p.m. it was time top set up the tripod and shuttle cable release.

My first effort is the top image that accompanies this post. It was a straight-forward long shutter release of seven seconds at f/16 at ISO 100.

It has the streaks that I wanted and there was enough natural light to bring out some detail in the station and the fading blue light.

About 25 minutes later I tried this technique again, this time focusing on an approaching train. This image, shown immediately below the text, was made with a 16-second exposure a f/16 at ISO 100.

OK, what do I do for an encore? Marty suggested “painting” the station with light from a small flashlight, then keeping the shutter open but covering the lens with the lens cap.

I did a couple test images by shining the flashlight on the station. The results were good results.

Marty said that if I did that as a train approached, the crew might mistake the light for a signal telling them to stop their train.

My first effort was promising. I kept the shutter open for 77 seconds. Getting the lens cap on and off was more tricky than it might seem because I did not want to cause any vibration.

I tried the same technique a second time with an exposure time of 36 seconds. I also changed the f stop to 22. Of the two images, I liked the second one the best and it shown below this post.

Of course I didn’t like all of the “spots” on the image. That was light reflecting the aperture and made it appear that it was raining and I had water droplets on my lens.

I swung my camera around to try to get the train going away with the red light of the EOT “trailing behind.”

This ideal didn’t work well. I couldn’t get the blinking red light to “trail.” My best image, shown below, didn’t feature the train so much as a landing aircraft at nearby Cleveland Hopkins Airport.

For an encore, I went over to Berea and tried getting NS and CSX trains there.

The results were only so-so. The best of the lot is the final image shown below showing an eastbound.

Like any endeavor, there is a learning curve to learning how to do night photography. It requires study, practice and no small amount of trial and error. Having good equipment, particularly the tripod, also helps.

For most photographers, it is much easier to get trains in daylight. Yet some of the most dramatic images I’ve seen have been made at the extremes of the day in varying lighting conditions.

I don’t know that I’ll be doing much night photography, but I’m willing to learn and try it again.

 

Under the Lights at North East Museum

I had heard about the annual night at the museum event hosted every summer by the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.

Every year the museum stays open all night for people to watch trains on the adjacent Cleveland-Buffalo lines of CSX and Norfolk Southern.

It seemed like an interesting event, but I never made it over there for it until this year.

The promotional materials on the museum’s website said there would be a slide show in the former New York Central passenger station and a night photo shoot starting at 10 p.m.

Photographers were asked to make a donation of $20 for the night photo shoot.

Not until Friday did I make plans to go, prompted by the news that Chesapeake & Ohio No. 8272 had reached the museum.

The B30-7 had been built by GE’s Erie locomotive assembly plant in Lawrence Park Township and had been recently repainted into the Chessie System livery by CSX shop forces in Huntington, West Virginia.

I called fellow Akron Railroad Club member Peter Bowler and he agreed to go with me to the museum.

Neither the museum’s website or Facebook page had many details about what the night photo shoot would entail.

I presumed that C&O 8272 would be on display under lights and it was. But the museum also transformed former New York Central U25B No. 2500 into Pittsburgh & Lake Erie No. 2800.

This was done by placing black tape or paper over the NYC markings and applying P&LE markings, including white stripes on the pilot.

I’m told that the P&LE had early versions of the U28B that used a U26B car body.

The night photo shoot was not as elaborate or wide ranging as I thought it might be. It consisted of rented portable lights that illuminated the side of the C&O 8272 and P&LE 2800.

Museum personnel moved the 2800 around a couple times, using a small switcher.

The lighting was bright enough to make hand-held images, albeit with a high ISO setting. However, I made most of my images with a tripod.

The side lighting wasn’t enough to fully illuminate the nose of No. 8272, so Peter and I took turns painting the shadows with light from two flashlights that did an amazing job of adding fill-in light.

I had thought that the lights would be moved periodically to illuminate other pieces in the museum’s collection, but that didn’t happen.

Someone brought in a P&LE truck and at one point it was positioned next to the P&LE 2800.

The slide show featured images of the P&LE and Chessie system, but I ended up seeing only a few images. The interior of the depot was quite warm, so I elected to stay outside and watch CSX trains pass by.

I had been hoping to get some time exposures of CSX operations, but the last train before we left was a westbound at 10 p.m. and that was during the night photo shoot of No. 8272.

We stuck around until 12:20 a.m., but no trains came by. We faced a two-hour drive back to my house and thus left with some unfinished business left behind.

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

The latest addition to the collection of the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, arrived late last week and was the star of the night at the museum event on Saturday.

Chesapeake & Ohio B30-7 No. 8272 was built at the nearby GE Erie locomotive assembly plant in Lawrence Park and has been retired by CSX.

CSX also agreed to have the unit repainted into Chessie System colors at its locomotive shop in Huntington, West Virginia.

After being displayed at the GE Erie plant in a private showing, the unit was moved to the museum where it joins a collection of locomotives built in Erie.

NS 9-1-1, Amtrak 156, Ann Arbor Heritage Unit Shine Under Friday Night Lights at Toledo C.U.T.

Amtrak’s Phase I heritage locomotive was on the point of a four car display train that mimicked the consist of the Lake Shore Limited.

Here is a selection of the night photos from Toledo’s National Train Day festival that were made on Friday night.

The engineer is Engineer Steve, one of the main driving forces behind the National Train Day in Toledo and the one who set up the equipment. Lighting was provided by David Patch, a transportation reporter with The Blade of Toledo.

Photographs by Roger Durfee

Norfolk Southern’s
first responders tribute unit looks spiffy. Behind it is Ann Arbor GP38 No. 3879.

Watco brought out its Ann Arbor heritage locomotive, a GP38.

Engineer Steve poses at the controls of SD60E No. 9-1-1 on display at Toledo Central Union Terminal.

Engineer Steve climbs aboard Amtrak P42DC No. 156 as he “goes to work.”

NS 9-1-1 and the photographers that captured it under the lights.

 

Night Photo Shoot Set at ex-B&O Roundhouse

A night photo shoot is being held tonight at the roundhouse of the Midwest Railway Preservation Society from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m.

Plans are to make up a freight and a passenger consist and use rented construction light trailers. The former Baltimore & Ohio facility will be open so that attendees can view former Grand Trunk Western No. 4070 and Reading 2100.

Photographers are being asked to make a $20 donation to help cover the cost of renting the light trailers. The roundhouse is located at 2800 West Third Street in Cleveland at the at the south end of the Flats and near Steel Yard Commons.