First Place, Bill Grady – With the Top Brass on board, NS #950 arrives about 5:30 in the afternoon after an all day trip from St. Louis. Shown here arriving at the North End of NS’s Youngstown Yard (Louisville). Tomorrow the #950 will run like a scalded dog to Knoxville, Tennessee. Shot made on October 4, 2016.
Second Place, Bill Grady – L&N 411 makes it way South towards New Haven, KY on the L&N Lebanon Branch. This is now part of the Kentucky Railway Museum. Taken at Holton Valley Road on October 1, 2016.
Third Place Rick Bivins – West end of P&L’s West Yard complex, in Madisonville, Ky looking east into the rising sun.
Train Rides on the Hoosier Southern (ex-Southern) Tell City, IN to Lincoln City, IN during the Fall of 2016
The Scenic Lincoln Way is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to welcoming tourists to the historic land of President Abraham Lincoln’s childhood in Spencer and Perry Counties in Southern Indiana. This is over the Hoosier Southern (ex-Southern) Tell City, Indiana branch east of Evansville, Indiana.
Past events have traveled west out of Tell City to approximately Troy, Indiana. The September trip should be from Tell City to Lincoln City (most of the route). Suspect equipment is borrowed from the nearby City of Jasper and/or Indiana Railway Museum.
2016 Excursion Train Rides
October 2016—Fall and Zombie-themed rides. Details coming soon!
December 2016—Holiday Excursions—Details coming soon!
Visit http://www.sceniclincolnway.org/events.html
Submitted by Don Clayton
Yates Center Kansas boasts “more hay shipped from this point then any other town in the United States!
“Buffalo Kansas, more ancient fire arms and implements of war here then anyplace west of Chicago; and, one of the largest brick plants in the west”!
Next is “Neodesha Kansas, the one time home of the Notorious Bender Family” and 3500 other people in 1914. 2486 residents in 2010! Neodesha was also “the largest oil refinery in the west, using 60,000 barrels crude petroleum per day”!
There are two accounts of the name. One is the Osage Indian meaning “where waters meet” another meaning “muddy waters”!
“Cherokee Indians” tells about the Cherokee Indians being the only Native Americans to have “an alphabet of their own and a printed language “! As well as the only Indian Newspaper ever printed!
I will continue this’s synopsis next month.
If you are interested in reading the book, It is available as an electronic file for purchase via Amazon.
Rick Bivins.
10 Tips for photographing trains by Jim Pearson
While this is by no means a compressive list of ways to photograph trains, these ten tips will help get you started. I hope these will provide you with some inspiration. If you just shoot a photo carelessly you’ll get a careless snapshot. You need to bring something of yourself to photo for it to be successful.
¨ Capture Movement: Railroads are a moving industry. While at times it’s a hurry-up and wait industry, you often will find trains in motion. If you capture that movement in your photo it will add drama to your photographs. To capture movement or motion in your photos you’ll need a slow shutter speed and probably a tripod. Shooting just before sunrise or after sunset will give you the low light you’ll need to capture motion blur.
¨ The Light: Usually the hour just after sunset or sunset are great to photograph in, but great light can be found anytime day or night, but these two hours are considered the best and predictable.
¨ Photograph the cars: Of course everyone photographs the engines and cabooses, which are loud and often colorful, however, most of the train consists of cars that can be colorful and large. Trains are rolling canvases and many punks and malcontents, and the graffiti they leave behind can often be interesting. Finding creative visuals among the spray paint can be rewarding.
¨ Change your angle: Look for moments where you can photograph trains from different angles. Get high, low and move around when shooting. Look for high vantage points such as overpasses, tunnels and curves. This will add impact to your photos.
¨ Be Contextual: Railroads provide a service for other industries. By capturing the industries, they serve, you tell a much bigger story of what trains are about. While they’re big, they’re actually pretty small compared to the large refineries, plants, etc., that generate the freight.
¨ Photograph the infrastructure: Railroads need rails, signals and a host of other infrastructures in order to operate. You can add interest to your pictures be capturing photos of these things such as switches, bolts, couplers or rails.
¨ Add human interest: People like seeing photos of people so look for opportunities to include them in your pictures. This includes spectators and workers.
¨ Sometimes less is more: Don’t think you always need trains in your photos! Tracks leading off into the sunrise or sunset make for some great photos. Don’t pass on a good photo just because there’s no train.
¨ Edit Creatively: Try inverting your photos, use creative filters, create multiple exposures and just play around with your software to come up with creative compositions.
¨ Use a different camera: It seems like everyone has a DSLR these days. They become better, cheaper and smarter every year. However, sometimes they’re too clean and bland. Spend $20 and buy a Holga film camera. Buy some camera apps for your phone that provide creative options, such as Hipstamatic, Painteresque or Plastic Bullet, just to name a few.
¨ Remember, you have to be creative. You have to think about what you’re creating and somehow give that a voice. There are really no rules and the camera really makes no difference. There’s only you, the one that does the creating! It the person behind the camera that “Makes’ the photo and that’s you!
We have several things to cover in this column, so let’s get started.
First, the club picnic went well and everyone who attended seemed to have a great time. The only down side was the heat and the flies. I now know why the club moved it to the second week in October. I don’t know if I want to cook or freeze. The membership will have to think about a date for next year’s picnic. The location is just great and I can’t think of another place along the main line that would better.
Next, we have just finished the last photo contest of the year. I hope everyone has enjoyed getting out and taking pictures of trains in action. Our plan is to take the top three pictures from each contest and develop a club calendar for 2017. This calendar will be available to the membership as well to individuals on line. Jim Pearson said we might make a little money on this project from the online sales. I hope all our club members plan on purchasing at least one calendar for the new year.
Third, in our September meeting we found out that the liability insurance policy had tripled in cost. I have been in touch with a company in Madisonville who is supposed to give us a new quote. With a little luck maybe we can get the cost of a new policy down to something the club can manage.
Finally, we have nominations for our 2017 club officers in the October meeting. We have many qualified individuals in the membership who could serve our organization well. Take a little time and think of someone that might do a good job as an officer of our organization. The positions we are nominating for are; President, Vice President, Sec/Treas. and Officer at Large.
Until the meeting– get out, enjoy the weather and chase a train. Oh, and when you see Bill Thomas tell him he is doing a great job with the “PennyRail” news letter.
Bill Farrell, President
Opinions and Stories by Bill Thomas, Editor
My middle child, Liam, is fast approaching the date he can take his driving test and have his own driver’s license – on the road! It reminds me of the day I turned 16! In the great state of Georgia, you got your learners license at 15, then you could take your driving test upon your 16th birthday or soon thereafter since the GA State Patrol Examiner was in Ellijay only on Wednesdays.
Most 16-year-olds made their first trips “alone” to a friend’s house, the Dairy Queen, or other spot where his peers would be impressed. Not this one! Nope! Off to the “new line” I went. About 30 miles west of my house was L&N’s flat and straight route that replaced the Hook & Eye line in 1916.
Still full of U-boats and a few Grey/Yellow L&N paint schemes, the Family Lines’ more-level route paralleling US 411 was a great stretch to chase with a new Yashica SLR in a 1974 Pontiac Bonneville.
First was the drive straight to Etowah, TN, division point, yard, and engine facility. Long I had passed this huge wood-frame station and facility in my parents car (now my car) on the way to Gatlinburg, hoping for glimpses of anything moving. Now, I could visit as long as I wanted.
Keep in mind, this was 1979, when most RR workers welcomed you in for a tour if you showed interest. The tour never materialized, but, crews loved having their pictures made. After walking around and getting some shots, it was time to head back south. I caught a couple of freights on the south ready tracks and for the next 60 miles or so, got ahead of them, shot them in pre-determined locations, then repeated the process.
If I can ever find the photo, I’ll scan and post the one that almost got away. In a foolish attempt to get one last shot on an overpass just south of Chatsworth, GA, I climbed the north side embankment, crossed the RR overpass on foot, turned just in time to catch the southbound in low throttle, gliding downhill, rounding the curve and giving me short blasts as a warning. I got the shot but probably gave the crew an anxious moment. By then they’d seen me trackside 3 or 4 times. They gave me a congratulatory thumbs up as they rolled by. Sure miss those days.