Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The Rainiest Photo Charter Ever

Little River Railroad; Hillsdale, Mich.; October 9, 2009
Just over five years ago I attended the most rainy photo charter I had ever been on. Historic Transport Preservation was in Michigan for two days of charters with Nickel Plate Road No. 765 out of Owosso, but as a bonus trip HTP added a day on the Little River Railroad using 4-6-2 No. 110 -- the smallest standard gauge Pacific ever constructed for use in the United States.
Little River Railroad; Coldwater, Mich.; October 9, 2009
The day started off wet and dark. A couple of runbys were done in Hillsdale with a Baltimore & Ohio boxcar behind No. 110. Unfortunately, the boxcar was limited to yard service, and the photo train headed out of town with a flatcar and caboose trailing. The photographers for this trip went to predetermined photo locations by car.
Little River Railroad; Jonesville, Mich.; October 9, 2009
John Craft was the coordinator for Historic Transport Preservation, and one of the photo locations was at the station in Jonesville. John's wife, Danah, waved to the train while staying out of the rain under the station eaves.
Little River Railroad; Jonesville, Mich.; October 9, 2009
After a set of runbys at Hillsdale (top photo of this post), a nice open field at Bankers provided some nice angles. The rain was still coming down.
Little River Railroad; Bankers, Mich.; October 9, 2009
At the mill in Reading it was decided to get some "human interest" into the shot. A very wet brakeman was sent into the downpour with a lantern to pose for shots. Look carefully at the caboose and you can see the amount of rain coming down.
Little River Railroad; Bankers, Mich.; October 9, 2009
Continuing out of town, the weather wasn't much better for the next set of runbys...
Little River Railroad; Bankers, Mich.; October 9, 2009
At Montgomery a shot was done looking down a dirt road. Well, a mud road. The chasing automobiles were starting to accumulate a lot of tracked-in mud and wet interiors from soggy photographers getting back in after each photo location.
Little River Railroad; Montgomery, Mich.; October 9, 2009
An open area allowed for a midday silhouette shot -- something that is normally done at sunrise or sunset. But it was dark...
Little River Railroad; Montgomery, Mich.; October 9, 2009
From Montgomery the train returned to Hillsdale for one more set of runbys before calling it a (wet) day.
Little River Railroad; Hillsdale, Mich.; October 9, 2009
The next morning at the first runby with No. 765, as the sun was rising my very soaked lens suddenly fogged up. Friend Bill Raia also had his lens fog up at the exact same moment -- come to find out, we were both using Nikon 18-200 zoom lenses, and for some reason that certain dew point triggered a huge amount of fogging. I went back to the car and held my lens up to the air conditioner, trying to force dry air into it. It was quite an exclamation point to the previous day. We'll finish with one more rainy shot at Hillsdale. More photos from this charter can be found here.
Little River Railroad; Hillsdale, Mich.; October 9, 2009

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Cool Chromes -- A Quintessential Short Line of the South

Aberdeen, Carolina & Western; Star, N.C.; May 1992
The short line railroads of the south have their own charm. They have a reputation of being laid back and friendly, and many have a storied history. Some are prosperous, some just hang on.

One prosperous short line that has (or at least had) the appearance of "just hanging on" is the Aberdeen, Carolina & Western. Today's AC&W has sharply painted locomotives operating over 150 miles east of Charlotte. But when I first visited the railroad in 1992 it was only five years old and scratching out a living between the towns of Aberdeen and Star. The line's shop was in Star, and on my first visit it showed a lot of hardscrabble southern charm. The freight house showed its Southern Railway heritage thanks to the distinctive green sign on the building, and a former Chesapeake & Ohio EMD GP9 sat outside. Definitely a hand-me-down railroad.

My next visit to Star was five years later on May 6, 1997. This time I was there at night and wanted to do some night photos. The shop was wide open on the warm spring night, the lights were on, but no one was around. Not finding anyone, I took a few night shots and left. Once again the hand-me-down life of the railroad was evident by the locomotive in the shop -- ex-Chessie System GP38 No. 2077.
Aberdeen, Carolina & Western; May 6, 1997
It looks like this year I'll be making a couple of trips southward during the winter, and the short lines of North Carolina are high on the list of places to visit. The Aberdeen, Carolina & Western will certainly be one of those.

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Newton, New Jersey, United States

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