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Aug. 2nd, 2009 01:05 pmI happened to see that Katherine of Chicago had posted pictures of a steam engine down in Franklin Park this morning. After some quick looking around Google and comments from helpful folks on Flickr, I figured out it was going to be going right through Kenosha! And soon!
I dashed out to the car with Kuma and my camera and drove out to one of my favorite places; the site of the ghost town of Ranney along Bain Station Road. I met about fifteen or twenty other railfans all waiting around in anticipation of the 4449's run.
I've never seen that line that busy either! A couple of freights and two Amtrak passenger trains came through as I chatted with people about various bits of local and railroad history. There were a couple of guys up from Harvard who had interesting things to say about old lines that no longer exist.
I got there about eleven o' clock with no good sense of when exactly it was coming. It also turned out to be running a bit late, according to those there following the Twitter feed. But finally at about half past twelve, I heard what I was sure was a steam whistle, coming from the south. I quickly readied the camera, which I'd already set to F13 for a wide depth of field under the bright sky, and to motor-drive mode.
The train was beautiful. It moved so fast that I barely got a sense of the locomotive itself, followed by five or six vintage passenger cars, including one with an amazing observation porch trailing the rest of them. There were people standing at the junctions between cars, or with their faces out the windows. The conductor was waving at the assembled lot as he barreled through at sixty or seventy miles an hour. It was beautiful.
As much or more than the visuals of it, the sound will be stuck in my head for a long time. The volume of the steam whistle wailing as the engine hurtled along the tracks next to me made my entire body resonate. It's an unmissable experience.
Yes, it's kind of a crappy picture. But I don't care; this is my first ever live, operating steam locomotive. It was AWESOME. And trying to get a good picture of a ginormous machine moving faster than highway traffic gives me even deeper appreciation for those whose primary photography interest is railfanning. It's not that easy!
My typical history lesson is ( behind the cut. )
I dashed out to the car with Kuma and my camera and drove out to one of my favorite places; the site of the ghost town of Ranney along Bain Station Road. I met about fifteen or twenty other railfans all waiting around in anticipation of the 4449's run.
I've never seen that line that busy either! A couple of freights and two Amtrak passenger trains came through as I chatted with people about various bits of local and railroad history. There were a couple of guys up from Harvard who had interesting things to say about old lines that no longer exist.
I got there about eleven o' clock with no good sense of when exactly it was coming. It also turned out to be running a bit late, according to those there following the Twitter feed. But finally at about half past twelve, I heard what I was sure was a steam whistle, coming from the south. I quickly readied the camera, which I'd already set to F13 for a wide depth of field under the bright sky, and to motor-drive mode.
The train was beautiful. It moved so fast that I barely got a sense of the locomotive itself, followed by five or six vintage passenger cars, including one with an amazing observation porch trailing the rest of them. There were people standing at the junctions between cars, or with their faces out the windows. The conductor was waving at the assembled lot as he barreled through at sixty or seventy miles an hour. It was beautiful.
As much or more than the visuals of it, the sound will be stuck in my head for a long time. The volume of the steam whistle wailing as the engine hurtled along the tracks next to me made my entire body resonate. It's an unmissable experience.
Yes, it's kind of a crappy picture. But I don't care; this is my first ever live, operating steam locomotive. It was AWESOME. And trying to get a good picture of a ginormous machine moving faster than highway traffic gives me even deeper appreciation for those whose primary photography interest is railfanning. It's not that easy!
My typical history lesson is ( behind the cut. )
