Passenger Trains > .

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/21 17:11 by F40PHR231.

What? No pictures of the connecting bus to Richmond? That Buckingham Branch track at the station is not exactly mainline quality. Your images really do capture the essence of West Virginia very well.

Thanks again for the trip report. It's like we all tagged along. All 3 have been outstanding
Richs

You on board photography is the best I've seen on this site. "Questionable Meals" and "crew attitude was a major turn off." Sounds like a great time. I hope you took names of the crew members in question and made a report. I'm sure the appropriate union will take immediate disciplinary action.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> You on board photography is the best I've seen on
> this site. "Questionable Meals" and "crew attitude
> was a major turn off." Sounds like a great time. I
> hope you took names of the crew members in
> question and made a report. I'm sure the
> appropriate union will take immediate disciplinary
> action.

you have it wrong AB ... unions represent members due to immediate disciplinary actions brought on by management not the other way around ... and that comment was only about your statement not the questionable attitudes of the crew that deserved corrective action ...

nice photos and coverage ... i have to say those ladies at Mel's sure don't look like they minded the rain sitting at the sidewalk table or hadn't the rain started yet when you took that photo

First skyline is my home. Cincinnati. Best rides on CARDINAL are in October, April, and January for scenic beauty.

Do you use something like a fast 50 lens on those nighttime shots? They're very nice.

Danny Harmon
Tampa

This is a great photo essay. The kind of stuff I enjoy most on TO. Just a great way to share the experience. Thanks for taking the effort to put up all those pics and write the descriptions. Much appreciated.

Cardinal route through West Virginia doesn't get much press but it is a national treasure.

Another excellent trip report, thanks for sharing.

~Ryan

Great pictures, Chris!

I've been intrigued by the Cardinal's routing on shortline/regional Buckingham Branch, so nice to see some pictures on that part of the run.

Rich

Narr8rdanny Wrote:
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> Do you use something like a fast 50 lens on those
> nighttime shots? They're very nice.


Danny, I used a Nikkor 24-85mm lens with VR stabilization. Largest f stop is 3.5. Took these photos with a Nikon D600, a full-frame DSLR with high ISO capabilities. It takes some experimentation to achieve the photo you want. Sometimes you've got to give/take in regards to added grain and color loss. I'll notch down the ISO when I am comfortable with the light and how well I'm holding the camera, but if it's from a moving train I'll bump the ISO up, and decrease the aperture from f3.5 to f8 or 9 to reduce oversaturation from the headlights of a moving train.

The downside of the high ISO to take sharp images through tinted windows is the green on the trees aren't as vivid. That's where Lightroom comes to the rescue!

Seeing the photos of the women's prison at Alderson reminds me that no one went to jail after the massive, almost incalculable banking scandals, financial meltdowns, hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and ruined lives of 2007-2008, but Martha Stewart served 5 months there for insider trading and obstruction of justice.

Photo 3 in the segment labeled Staunton, VA, is the NS (former N&W) Shenandoah Valley line passing beneath the Buckingham Branch (former CSX) at Waynesboro, VA. There used to be a passenger station in the bottom right of this photo, with the building on the ground level, on the N&W level, and an elevated platform up on the C&O level. It appears that the NS track level has been lowered, perhaps to allow double-stacks beneath the CSX bridge.

Here's a Winston Link photo taken at Waynesboro, VA, looking south along the N&W, with the C&O overhead bridge in the background: http://endeavors.unc.edu/sites/default/files/imagecache/display/photos/link_page_11_resized_0.jpg And one from up on the C&O bridge, looking down northward at the N&W and the station: http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/thumbsSmall/photos/NW04476.jpg

The photos of the arrival at Charlottesville show astonishing growth and development west-northwest of the Amtrak (ex-Southern) station. Standing on the same crossing that F40PHR231 stood, here's what the Google car found when it made the trip: http://goo.gl/maps/vMzUi Quite a difference!

The arrival of the southbound Crescent in a rainstorm shows one of the shortcomings of the Amtrak station these days, the lack of a platform canopy. The station used to have one. I found this photo from 1980, 18 months after Amtrak took over the service from Southern, and you can see the canopy's deterioration. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=206036&nseq=56 Within a couple of years, it had deteriorated so much that NS told Amtrak to pay for repairs or NS would demolish it. Amtrak, without funding for passenger amenities such as platform canopies, had to say no, and the canopy came down.

Lynchburg was a tired, old Southern station for many, many years, but Virginia funded a large amount of money for its renovation in support of the new Lynchburg extension of the Boston-Washington Northeast Regional train. The station is beautiful.

North Carolina DOT paid for High Point's restoration, including the rebuilding of the platform canopies. Southern had taken them out years ago, but NCDOT paid to restore them. NCDOT has done a phenomenal job of renovating or building new stations in every Amtrak city in the state except Kannapolis. I'll go so far as to say that no state in the nation has a nicer collection of Amtrak stations than North Carolina. NCDOT has done an incredible job on them. More information on the various stations here: http://www.ncbytrain.org/destinations/default.html



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/14 12:56 by knotch8.

Thanks for the background and details on the stations as well as the O. Winston Link photo; pretty fascinating!