Western Railroad Discussion > Night freights and Amtrak Little Rock, AR

Attached: BNSF 2042 blue locomotive on the BNSF local, Amtrak Texas Eagle No. 22 headed by Amtrak locomotive 97 being passed by the BNSF local around midnight, and NS 1022, the dpu of an oil train that was headed by NS 1069, the Virginian heritage.

Click this link to view all photos and a link to a movie of Amtrak leaving:
http://thundertrain.org/nitetrains-amtrak-021914.html

Here's what's included on the webpage:
Amtrak Texas Eagle No. 22 at Union Station in Little Rock, Arkansas Wednesday night, February 19, 2014 plus a few night freights, including an oil train headed by NS 1069, the Virginian heritage unit, nicknamed Bumblebee by a girl who said it reminded her of black and yellow bumblebee. Also, the blue BNSF locomotive on the Little Rock local, BNSF 2042. Other locomotives tonight: BNSF 2163, 2042 *** Amtrak 97 *** CSXT 7897 *** NS 1069, 8964 *** UP 8675, 9798 (former CNW).

I took the photos using natural lighting (the Amtrak platform lights). I used a high sensitivity setting, ISO 16,000, which does result in some graininess in the pictures, but allows me to use a higher shutter speed so the moving trains wouldn't be blurry. These pictures obviously can't be enlarged much, but look ok on a small computer screen. As you will see, it does allow me to take pictures at night, making it bright as day.

Ken Z

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Here's a photo of passengers getting on the Texas Eagle just before midnight.

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That's a goodly load of passengers for that late at night (not that they have any choice). When I visited Little Rock (from Southern Calif.) in 2011, I checked with Amtrak, but all the sleepers were sold out, and my days of spending two nights in a chair car are (hopefully) in the past.

And I suspect you are one among many railfans who can recall scenes that would have made great photos with a digital camera, but were back in the days when Ektachrome 200 or Kodacolor 400 was about as fast as you could get in the way of film.

DNRY122 Wrote:
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> That's a goodly load of passengers for that late
> at night (not that they have any choice). When I
> visited Little Rock (from Southern Calif.) in
> 2011, I checked with Amtrak, but all the sleepers
> were sold out, and my days of spending two nights
> in a chair car are (hopefully) in the past.
>
> And I suspect you are one among many railfans who
> can recall scenes that would have made great
> photos with a digital camera, but were back in the
> days when Ektachrome 200 or Kodacolor 400 was
> about as fast as you could get in the way of film.

Yep, I remember those last days of passenger trains before Amtrak took over. Sure could have taken tons of photos in low light. Of course, even today I'd get much better quality pictures using time exposure of a few seconds, and one of these days I'll go back to that with the digital camera on a tripod when the Eagle is sitting at the station. However, that wouldn't work with a 20 mph moving train at night unless I had a battery of flash bulbs.