Western Railroad Discussion > Brief encounter with a full Moon

Couple of nights ago, I was surprised to see the Moon make a brief and shrouded appearance. With a little time on my hands, I scoped out Tacoma Rail for a shot or two and came upon their new SD70ACe-P4's awaiting a new assignment. About the time I was ready to leave a crew showed up to use them to shuffle around some autoracks.

1) Full Moon over P4's, with US Oil in the background. Hope no-one from US Oil sees this photo, or they might send their photo goons after me :-0.

2) They had been sitting for a few hours in misty weather and upon start up the pair blasted some nice white plumes. This was the exception to the very clean exhausts I've seen with them so far. I'm told that this was mostly some excess fuel in the startup process. The plumes were very brief and the "cleaned" right up. Previously, I've photographed the pair with TR SD40's climbing the "gulch" to Fredrickson. The contrast is pretty impressive. Not a hint of smoke from the 70's but the 40's were spewing forth with a vengeance.

3) A minute or two later and they are about to head back towards the main yard in search of autoracks to jostle.

Steve Carter
Gig Harbor, WA
My Photography

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4) A little bit of panning. Not Mitch Goldman, but I try.

5) Heading home and ran across a meet to be. No time for a tri-pod, so I had to continue hand holding the camera, with the Canon 50mm plastic 1.8 and th 6D's available high ISO. The lens is little soft and prone to some notable lens flares. Got to make the best of what you have, hunh?

Steve Carter
Gig Harbor, WA
My Photography

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Nice shots Steve. It goes to show its not the camera but the photographer.

Love the smoke shot!

Great shooting, those are some fantastic night shots! The oil refinery creates an unusual background and you captured it and the wet locomotives perfectly.

Great to see you still doing great stuff, Steve!
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Nice series Steve. That plume shot is money! Thanks for sharing.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Cool all around! I like the one with the two exhaust plumes best.

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography

Thanks for all the nice comments.

The locomotives were not so much wet, as shiny. They are painted with a very high gloss paint. All of the lighting around that spot really helps to make them sparkle. The "dirty" affect on the white areas, is really shadows from trees and power lines.

I like the smoke shot too. They are not so fond of it over at TR. They invested in clean locomotives, that shot, out of context, sort of makes them look more polluting than they really are.

Steve Carter
Gig Harbor, WA
My Photography

Excellent series of night shots especially #2. Those ACes really look sharp in that paint scheme.

Every shot a gem! Very enjoyable to look at.

Lance

VERY NICE...!!!