Western Railroad Discussion > Not what I was looking for, but not a bad alternative

Yesterday, March 18, there was an eastbound UP movement over Donner Pass led by a single GE pulling what appeared to be new passenger equipment that was unpainted and unmarked. (Perhaps coming from Siemens?) I saw the train on the railcam going through Colfax at a time that I thought might put it on Donner Summit right around sunset. I swapped the zooms in my camera bag for some fast primes, grabbed the snowshoes, and headed down to Soda Springs to see if things would work out. Alas, the light continued to fade with no indication on the radio of the train passing the detector at Troy.

I was rewarded for my time with an unexpected train, however. Unknown to me, the flanger had been holding at West Norden waiting to run west to Fulda on Main 1. (Fulda is where the balloon track is located as seen in SR's excellent drone posts a couple days ago.) With permission granted from Dispatcher 9 to head west, I changed positions and grabbed what I could with the limited light that was left.

Photos 1-3: A sequence of UP snow service GP38-2 locomotives 583 and 590 leading the flanger west on Main 1 at Soda Springs 18 minutes after sunset. They were making good speed, though there really wasn't much to flange. I suspect they were doing a final cleanup before a planned run of the spreaders over the hill today. (There was drama with the spreaders which will be the subject of a different post at a later time.)

Continued...

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Photo 4: The parting shot of the flanger set riding off into the sunset.

Nearly twenty minutes had passed by the time I heard the flanger crew having a passing exchange with the crew moving the passenger cars, so I decided to pack it 

Cheers,
Sean

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Nice catch. Too bad you missed the Siemens whatever they were. I worked for Siemens, no love lost there.
Argh!!
Gonut

Very nice catch- both the Flanger and the perfect lighting for it.
SR

bet that would’ve looked cool from the air…

Thanks. I'm always game for something different, and the Siemens train might have looked nice with the sunset in the background. I couldn't tell on the Colfax cam if they were a bare stainless steel or aluminum finish of some kind which might have looked cool with some glint.

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> Nice catch. Too bad you missed the Siemens
> whatever they were. I worked for Siemens, no love
> lost there.
> Argh!!
> Gonut

If only I had a drone! (But hey, I know a guy...)

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Very nice catch- both the Flanger and the perfect
> lighting for it.
> SR
>
> bet that would’ve looked cool from the air…

Siemens train had unpainted cars and an empty trailer flat behind the passeger cars.
Rather odd.
Regards, Jim Evans

No complaints here! Your talent comes through as usual. And I know from surprising personal experience in the last 15 years how much latitude digital photography gives us nowadays. With a broken heart I miss Kodachrome badly. But I have to embrace digital photography for what it allows us to accomplish…

Posted from iPhone

Thank you, Lance.

Remember back in the day when we used to shoot ISO 2500 Kodachrome? Neither do I! I feel you though. Certain films just had a look that was really pleasing. You can make or buy raw profiles that emulate some of the classic films, but they don't quite seem to hit it perfect. I actually wonder if it's something rooted in the uniform pattern of the Bayer filter array on image sensors versus the more random, nebulous nature of film grain?

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No complaints here! Your talent comes through as
> usual. And I know from surprising personal
> experience in the last 15 years how much latitude
> digital photography gives us nowadays. With a
> broken heart I miss Kodachrome badly. But I have
> to embrace digital photography for what it allows
> us to accomplish…
>
> Posted from iPhone

.
Sorry ‘bout that misfire while I was attempting to type out a reply with my oversized fat fingers on a damn cell phone.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/25 22:11 by santafe199.

broken_link Wrote: > … Remember back in the day when we used to shoot [ASA] 2500 Kodachrome? Neither do I …

BINGO! 😎 it was bad enough, not finding Kodachrome and having to settle for shooting any Ektachrome. But when we found “hi-speed Ektachrome” (ASA 400) and tried to push it to a higher ASA rating, we got super grainy pictures off the bleeping chart. Somewhere along 1983 I shot a handful of rolls of Kodachrome 200 ASA “professional” slide film. As far as I was concerned, the quality of that stuff was no better than basic Ektachrome 64. Lessons learned about trying to push a slide film beyond its earthly capacity…

I was wondering if you were going to call me out for mentioning ISO instead of ASA! I didn't start shooting until I was in high school, and I didn't enter high school until as late in the 80s as you can get. The Olympus OM-1 I was shooting did have an "ASA" film speed dial, however. Being a poor high school and then college student, I didn't shoot a huge amount of film. Just like you, I also found pushing film much beyond 200-400 generally resulted in grainy images that I felt kind of meh about, so low light was for tripods and static subjects. Everything else was for bright days outside or a strobe. (Plus, who wants to have to use a filter to shoot daylight vs Tungsten lighting, etc.!?)

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BINGO! 😎 it was bad enough, not finding
> Kodachrome and having to settle for shooting any
> Ektachrome. But when we found “hi-speed
> Ektachrome” (ASA 400) and tried to push it to a
> higher ASA rating, we got super grainy pictures
> off the bleeping chart. Somewhere along 1983 I
> shot a handful of rolls of Kodachrome 200 ASA
> “professional” slide film. As far as I was
> concerned, the quality of that stuff was no better
> than basic Ektachrome 64. Lessons learned about
> trying to push a slide film beyond its earthly
> capacity…

Spectular blue hour shots.

Great photos!! I'll take this over the turd any day!

An absolutely delightful blue hour series!

broken_link Wrote: > ... I was wondering if you were going to call me out for mentioning ISO instead of ASA! ...

(chuckling) Nahhh... just poking fun. Between you 'n me 'n the fence post I've done the same thing a time or 2! (or 6 or12... ;^)
BTW: Congrats on the IOTD. Well done, sir...

Lance

Love photo #3. Great work. Always enjoy your stuff from Donner. 

Marc L

Well-deserved photo of the day!

Amazing work Sean!

Posted from iPhone

Thank you all for the kind words. I wish I could come up with funky lighting like this every time I head out, though I usually have a lot of beautifully lit photos that are lacking a train.