Took advantage of the sunshine this morning, hoping to catch Providence & Worcester train NR-2 on my walk. This time I decided to mix things up a bit, and head a little further north to Stoddard Hill Park on the north side of Ledyard. Well, things didn’t go as planned, but they did end up working out OK. Even if one of my pieces of electronic equipment went for a swim.
Well, I got out a bit later than usual, but not by much, so I figured I’d be able to catch NR-2 somewhere along the Thames on their southbound trip. As I headed past Mill Cove, the scanner was still silent. Hmmm, NR-2 must be running late. So I figured I’d head north and see what the angles at Stoddard Hill looked like.
I got there and was greeted by a glass like Stoddard Cove. OK, this should work. So I grabbed the scanner and cameras and headed trackside. While gathering my gear, the scanner woke up with the Worcester dispatcher acknowledging no defects for NR-3 at the Jewett City detector. NR-3? Hmmm, that must mean NR-2 is close by. The question was, were they really early and I missed them? Maybe I could get an answer from the rails. When I got to the tracks, I noticed that the rails had some nice frost on them, some of which was being melted by the morning sunshine.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:8574] [cpg_imagefixthumb:8573] [cpg_imagefixthumb:8572]With the fragile frost on the rails, I knew for sure that NR-2 hadn’t been by yet. And with NR-3 closing in on Norwich, they had to be close.
While waiting, I got a brilliant idea – I had recently modified one of my radio remote triggers for my flashes to trigger my camera. So I grabbed my tripod and headed back out to the tracks. This time, I hiked to the south end of Stoddard Cove to get a shot of the train coming at me. I figured with the remote, I could literally be in two places at once – getting a tight telephoto shot of the train approaching, followed by a wide shot further out from the tracks, also getting a nice reflection in the water.
I got out there and picked my two spots, setting up the 20D on a tripod right next to the water with the wide angle lens. Hooked everything up, and moved to the spot I wanted to get the telephoto near the tracks – about 30 feet from the camera. From there, I tested the remote trigger – worked flawlessly!
Just then, I heard horns to the north – could this finally be NR-2? Nothing on the radio, so I guess I’ll just have to wait.
While waiting, I went over to the 20D, and wanted to see what it would look like if I fully extended the center column on the tripod, giving the shot a bit of a higher angle. Well, I just should have left well enough alone. While raising the camera, the remote trigger came off of the cable, and slid right into the water! Yep, fully submerged… As I scrambled to grab it, I knocked the tripod over with the 20D on it! Thankfully, that landed in the leaves, and not the water. But the remote was toast, as was my dual angle idea. Oh, well. Time to refigure.
While looking around, something caught my eye across the tracks. There’s a little hill just on the other side of the tracks here, and if I stood on one of the rocks, I think the angle from the shadow side would work out well. So I headed over there to check things out.
As I was assessing things, a trio of headlights came into view north of the Mohegan-Pequot bridge to the north. Here comes NR-2! Or so I thought…
Liking the angle on the hillside, I waited for the train to come into view. Soon after that, they rolled along the Thames in Preston through a clearing.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:8571] [cpg_imagefixthumb:8570]Then into Ledyard
[cpg_imagefixthumb:8569]And finally into view of my two cameras – this time with the 20D on telephoto duty, and the 40D getting the wide.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:8568] [cpg_imagefixthumb:8567]Then the tail end rolled past
[cpg_imagefixthumb:8566]But that wasn’t it. As the train rolled out of view, the scanner woke up – it was NR-3 reporting that they were arriving at Dow. I guess that means that NR-2 didn’t run today. Odd that it would happen on a Tuesday…with the frost on the rails, and the lack of wind, I doubt they did run earlier than normal. But, hey, I’ve been wrong before.
After that, I made my way back to the truck, and to the office for the remainder of the day.
Oh, yeah, and after pulling the remote apart, drying everything off, and giving it some fresh batteries, it works just fine!
Thanks for looking!
Tom
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