Well, the weather geeks got it wrong again today – at least partially. When I left the house this morning, they said it would be nice for most of the day, then cloud up later in the day. That would work for me – I’ll take my walk and grab some shots of Providence & Worcester train NR-2 heading south in Ledyard as I normally would. In fact, today I’d get some bonus shots because of the timing of everthing, but on the downside, I’d get…well, you’ll just have to read on to find out.
The morning started out like most any other – I headed out and decided to walk around the Red Top area in Ledyard prior to the arrival of P&W train NR-2. As I started heading north, NR-2 reported that they were south of MP12 and about 15 minutes out of the sub base. OK, that would only give me time for a short walk before the train’s arrival. At least I’d get something in.
I got to the cul-de-sac near Red Top about 8 minutes later, leaving about 5 for me to scout around. I settled on one of the standard angles a bit south of Red Top proper, and closer to the MP4 sign. Moments later, NR-2 appeared, and I bagged a couple shots, both coming and going.
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And as the train was rolling past, I decided to get a detail-ish shot of the cars blurring past.
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Not bad. I headed back for the car and started driving back south, of course listening to the scanner along the way. It sounded like they’d be doing some work in Fairview, but then heading west fairly soon after that. I figured I had enough time to make a little side trip to New London and get a few shots of the train pulling through the Shaw’s Cove area. Why not, the sun was shining? Operative word here is was.
By the time I got over the bridge, and through the city (you were thinking woods, weren’t you?), I set up at the crossing by the Shaw’s Cove swing bridge. The sun was still shining brightly, but some rather threatening clouds were moving in from the northwest. OK, now if the train would show up while I still had some sunlight.
A couple minutes later, the crossing signals activated, and here came the train. And at that exact time, there went the sun. Yep, I got cloud-fucked (it’s a technical railfan term, and everyone that has shot trains has experienced it). But I did get a little lucky, the clouds did begin to thin a bit as the train went through the crossovers and moved from track 1 to track 2, but it still wasn’t what I had in mind.
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As the train passed by me, the engineer Tom gave me a wave, and a shrug while pointing to the clouds knowing what I was thinking. Oh, well, ya make the best of what you’re dealt. As my luck would have it, the sun came out in full force once the train was rolling past me. I did get a shot of the trailing power heading for the swing bridge, but again the thin veil of clouds came back and started to diffuse it.
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Oh, well. At least I got something. From the sounds of things, they were having problems with their ACSES system, and would be a little while before they were heading for the NECR New London yard. With the darkening skies and advancing clock, I figured it was time to head back to the office. So it was back east over the Gold Star Bridge to Groton, and the parking lot.
I did order a new toy today with the $$ I got from the MVRS 2008 calendar – a Sigma 2x teleconverter. This little jobbie will turn my Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX lens into a 140-400mm f/5.6 monster – actually, with the 1.6x crop factor on my 20D, that would actually be a 224-640mm zoom. Now that’s some reach! It should be in Wednesday, so look for some photos using it on Thursday sometime. Provided the weather geeks get the forecast right…
Thanks for looking!
Tom
