{"id":1376,"date":"2009-12-11T13:15:51","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T17:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2009-12-11T13:15:51","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T17:15:51","slug":"nj-and-pa-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/nj-and-pa-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ and PA at night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’m down in New Jersey for work this week taking a training class that\u00a0unfortunately\u00a0runs until after sunset. \u00a0So I’ve had a few chances to play with the Lumedyne at night. \u00a0So far I’ve been able to get out twice – once on the CSX Trenton Line in NJ and once on the Norfolk Southern Reading Line in\u00a0Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night I decided to head out for a bit and see what I could shoot. \u00a0I figured that I’d head down the CSX Trenton Line and see if I could catch any trains. \u00a0So I set my sights on Sunnymead Rd. in Hillsborough, NJ.<\/p>\n

When I got there, I could see a glow on the horizon to the northeast, and the signal there was showing a green for a westbound out of Port Reading Junction.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10889]\n

And after a little bit of a wait, a work extra came rolling by<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10888]\n

Then the scanner and signals went dark – it didn’t sound like anything was coming my way, so I decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel.<\/p>\n

Wednesday night I did get out, but nothing was working out – most of the roads I use to get down by the tracks were closed due to flooding from the big rain\/snow storm that came through. \u00a0So it was back to the hotel with nothing new in the camera.<\/p>\n

Thursday night was much more productive – damned cold & windy, but productive.<\/p>\n

I had read about a railfan pavilion out in Macungie, PA on the Norfolk Southern Reading Line, so I looked it up, and it was a little more than an hour from the office. \u00a0So I figured it would be worthwhile heading out there and seeing what kind of action goes by there under cover of darkness.<\/p>\n

I found the park fairly easily, and pulled into the parking lot. \u00a0Just then on the scanner I heard NS train 65J trip the detector a few miles east of me. \u00a0OK, guess I had better set up!<\/p>\n

It was a cold and windy night, with gusts hitting around 40MPH, so I was really glad I bought a sand bag to weigh down the Lumedyne on the light stand (don’t want to repeat the Hell Night on the P&W<\/a>). \u00a0I quickly set up the light as I could see 65J’s headlights heading towards me. \u00a0I picked a quick position without doing a test shot, and then the train came into view.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10896]\n

Came out OK. \u00a0So I looked around for some other angles. \u00a0After figuring out what I wanted to shoot, I retreated to the warmth of the car to wait for the next train to come into range.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take that long, because another westbound – 15T – hit the detector to the east. \u00a0Back out into the cold I went, this time positioning the Lumedyne in a different spot. \u00a0A few moments later I got 15T barreling past me.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10895]\n

After he cleared, and I got back in the car – did I mention wind chills were around zero? – I picked up the detector to the west of me, but this time for track 2, which meant an eastbound was heading my way.<\/p>\n

A little while later NS train 39G came into view. \u00a0This time I used a second flash to add a little more light on the pavilion, as well as the flag.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10894]\n

And with them rolling off into the darkness, I headed back to the car to warm up a bit.<\/p>\n

A little while later, another eastbound tripped the detector. \u00a0This time it was 16T heading my way. \u00a0I took the second flash, and moved it inside the pavilion to give a little more light on the side of the power as it passed by.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10893]\n

And back into the car I went.<\/p>\n

But this time the scanner was silent…for a little bit. \u00a0Then I heard the dispatcher talking to 68Q – an eastbound loaded unit ethanol train. \u00a0Apparently he was having power problems, and couldn’t maintain track speed. \u00a0I figured I’d stick around for this one.<\/p>\n

A little while passed, and 68Q tripped the detector to the west, so I headed back out into the cold and set up for another eastbound. \u00a0I did the same layout as the previous shot – Lumedyne behind me and close to the tracks, and the other flash inside the pavilion for the side. \u00a0They soon came into view, and I got this.<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10892]\n

I also decided to get a shot of the loads rolling past<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10891]\n

And got creative with the last car passing by the pavilion<\/p>\n[cpg_imagefixthumb:10890]\n

With numb hands (I was an idiot and forgot my gloves at home), and the clock reading 10pm, I decided to call it a night and make the 1 hour+ ride back to the hotel.<\/p>\n

Thanks for looking!
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m down in New Jersey for work this week taking a training class that\u00a0unfortunately\u00a0runs until after sunset. \u00a0So I’ve had a few chances to play with the Lumedyne at night. \u00a0So far I’ve been able to get out twice – once on the CSX Trenton Line in NJ and once on the Norfolk Southern Reading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[367,368,369,370,371,15,249,110,372,168,111,178,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-1376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-rail_photography","7":"tag-15t","8":"tag-16t","9":"tag-39g","10":"tag-65j","11":"tag-68q","12":"tag-csx","13":"tag-hillsborough","14":"tag-lumedyne","15":"tag-macungie","16":"tag-new-jersey","17":"tag-night","18":"tag-norfolk-southern","19":"tag-pennsylvania","20":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}