{"id":376,"date":"2008-05-10T22:13:22","date_gmt":"2008-05-11T02:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/10\/lilacs-and-locomotives\/"},"modified":"2008-05-10T22:13:22","modified_gmt":"2008-05-11T02:13:22","slug":"lilacs-and-locomotives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/lilacs-and-locomotives\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilacs and Locomotives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, back to normal on Friday. Spent the first 4 days of the week at an offsite department meeting (yes, a 4 day meeting…at least it was in Atlantic City), so I was really jonseing for some train action. So despite the pouring rain, I headed out to try and catch Providence & Worcester train NR-2 somewhere along the Thames River in Ledyard, CT. But where should I go? Like usual, that would be determined by the scanner. But today, something else played into my decision making. Something that usually doesn’t help me make decisions – flowers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Walking to the car made me start to second guess my decision to head out in the bad weather, but that thought really didn’t last too long. It’s been a while since I headed trackside for some shots. So I climbed into the dry confines of the car, put my umbrella away and switched the scanner on.<\/p>\n

On the way north, I didn’t pick anything up on the whereabouts of NR-2. So I figured they were still quite a bit north of me – I had time to explore and decide where I’d shoot from today. I set my sights for Erickson Park and Mill Cove.<\/p>\n

As I pulled into the parking area, the rain began to slow – at least I wouldn’t have to stand in the pouring rain. Well, that is if NR-2 came by. So I grabbed my scanner, and started looking around the park. If I remembered correctly from last year, the park sported numerous dogwood trees, lilac bushes, wild roses and other flowers. Maybe some of these would be in bloom.<\/p>\n

While walking around a dogwood caught my eye. So I headed that way to check it out. The angles worked nice, and I could even incorporate a moored boat into the shot, but there was one thing I didn’t like. With the overcast sky, the white dogwood blooms just blended into the sky. Had it been a blue sky, that would have been the shot. So I kept looking.<\/p>\n

Just then, NR-2 reported that they were south of milepost 12, and about 20 minutes from the sub base. OK, now the clock was ticking. I figured I had a good 15 minutes to figure out where I was going to shoot from. The walk continued.<\/p>\n

At the north end of the park, I found a lilac bush along the water. Hmmm, I could use that, and put the train in the background. But with the drab lighting, the flowers were quite dark. So I headed back to the car to get my camera gear, including a flash.<\/p>\n

I took a couple test shots of just the lilac blooms.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6907] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6906]\n

A few moments later, I heard horns to the north – NR-2 was heading through Dow Chemical, putting them a couple minutes from me.<\/p>\n

I set the camera and flash, changing to the wide angle, and took a quick test shot. Looked good on the LCD. Just then, NR-2 started sounding for the crossing at Red Top. And at the same time, the skies started to open up – here comes the rain.<\/p>\n

A moment later, NR-2 passed behind the lilac bush, so I got a shot of the flowers in the foreground, with NR-2s locomotives blurred in the background.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6905]\n

Not bad! No power on the back end of the train, so I headed down to Fairview.<\/p>\n

I got there just as the train was entering the yard, so stupid me stood out in the rain, getting a few shots of the train rolling through the yard.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6904] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6903] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6902]\n

On the way by, Rod gave a wave through the window…at least he was keeping dry.<\/p>\n

I hit the parking lot to the south of the Thames River drawbridge, and caught a shot of Amtrak Acela train #2150 heading over the the drawbridge span<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6901]\n

Listening to the scanner, it sounded like NR-2 would be waiting for 2159, which was quite a ways off. So I got a shot of a new family of geese having a morning snack<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6900]\n

And a tugboat heading under the partially open drawbridge.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6899]\n

After that, I dried off the camera gear, and myself, and headed back to the office for the remainder of the rainy day.<\/p>\n

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

Well, back to normal on Friday. Spent the first 4 days of the week at an offsite department meeting (yes, a 4 day meeting…at least it was in Atlantic City), so I was really jonseing for some train action. So despite the pouring rain, I headed out to try and catch Providence & Worcester train […]<\/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":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-rail_photography","7":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","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=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}