Traingeek – Trains and Photography

I’ve always thought that photos are for sharing. I’ve never seen the point of taking a photo, then keeping the negative (or digital file) to yourself and never showing it to others. If that’s your thing, great. It’s everyone’s choice, but my choice is to share.

Sometimes, though, sharing can backfire. Here are a few stories.

Misunderstandings

I was recently approached by a non-profit organization looking to use some of my photos for their outreach program. I fully support this organization’s mission and I agreed to share some of my photos. I won’t name this organization.

However, while we were in a negotiating state, they went ahead and used one of my photos without credit.

I never thought any malice was involved, but I was angry that said photo was used without any credit, despite being assured that credit would be given for all photos used.

I emailed them, they emailed me, and the misunderstanding was cleared up, but their share and my initial reaction were both poorly done and the damage was done.

I’ve learned a lesson from that, and it’s this: approach these situations with generosity in my heart, rather than miserliness.

Every photographer has been offered “credit” for use of their photos, rather than actual payment, but in some cases, credit is all I want. I’ve shared photos and stories with a few Canadian rail magazines with the understanding that I will be paid nothing, other than maybe a free copy of the magazine.

Anyway, I was in the wrong, and I messed up a chance to work with an organization I respect. I have to earn that back.

Outright Thievery

I’ve written more than 2600 posts on Confessions of a Train Geek and a dozen or so here so far. My posts have been stolen a few times. In the past, sites have taken the lead part of the post and posted it on their own site, with a link to my site. I think that might have helped them with Google at some point, but now it doesn’t.

You may have noticed that some of my previous posts referred to a certain Australian site, who copied several dozen of my posts in their entirety, and posted them on their site, photos included. I’m not linking to that site or any articles, because I don’t want to give them any boost in Google.

I tried reaching out to them to politely ask to have them taken down. I emailed, I messaged on Facebook and on their own site, and I even called and spoke to someone in friggin’ Australia. Nothing happened, and every message was been ignored.

What finally worked was commenting on my posts on their site. Their administrator messaged me and we had a short conversation. They agreed to stop reposting my articles but they haven’t taken the old ones down. I’m still not happy but it’s not worth my time to pursue it further.

By the way, mine was not the only blog they are stealing. The excellent North Country Trains is another, and so is Model Railroad Hobbyist.  I’ve reached out to both of them to let them know.

Generosity, Rebuffed

A railway company recently reached out to me to ask for permission to use one of my photos on one of their web pages. My normal inclination is to ask for a payment for use of the photo, as I believe if my photo is used for profit, I should be paid for it. In this case, I decided to be generous and not ask for money… just credit.

I said I would be happy to allow my photo to be used for this web page, as long as I was credited somewhere on the page with a link back to my site. No money needed to change hands, just a little credit.

I was told that wasn’t possible, but that I could enter their photo contest if I wished.

I don’t generally enter photo contests, because the rules of most photo contests stipulate that they can use your photos for any purpose they like, without compensation. See my rule above about for-profit use of my photos.

Needless to say, I asked for compensation, and they went with another photo instead.

Generosity, Accepted

Recently I had another request to use a photograph of mine. This was from a specialty magazine, basically a non-profit or not-for-much-profit magazine, and they wanted to use one grain elevator photo to illustrate an article.

I made the same offer to them that I did to the railway company above, and the magazine agreed to give credit including a link to my web site, and they’ll send me a copy of the issue it gets used in. I’m happy.

It’s Not All Bad

I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful for the opportunities that come my way. I’m grateful, but I want to be treated fairly.

It’s not all bad. You can read about some of the “good stuff” – including my first physical print sale – over at one of my other blogs, Photography Side Hustle.

Late last year, I was contacted to license several of my YouTube videos. That was new to me and the funds went toward my new drone. That was nice!

The Future

I’m going to continue to share my photos and videos, with a spirit of generosity. I’m sure there will be more thievery – it’s the Internet, after all – but I’d rather share and take that chance than keep my photos hidden on a hard drive.

Thanks for reading.

I think one of the best tools for a railfan photographer is a zoom lens.

With a zoom lens (aka a telephoto lens), you can get a vastly different perspective than you can with a wide angle lens. The “reach” of a zoom means you can isolate the subject from a cluttered background, or photograph a train that’s far away without compromising quality.

As an example, I offer the above photo of CP 8826 leading an intermodal train between Indian Head and Sintaluta, Saskatchewan. I took that on January 30 as we were traveling toward Regina.

I had my Canon 70-200mm f/4 lens on my Canon 77D DSLR camera , with my iPhone 8 Plus for the wide angle view. I photographed the train with the camera as it approached, then switched to the phone to get a few wide angle shots.

I hope you’ll agree that the lead photo – taken with the telephoto lens – is a more interesting photo. I like the phone photo just fine, but it’s a pretty common “wedgie” photo, taken by thousands of railfans everywhere. There’s nothing unique about it.

I know you can “zoom” on your phone or camera to crop in, but that’s not a real zoom and you are sacrificing image quality. It’s called “digital zoom” and it’s basically cropping the photo as you take it. You really should have optical zoom, like a zoom lens.

Some of the better digital video cameras have some impressive optical zoom, like this Sony AX53 video camera. 4K video and 20X optical zoom. Impressive!

Downsides

There are a few downsides to having a zoom / telephoto lens on your camera. The first is a lack of flexibility. More than once, I’ve been “caught” with a telephoto lens on and there’s no time to switch lenses. You can get around that with a lens that covers a very wide range, like a 28-300mm lens or the popular 18-135mm lens if you’re a Canon user.

The second downside for a zoom lens is increased shakiness / decreased sharpness when you’re “zoomed out”. Photography has many “rules” and one is the Reciprocal Rule: your shutter speed should not be slower than the inverse of the focal length. So for my 70-200mm lens, zoomed out to 200mm focal length, I should not shoot at slower than 1/200s.

I will readily admit that I break that “rule” all the time.

Would You, Could You, With a Fox?

Check out this cute fox I photographed near Belle Plaine, Saskatchewan – at 1/25s at 200mm focal length. This wouldn’t have been possible with a wide angle lens, or a phone’s camera.

The image is very grainy, because I photographed it at a ridiculous ISO of 6400 because it was before sunrise. 1/25s, f/4.0, 200mm, ISO 6400… pushing everything to get some kind of photo.

What you don’t see is that I threw away at least half of the photos I took of the fox because they were not sharp at all. When I’m photographing with a zoom lens at a slow shutter speed, I take “extra” photos with the expectation that I will delete a lot of them because they are not sharp. I’m fortunate that I’m not back in the film days when you wouldn’t think of doing that!

I encourage you to consider getting a real zoom lens. It will be a powerful tool to help you take more interesting photos, and to get photos that you would otherwise not be able to take.

On August 30, 2018 I went out in the evening to catch the eastbound VIA Rail “Canadian” coming into Winnipeg. It was a beautiful evening, and I was hoping to get a nice sunset.

The Rivers Subdivision Parking Lot

I hit the road a little early and caught my first train, CN 2962 East, stopped at Hall Road… around mile 11.

The next train I found was CN 8834 East, stopped near mile 15.

The third train I encountered was CN 2202 East, stopped at mile 18. It basically was just coming to a stop.

There was a storm on the way. Look at the photo above – grey, cloudy sky. The photo below, taken 10 seconds later – some blue.

I thought this tank car looked interesting, since it has no valving at the top. It has a “1951” placard, which is refrigerated liquid argon.

This cloud made me a bit nervous.

Fortunately, there was no problem with the weather other than some brisk winds.

I decided on a new location, around mile 22 or so of the Rivers sub. I had never been past mile 20.5 in this area. There was a small private crossing that seemed perfect to wait for the train.

VIA 2

VIA 2 came rolling along at 7:20 PM – about an hour late. They were really moving!

I thought I’d try a pan shot as it went by, but that… didn’t go well.

The “going away” shot was better but not as sharp as I would have liked.

Here’s the video for the train – short and sweet.

After they passed, I threw my gear in the car and headed east. I wasn’t exactly chasing VIA, but I made an effort, since I had to go that way anyway.

As I drove east, I saw that VIA 2 wasn’t going very fast. I had some good green lights and I was able to get to St. James Junction ahead of the train.

VIA 2 Redux

You can see that the light was getting low, and of course I was shooting toward the sun. I did my best!

I did manage to get my video camera set up – here’s the video.

After VIA passed, I decided to head over to the Waverley Street crossing to see how the overpass construction was going. You can read about the project here. It’s basically digging an underpass under the CN Rivers subdivision to remove the level crossing.

It was budgeted to cost a ridiculous $155 million, but things went well so far and it is now forecast to cost “only” $121 million. I still think there are so many better things to spend that much money on, but nobody asked me!

A shoo-fly diversion was put in to divert rail traffic while a new rail bridge was put in. That is done and the trains are now running over the new bridge. There’s still lots of road work to be done and the underpass is a long way from being completed.

Waverley

As I parked, I heard a train coming by. I shot CN 8957 going through the construction mess. I ran over to take more photos as the westbound train continued by.

In the photo below, you can see the shoo-fly diversion behind the last grain car.

After the train passed, I took a few photos to document the area, then headed back to my car. Another train came rolling by so I snapped a few photos from a distance.

It was a successful and fun evening of railfanning!

Just One More Thing

Early in the morning of February 4th, CP train 301 derailed near Field, British Columbia between the Spiral Tunnels. The three crew members on board (engineer Andrew Dockrell, conductor Dylan Paradis, and trainee Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer) all died when the majority of the train derailed, and the lead locomotive plunged off a bridge more than 60 metres into the Kicking Horse River.

There’s a GoFundMe page set up to raise funds to support their families. Please consider contributing.

My condolences to their families.

Over the past few years, CN’s traffic has grown significantly, which has led to a need for more trains to move this traffic. This means more locomotives and more crews. CN has been hiring and training new conductors all across Canada and the US, and they’ve been buying new locomotives and leasing locomotives as well. This article will talk about CN’s new, and “new to them”, locomotives.

260 New GE Locomotives

In late December, CN announced that they would purchase 200 new locomotives from GE Transportation. These locomotives are Evolution series locomotives (GE ES44AC and ET44AC) and are produced at the GE Manufacturing Solutions facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The locomotives were to be delivered starting in 2018 and continuing through into 2020.

The first of these locomotives, CN 3806, rolled out of the plant in early June 2018. This was not the first ES44AC that CN owned. They received 22 of them (CN 2984-2999 and CN 3800-3805) starting in the fall of 2017. Presumably CN was happy with their performance!

In September 2018, CN announced that they added 60 more locomotives to that order, for a total of 260 locomotives.

I expect to see these new GEs a lot trackside! The crews seem to like them.

Leased Road Power

CN also leased a lot of road power in late 2017 – around 100 locomotives. These included new ES44ACs from Citirail (see above), ex Santa Fe SD75Ms from Progress Rail, and a variety of locomotives from GE Capital Leasing.

I’m told that a fair number of these units were “less than reliable”, but when you’re power short, you take what you can get. CN recently started returning some of these leased locomotives.

The profusion of leased locomotives has been very exciting for railfans! It has been very interesting to see the variety of power on CN this past year, with many trains having at least one leased locomotive. Now that the big GEs are arriving, the leasers will go back, but it was fun while it lasted.

Blog partner Eric Gagnon wrote of an earlier time when CN leased a lot of locomotives – between 1994 and 1998!

Leased Switchers

CN has also started leasing some switching locomotives. I’m told they have leased around 40 blue GP38-2 locomotives from GATX. I haven’t seen any on CN, but they are the same look as the locos I saw on the Stewart Southern Railway.

CN’s current switcher fleet is getting very long in the tooth. Their own GP38-2 fleet is pretty old, and judging by the look of the humpyard dogs in Symington Yard here in Winnipeg, in dire need of refurbishment. They have some GP9s remaining but they are also dwindling – and old – and most of CN’s GMD1s have been retired.

Here in Winnipeg – and elsewhere – a few SD40 locomotives have been repurposed as hump units but there aren’t many of those either.

One of the major problems is that no major locomotive manufacturer is offering new 4 axle locomotives. Republic Locomotive offers their RX500, but I don’t know that they can produce enough locomotives to replace the switcher fleets of any Class 1 railway.

There are plenty of companies remanufacturing existing locomotives, and I think that’s the way CN and others are going to have to go.

What leased or new locomotives have you seen? What’s your favourite?

Saturday, September 5th, 2018 was a big railfan day for me – and not just for flying my drone.

OIL and Foreign Power

My youngest son was busy downtown for a while mid-day, so I had an hour and a half on my hands. As I usually do, I drove up to the CP yard to see what was going on there. I found an ex Rock Island car in the yard, now lettered FURX 815447. There was an ex Chicago and North Western car, AEX 21874, a few cars down. There wasn’t anything else going on in the yard.

Normally I would go to the CP shops to see if there was anything interesting there, but there was a long, stopped, oil train in the way. Oil train… hmmm… sometimes there is some foreign power on those, especially on CP.

Sure enough, there were a pair of BNSF engines on the head end on the west end. Unfortunately, there was a big fence in the way…

I like those “Executive” BNSF units.

This colour scheme was adopted by the Burlington Northern starting in late 1990. It was applied to some of their business train units, and then new SD70MAC BN 9401 came out with the new scheme. BNSF 9656 is one of that fleet of SD70MACs with the “Grinstein green” and cream colours.

There are still some CP SD90MACs parked in the west end of the yard, near the intermodal facility. 30 of those long-parked units are being rebuilt by Progress Rail into SD70ACU locomotives.

I waited for the train to move, hoping it would get rolling before I had to pick my son up. Fortunately, it did get rolling…

It ended up being a double-length oil train – the two BNSF units on the head end, a buffer car, a string of oil tanks, a buffer car – then two more locomotives and more tank cars! The two locos were UP 5552 and CP 8770.

I didn’t record the entire train as I was short on time. It was just another hundred tank cars anyway…

Droning On

In mid afternoon I went out west of Diamond along the CN main line to fly my new DJI Mavic Air drone. As I was unpacking it and getting it ready for flight, I heard a horn from the west and I saw that a grain train was approaching.

Up went the drone, and after I got the hang of flying it a bit, I took a few photos as the train went by. They were certainly nothing fancy, and neither was my technique – snap, rotate, snap, rotate, snap… but that Mavic is a great platform to take photos from!

These were JPEG photos, not RAW format. I’m hoping the RAW format from the drone will allow me to brighten the shadows more. We’ll see.

I had my video camera running on the tripod, and you’ll see and hear my drone buzzing around.

The Eight

I packed up my drone and started heading east. As I approached the Perimeter Highway, I saw a westbound train rolling by. After a careful U-turn (the roads were slippery), I overtook the head end and saw that they had eight locomotives. This I had to photograph!

I tried to get far enough ahead of it to take video, but I was in danger of doing what I sometimes do – try to take video and photos at the same time, and do a poor job of both. I decided to just take photographs.

Here’s the consist of this 8 locomotive train. It had four SD70M-2 locomotives, one ES44DC, one SD60, one C44-9W (Dash-9), and a BC Rail C40-8M (Dash-8).

• CN 2336
• CN 8938
• CN 5480
• CN 8856
• CN 8865
• CN 2682
• CN 8879
• BCOL 4616

It was an impressive lineup.

As the head end receded, I saw they were meeting an eastbound oil train. I relocated a bit farther east so I could see the oil train approach.

More Oil

The oil train had CN 3031 on the head end, with an old SOUTHERN hopper car as a buffer car.

I watched the oil train roll by. In the distance, I saw something bright and yellow on the other end of the train. It turned out to be UP 8703, an SD70ACe.

I had to get another photo of that Union Pacific locomotive. They weren’t going very fast, so I was able to get to Hall Road and take a few panning shots of the UP loco as it rolled by.

It was a good day!

Just One More Thing

You may recall that I went out on a mission to find the new rail inspection portal at Nattress, west of Winnipeg. You might also recall that I didn’t find it.

Well, I did some research, and consulted a few people, and determined exactly where it was. Consulting Google satellite views, I wasn’t sure that I could get right up to it but I could get close. On a cold December 29 morning, I set off before sunrise to find it.

The Winnipeg West Parking Lot

I started out along the CN Rivers subdivision. As usual, there were a series of eastbound CN trains waiting to come into the city. CN is very busy these days!

The first of three trains was just past Hall Road (around mile 11). I was too lazy to get out of my car, so I just pulled off to the side and photographed it there. See above.

I should mention that it was pretty cold out. At this time my car was saying it was -17C outside. The Environment Canada web site says the air temperature in Winnipeg was -18C at 9 AM with a wind chill of -29C. That’s brisk.

The next train was an oil train at Wescana Street, around mile 15, west of the CN-CP diamond. This train had no buffer cars – not required in Canada – and had ex CSX unit GECX 7342 as the second locomotive. It says “CW40-8” on the side under the numbers.

The third train was just west of mile 20, with lone unit IC 2711 at the point.

I left the tracks and drove north to the Trans-Canada Highway to continue west. I passed Elie with no sign of trains.

CN 2259 East

As I approached Fortier (between Elie and Oakville), I spotted a train coming out of Oakville. I looked for a place to get back to the tracks for a closer look. In the prairies, there are cross roads every mile, so it’s not hard to find a road that meets the tracks. In retrospect, I should have gone one more road west to get closer to a bend in the tracks.

I stopped and fiddled a bit with my tripod, losing time. I abandoned the idea of video and just took stills as the train rolled by, casting a cloud of loose snow in its wake.

The train had CN 2259 leading, with leaser GECX 7365 behind it.

I did enjoy this BC Rail flatcar full of wheels.

After the train passed, I continued on to Oakville. There were no trains in sight, so I carried on west along provincial road 331 through Newton to “road 31W”. This area is called “Curtis” on Google Maps, but if you head north on 31W you reach what CN calls Nattress.

Nattress

As I drove north on 31W I saw a train was rolling east. I knew I wasn’t going to get to the tracks before the head end passed, and the road was snow covered as you can see in the blurry photo above. I drove as far as I felt I could, then pulled over and jumped out to snap that long distance photo using my telephoto lens. It was CN 2263 East.

I saw the portal from that area, and took the lead photo of this blog post. Here’s a CSI-enhanced version.

I believe that’s a reflection of the lights in the portal visible in the “mouth” at right.

The eastbound train had a distributed braking boxcar on the rear. These are a common sight on CN trains in the winter. They have an air compressor in them to help maintain air pressure in the cold, and are now equipped with enough electronics that they behave like a distributed locomotive (DPU) for purposes of braking.

There’s a signaled crossing (with gates) on road 31W. I parked a bit south of that and walked up to the crossing. I noted a nice bend in the tracks to the west.

That had possibilities!

IC 2708 East

Soon I heard a train to the west. I set up the video camera (Canon T1i) on a tripod and waited for the train to arrive. It was led by IC 2708 and CN 2452.

It looked really nice coming around that bend! Since it was overcast, it didn’t matter what side of the track I was on, so I was able to take numerous photos of the train coming around the bend.

I think I like this one the best.

I took a few photos of the train as it passed. Not every photo has to have a locomotive in it… or so I’m told. 😉

It was a solid train of containers, except for the autoracks on the rear.

Only a few minutes later, I heard a train coming from the east.

CN 3077 West

It was CN 3077 and CN 2036 leading a westbound general freight train.

This train also had a distributed braking boxcar, CN 0041. This one was in the middle.

The train disappeared around the curve, but there was another train following fairly close behind it.

CN 8839 West

It was another westbound general freight train, led by a pair of brutish SD70M-2 locomotives – CN 8839 and 8829.

I heard another train to the west, but I checked my watch and I was running out of time. I packed everything up in the car.

I was a little chilled after standing outside for so long, but I had bundled up pretty well. I had proper winter snow boots and thick socks and jeans on my lower half. I wore a T-shirt and hoodie and parka so my core was warm. I had a toque on my head and heavy winter mitts with Little Hotties hand warmers, so my ears and hands were warm.

The one part that wasn’t well covered was my face. When I sat down in the car, I noticed that my nose was pretty pale and numb. That’s not a good thing. I held a hand warmer on my nose for a couple of minutes, and then it turned red – a good sign. I’ve since purchased a balaclava and I will wear that outside on cold days like this to prevent that from happening again. I might look like I’m robbing a bank, but at least I’ll be warm!

CN 2600 West

As I drove east along highway 331 toward Newton, I saw the crossing lights come on at the highway crossing. I pulled off to the shoulder and photographed CN 2600 West rolling by.

In the background of one of my photos, I believe I see a small grain elevator at the Elm River Hutterite colony. I never knew that was there… I’ll have to try to get another look some day.

That was five trains in 60 minutes – two eastbounds followed by three westbounds. CN is busy!

CN 2263 East, Again

As I approached Winnipeg, I saw a familiar distributed braking boxcar – CN 0035. The first train that I saw at Nattress was stopped just west of Winnipeg, in one of the “parking spots”. The head end was by Hall Road, with red-white-and-blue BCOL 4610 trailing CN 2263.

There was an interesting load on the train – some very long poles overhanging a flatcar, with a spacer flatcar on each side.

Summary

I was able to photograph the portal, so I’m calling it a win. Mission accomplished! Send the troops home!

But seriously, it was a good outing. I saw nine trains in just over three hours, so the quantity was good, and I now know Nattress is a good location for photographing trains!

See Also

• On A Mission
• Portage Hit and Miss

Just One More Thing

If you have a moment, could you please fill out this three-question survey about ads on my site? I would appreciate it very much. Thanks!

Breaking Trains News

Several days after I visited Nattress, there was a collision between two trains at mile 50.2. An eastbound and westbound train collided, and two locomotives from the eastbound derailed, along with eight freight cars from the westbound train. One conductor suffered minor injuries, but fortunately nothing more serious occurred. The location was about 0.5 miles west of the crossing I was at.