added two new train photos

[wblanchard]

hi all
i just added 2 pics from a roundhouse in janesville, wisconsin. i was able to get close and personal with all the trains. Let me know what you think. I love trains and would like to start taking more photos of them.

Thanks
Bill

 

[wlewisiii]

Very nice. Thank you for sharing them and please feel free to post more. I've more of a touch for old barns, but I do enjoy seeing these kind of shots.

William

 

[doubs43]

Nice shots. Great sharpness & tonality in the first one.

My father once knew a man who joined the army in Janesville. He was only 15 years old and when the Recruiting Officer asked him if he was over 18, he said yes. He'd written "18" on a piece of paper and put it in his shoe. It was 1861 and he was joining the Union Army...... 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry that later became part of the Iron Brigade. The young man lost his leg a year later at the Battle of South Mountain.

 

[jon_flanders]

Bill,

I agree that the first shot was nice and crisp.

Some railroad technicalities if you don't mind. Those are not trains, they are locomotives. The first one is an EMD to be exact, the second appears to be a GE, but it is hard to tell in the shadows.

EMD's are made by a former division of General Motors. That shot was of the rear of the locomotive. It looks like it should be the front, but it isn't.

I'm surprised you could get that close to an engine house. Rail photographers are restricted to the bridge over the engine house where I work. Employees are not supposed to have cameras in the shop.

 

[doubs43]

Bill, I'm surprised you could get that close to an engine house. Rail photographers are restricted to the bridge over the engine house where I work. Employees are not supposed to have cameras in the shop.

Jon, I imagine security has tightened quite a bit from years past. I grew up within <50 feet from the main line of the B&O RR and we played on the tracks a lot. We'd sometimes walk long distances up and down the tracks - double tracks in those days - picking up the lead strips blown to one side or the other when the signal torpedoes exploded as they were run over. Probably half the men in town worked on the B&O. That was in the days when steam probably powered half of the trains being pulled past.

Sometimes we'd find unburned "Fuzees" - signal flares - along the tracks and we'd light them so we could drop them in the creek and watch them burn under water.

The rail yards and maintenance complex at Brunswick, MD, had vistor overlooks and everything, including the Roundhouse and maintenance shops, was pretty much in view.

I also later lived within a couple of blocks of the rail yards of the AT&SF RR in Topeka, KS. That was in the late 60's. I walked around the yards and took pictures without ever being challenged.

Oddly enough, I didn't develope as deep an interest in trains as I might have so I wouldn't know a Baldwin steam engine from a Baldwin piano or know how to count the drive wheels. I like trains but not passionately. I do know that so-called diesels are actually driven by electric generators that are powered by the diesel engines.

But, security concerns have become serious and I'd be careful with a camera anywhere near major rail maintenance shops.

Walker

 

[wblanchard]

Bill,

I agree that the first shot was nice and crisp.

Some railroad technicalities if you don't mind. Those are not trains, they are locomotives. The first one is an EMD to be exact, the second appears to be a GE, but it is hard to tell in the shadows.

EMD's are made by a former division of General Motors. That shot was of the rear of the locomotive. It looks like it should be the front, but it isn't.

I'm surprised you could get that close to an engine house. Rail photographers are restricted to the bridge over the engine house where I work. Employees are not supposed to have cameras in the shop.

they were really nice to me there. i was walking alone around the whole place taking photos of the locomotives. nobody said a word, just smiled and that was it.