Today's Quick Outing

[jhicks7]

Went out for a couple of hours today, not really expecting to see any trains, but more to just take in the scenery now that I'm home from school. The trio of photos included below are from rural backroads, which I love to drive down any chance I get. This is in Moneta, VA on the NS Altavista District, or the old Virginian. Surprised that I didn't catch a coal train like normal. Had to edit these more than I would have liked, but I suppose it's one of the consequences of learning how to shoot better, aka using RAW format. As always, I'm open to comments and critiques!

Photo 1 is a loaded Herzog ballast train heading into Roanoke with symbol 934. I literally went across the little wooden bridge and saw the oncoming lights, parked very fast on the side of the road, and hopped out to snap some photos.

Photo 2 is a going away shot, as it is about to knock down the intermediate signals here (first time I've seen them lit).

Photo 3 is a solid NS grain train, but I'm not sure of the symbol or if it was loaded or empty. This is what I was expecting to be a coal train.

Thanks for viewing!
Josh

[jhicks7]

Didn't occur to me that moving the folder from which I was uploading the pictures would be a bad idea. I guess I got distracted. To those of you that fruitlessly tried to download them, I'm sorry! All is well now.

Josh

[E.M. Bell]

You are lucky to live in a part of the country I love, and try to visit often!

Shooting in RAW is a great thing. I have been shooting RAW for a few years now, and it really is a good thing, and I have saved a lot of bad shots by having the ability to edit in a more detailed way than can be done with photoshop.

My normal workflow in processing is to do most all of the corrections for lighting, color, sharpening ect in the RAW editor first, then convert that to Jpeg. I then open that image up in Photoshop to crop, size, and do anything else that it needs (which is usually not a lot)..  I just wish we such things 20 years ago when I was shooting Kodachrome!

[jhicks7]

I love it here! Such great scenery in the countryside. In my mind, nothing beats driving down an old dirt/gravel road to get to a little bridge or a crossing!

As for shooting in RAW, I'm slowly getting used to it, working with more manual settings since I'm learning more about my camera. It is nice to be able to do more processing afterwards on my computer. I just work in Lightroom, it does the job well for my needs.

[jhicks7]

This will be a follow-up post of sorts, just one more shot to share. Went trackside before work on Wednesday and caught the same grain train coming back. The loaded train from Saturday was NS 52Z (thanks to Ptrainman) and this one came back empty. I think the symbol might be 55Z from what I could find on the internet, but I never heard symbol (no radio/scanner). Same lead engine, but the trailing two engines were dropped and replaced by a single engine. Guess you don't need as many horses coming back empty!

If anyone on here reads this and knows the reverse symbol, feel free to enlighten me and any others!

Josh

[Batman]

your being stalked by that 6794  ha ha

[jhicks7]

Hahaha that's what it looks like. I won't complain though, it was a nice catch each time.