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Caption: I live in Hamilton, so naturally I have shot 7304 on a number of occasions. I had yet to get a shot of it in decent conditions though. Chalk it up to taking it for granted I suppose - thinking, "I'll get around to it some day; it's here all the time after all."
While I was waiting for 331 on the footbridge I could see two sets of headlights in the distance - one for 331 further away, and the other, closer set for 7304. It could have made for a nice meet shot, but there was no time to make it happen and no telling if gons/coils would have obstructed the view anyways. After shooting 331 I checked out some action in Aldershot quickly, and then made my way back to Hamilton and over to Parkdale Yard to watch 7304 work for a while.
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Very nice effort. You deserve a reward like this for living in Hambone.
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Love that late afternoon light.
OK i gotta ask this. Do most “foamers” actually watch the trains, locomotives do work(switching back and forth) or are they content to get that perfect shot and then move on to the next photo? Inquiring minds…
Speaking for myself, Mr. Engineer, it depends where I am. At this particular location I would grab my shot and move on, rather than nervously watch, knowing one of Hambone’s finest is out roving the neighbourhood to work on meeting his ticket quota. If it is somewhere I am not going to hassled or be in the way, I will watch the goings on with great interest. However, the bark of the scanner telling me something interesting is moving out or coming in, I am off in search………whatever presents itself grabs my interest.
Depends. Sometimes you have to wait for the perfect shot, and thus watch while you wait. Sometimes there’s action all over town so you’re bouncing from spot to spot as the situation warrants so it really watching much. If you’re on a chase you get the shot, pile in the car and onto the next spot. If you’re chasing local jobs switching industries, inherently you end up watching a lot of interesting manoeuvres. One that comes to mind that I didn’t even get a shot of was GEXR spotting a boxcar in Hensall – perhaps the most interesting move I’ve ever witnessed. But yeah I stuck around here for a little while before moving on to see what 255 was up to.
Steve and Arnold, thank you
@AW… have things become that bad where railfans can’t watch or photograph trains without getting hassled or ticketed? I understand if someone was trespassing or putting him/herself in danger( i have seen some pretty weird and dangerous stuff that some fans do over the years).
I know in this post 911 world that things have changed but its hard to believe anyone could get this much grief for shooting a photo!!
I’m saying that in a lot of instances in Hambone you pull over where you can. Parking is not easy in the industrial areas. If there is a parking area, fine, but most of the time us guys, when coming upon a ‘scene’ for shooting; just grab a spot and jump out. Heck, I double parked in downtown N Falls a couple of times; and sent the car horns a roaring. You do what you gotta do. However, I do not go into rail yards any more; and don’t even like parking at the entrances.
Lemonville Rd bridge in Aldershot, once I had a cop hassle me claiming someone reported me throwing stones at cars. Its nuts out there some days.
Phil, there’s incredible diversity in what peoples interests are. This is a site of photographers and I think you’ll find the photographers mentality dominates, since we’re trying to capture scenes:
For me, most of the time I’m after that ‘perfect’ photo opportunity, the thing that’s in the back of my mind that I might have seen or imagined as possible but haven’t captured. I may also be replicating something new, for example, a Southern Ontario Railway shot with CN locomotives instead. It may present itself some day, it may not, you just have to ‘go fishing’ when and where to try and make it happen. So I’m often hopping from spot to spot as the tea leaves take me based on various information sources. Or in some cases, you just go driving, see what you run into.. and take it from there. In new territory, you’re just exploring to see what you can do.. for example, my run on the Cayuga sub last week with OSR – was only my second time (first time with STER in 2013) and some of it was new territory for me, I had little preconcieved notions and basically rolled with it.
Of course there are sometimes ‘knowledge hits’ where something is posted to ‘the wire’ and I know I haev to be somewhere by some time to photograph something passing, only to turn around and go back to whatever I was doing.. might just be one photo for 10 minutes and an hour of driving – has to be worth it but it happens. Really rare leaders, like something from Mexico for example.
Do I just sit some days and watch? Yes, absolutely, and without a camera in hand just sitting on an overpass taking in the exhaust smoke. Lately as I get older I’m finding i’m pickier for what I want, choosing NOT to do some things the kids go gaga for (as I may already have it) and more willing to spend the time sitting and waiting as opposed to ‘running around’ fishing for photos. But my time is quite limited with my family life so I’m usually very targeted and direct in the time I spend in this hobby.
Back to techniques:
Given enough time, there are people who just go to one spot and sit for a while.. capture all they can in one spot in one day (and I’ve done this a long time ago when I had no kids) and over time, go to enough spots you get a good collection of stuff. Stand in one spot long enough and everything will eventually pass by. right?
But if you remove the photographer (rp.ca mentality) from it, things get even more diverse, as follows:
a) there are people who only care about passenger and/or transit, not freight
b) there are people who prefer to watch and photograph freight cars, in some cases, for Graffitti
c) There are people who are fans of one railway (line) or one railway company. Any fans remember the guy at Bayview early 2000′s who only was around for NS trains and left if it was gone? I was told he was a NS guy only.
d) There are people interested in modelling details only
e) there are people who collect photos of every engine on the CN roster, for example, and only care about ‘roster’ shots of engines, not scenes. I own a collection of CN slides from 1975 of some guy’s ‘collection’ of every CN number…. with some holes, but there are digital versions of that today by some people I know..
e) People interested in locomotive histories and dispositions (ie: Locomotive trackers)
f) People who want to photograph every train symbol..
g) People who just take notes – no photos. Some do both… (photos and notes). I don’t take any notes.
As for being bothered – highly dependent on where you go and what you do, and Arnold is right. I was shooting Hamilton yesterday and there were places I had to park and walk to that would likely not be considered public property, but it was a parking lot of some kind and someone would eventually have words with me if I loitered, but I leave fairly quickly. Even standing around on sidewalks in front of some industrial customers I get bothered by people or warned, it’s fairly common, again depends how much time I spend loitering, most of the time they don’t even know what hit them – I get my shots and i’m gone. It is the norm now unless you stay in the country.. but that’s no fun for me
Note: I wrote this in about 5 minutes..
I forgot to mention the people who only care to ride trains.. collect mileage.. some, go after every mile of track possible – called “rare mileage collectors” which is the extreme example of a person who ‘rides’. Generally speaking passenger trains only.. but I’m sure there are some in the cab of freight trains that secretly collect mileage
An older friend of mine had one of those old CN maps from the 60′s and had all of the routes he rode on marked down – still maintains it to this day. He had stuff all over Newfoundland.. all over gods green earth in Northern Ontario marked off, tonnes of lines no longer possible to ride on. Very cool
I do not have the time for that, I ride for convenience personally.
Also don’t forget about the steam heads – who gave up photography when steam stopped and only take a camera out when steam comes ‘around..