Make Railways Interesting Again

Being a railway enthusiast sure is different these days. I am not going to go down the road of saying everything was better when I was young. It wasn't. Some things I found were better while other things were not. But I will say this. Railways have taken on a sameness, for lack of a better term, and it's really affected my enjoyment of rail photography.

Again, I won't say that things aren't what they used to be, across the board, because there are some aspects of railways today I find fascinating. But I cannot get excited by endless container trains, at least in that, once you get your initial photographs of the power up front, there really isn't much left to photograph. The same can be said for most rolling stock. Most covered hoppers are endless strings of grey, with only their alphabet soup of lease company reporting marks to offer any variety. The same has always been true for most tank cars, as this continental fleet has been under the control of leasing companies for far longer than other cars.

The question is what can we do to keep this hobby fresh when there is so much blank space on cars and so little diversity? With most railways not investing much in new rolling stock, there's not much variety in the average freight train. Also, with much of the fleet of fallen flag cars on its way to the scrapper's torch, there's a scarcity of history to capture.

Over the last few years, I have found that I have begun to refine my approach to railfanning quite a bit, without even realizing it. These small changes I have made to my approach have really allowed me to make the most of what there is to capture out there these days. I'm not saying it's for everyone. I understand that there are people younger than me who don't have the same experiences I have in my arsenal, so they don't know what they're missing, so to speak.

For that matter, there are people older than me who could say the same thing about my outlook. I will never know the luxury of their past experiences, so I cannot say whether their time spent trackside while young was better than my time spent trackside when I was young.

So here is my refined approach to railfanning, developed with modern railways in mind. 

1. Don't begin and end your time trackside documenting power only This might be my biggest disappointment when I look at the work of others. It's also a critique I have of my own work at times. So many videos today essentially follow the power to the detriment of actually cataloging the entire train. I try to look for shots of the train from different angles. This means finding interesting trackside infrastructure to frame the entire train against. I find shots of engines with no context are not terribly interesting anymore. Unless I know where the shot is being taken and the context of the train's movements, I am not all that excited.

Look at the shot above from Smiths Falls in 2017 and look at the shot below, taken with details in mind. I know which one I prefer.

 

2. Try and get the big picture This is one of the hardest challenges of rail photography and it often goes against our natural desire to get as close to the action as possible. I think we spend so much time shooting the power that we forget how powerful an image can be when it incorporates an entire train. There is certainly a trade off here. Your shot will not be as close and the train will not be as prominent, but I think it's a good compromise sometimes, when it works out.

 

This shot shows the limitation of my former camera, as I took this shot outside of Sarnia in 2013. I shared similar photos of this train in a past post, but this one at least captures the majority of the train. It also gives you an idea of the train's length as well as the topography outside Sarnia and the time of year. There are many details to consider. 

 

3. Change your perspective This is where I find I am having the most success and fun. I am always on the lookout for a new perspective, whether is be down low, on a bridge, shooting a train on a bridge, or just finding a creative way to capture a train in a way that doesn't mimic a standard rail shot. I think the best recent example of this was when I shot some GO Trains in Toronto in November, when I was travelling between Ottawa and Sarnia. I will have a few posts from Toronto later on.

 

This shot, taken in November, is an example of all the different techniques I have been trying recently. I am on a bridge over the downtown tracks, which means I have a different perspective. I also deliberately framed the cityscape in the shot, and placed the train to the far right of the image. Finally, I didn't zoom in on the train, which would have meant I couldn't capture the entire consist. I deliberately kept the train small in the image, so I could capture the big picture. I also like the look of the many tracks in the photo. I am far more satisfied with this type of image than I would have been with a shot where I zoomed in on the train.

 

4. Look for history This might be the hardest technique as so much rail history has disappeared. When I write about rail history, I'm not talking about steam engines or something that you can only see in a museum, I'm talking about fallen flag cars. I used to shoot images of shortline railway cars and the incentive-per-diem cars that tiny railways built and were still in wide usage when I was younger. I also made sure to get photos of railway fleet cars, which seem to be quite rare now that many railways basically use cars that are part of lease fleets. But, since this is such a challenge, it makes a good catch all the more rewarding!

 

I know that these old Burlington Northern covered hoppers are still fairly common trackside, but for how long? I have photos of old Soo Line covered hoppers that I shot just a few years ago and I haven't seen any since. I like this shot above because I made sure to wait until the yard job in Stratford was passing between the cars so I could grab this shot of the old BN hopper in a unique image.

 

My first thought for this post was to do an exhaustive comparison of how the rail photography hobby has changed since I was younger, but I felt that this approach would come across too much like an angry man shaking his fist at young whippersnappers so I decided to try and take a more even-handed approach.

 

I will say that, unlike when I was younger, today's epically long trains with power on both ends, and often with distributed power in the middle, are something that I never saw when I was younger. And it's a definite improvement for those who are trackside these days. I also like how container trains look from a distance, with so much colour and variety, when taken together as a whole. 

 

See? It wasn't all better back in the day. I'm grateful for what I have now, just I am grateful for what I saw when I was younger. It's all what you make of it. My goal is to make the railways of today, with their lack of diversity, interesting again. Make Railways Interesting Again. MRIA is this year's theme. Let's get to it!

 

Happy New Year everyone. 

Have you ever seen the rain?

With apologies to John Fogerty for ripping off his song title...

The other day, I had some time to kill so I made my way to Fallowfield Station just for the heck of it. I was hoping I might be able to see something different. Sadly, I saw one of the more typical consists that were standard fare in the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto triangle before Via embarked on its wrap program. I saw an F40PH-2 pulling four LRC coaches with no wraps. Wait, is this lack of variety now exceptional in its atypical blandness, perhaps? I don't remember the last time I have caught a Via Rail consist with no wraps. Such is the state of railfanning in Ottawa these days.

When I arrived at the station, it was raining, which is nothing new in Ottawa these days. I took a few cursory photos and then went about my day. It wasn't until I got home and took a good look at some of the images that I noticed how much the rain showed up in the photo. I'm sure a better photographer could have done more to accentuate the rain. I tried to do some touching up to make the rain stand out, but I could only do so much.

This series of shots made me wonder why I have so few images of trains in the rain. I have an endless number of sunny summer day shots and a growing number of winter snow shots, but not a lot of rain shots.

Well, not many inclement summer shots, anyway. I have a few shots scattered shots of rain, but not much worth sharing here. I did manage this shot near Highway 416 as a summer storm came charging north into the city behind this Toronto-bound train. Not long after this shot, our city was slammed by a pretty intense downpour. Timing is everything.

Here's another decent shot that technically qualifies as a rain shot, although it's more of a winter shot, since snow is still on the ground. This one was taken at the Twin Elm crossing. The rain is more of a mist, so this one is borderline for our purposes.

I have a few shots post-rainfall, which I really like, such as this one taken near Fallowfield Station. Hey have you noticed every shot in this post is of a certain vintage? The P42s are all in Via blue and yellow? Will we one day look back at shots from the middle part of this decade as vintage shots? I wonder.

I was also thinking that, for a future post, I might actually tally how many Via rail locomotives I have captured. Since I have shot more Via corridor consists than any other trains since beginning this blog, I figured it might be worthwhile to see how far I have gotten in capturing the entire Via roster. It might be fun to make a game of it.

This collection of photographers also had me thinking how few autumn shots I have in my archives. Time to branch out, I guess.

Random note:

A small piece of information for local railfans. I was driving on Conroy Road recently where the road crosses over the tracks leading to CN's Walkley Yard. I always take a quick look to see if anything is happening in the yard when I am on Conroy. I noticed an Ottawa Police SUV on the access road next to the tracks, which only reaffirmed to me that I made the right decision some time ago to not use this road for photos. At one point, I thought it was a grey area, since the road is an extension of Albion Road and it does have a business located on the access road. However, as most responsible railfans will tell you, it's not worth the risk. Railways take security very seriously and they do not want anyone trespassing on private property.