Low Light Photography

Shooting moving trains in low light is difficult. If they weren't moving, you could put the camera on a tripod and use a long shutter speed to good effect. However, their motion demands a fairly quick shutter speed to capture the train without blurring. The only other option is to use a bank of lights, such as O. Winston Link used to use and Gary Knapp does now, but for most of us that is not an option.

I shot a very long eastbound intermodal train at Eldon siding near Banff, Alberta on August 7. This train had CEFX 1041 and a CP unit leading (CP 9467 I believe), then CEFX 1033 a ways down, then CP 9516 down farther, then CP 9553 near the end of the train. Three separate DPU units!

I shot it at 6:20 AM, before sunrise, in the woods, so there was not much light available. Here are the different units and the techniques I used to try to get some kind of usable photo.

Here's the head end, shot with default settings (F/3.5, 1/25s, ISO 3200). As you can see, it is impossible to read the unit number. The shutter speed was too slow.

For the next unit, CEFX 1033, I elected to pan the train and see if that would bring some portion of it into focus. I think it worked out OK for the unit number (F/5.6, 1/40s, ISO 1600).

I tried basically the same technique with CP 9516. The results weren't quite as good but they were OK (F/5.6, 1/32s, ISO 1600).

After that, I overrode the shutter speed to see what that would do. The picture was fairly sharp but very very dark. I did a lot of processing on this photo to get it to this state (F/3.5, 1/250s, ISO 1600).

Clearly selecting a lower shutter speed and panning produces better results.

Why was I at Eldon siding in Alberta? Those who follow me on Twitter know I was heading to Morant's Curve. More about that later.

Winnipeg Railfanning, Part 1

Head on view of CP 1597

I hope everyone had a good holiday! For those who celebrate Christmas, I hope Santa was generous. I found a model train car under the tree to help build my fleet.

On Boxing Day I set out to do a few hours of railfanning around the Winnipeg area. I took my mother and sister to the airport then went to the CP yards downtown to see what power was around. At the CP Weston shops at 08:50 I saw the following units: 5707, 3117, 9153, 5998, 5940, 8778, 8815, 5988, 3119, 6055, 9760, 8521 and CEFX 117. There was a container train shunting in front of the yard so I couldn't get any decent pictures.

I went to the Arlington Street bridge and took some shots from there. CP 1597, 1506 were shunting, as were CP 6065 and 1622.


At the fuel stands I saw CP 1562, 1532, 6616, 6609 and several other units. It was a little cold standing on that bridge!

I went to the east end of the yard and found CEFX 1041 and CP 9511 shut down at the end of a train at 09:35. CP 8726 was heading up another train there.

CEFX 1041 and CP 9511

From there I took a quick look at the Greater Winnipeg Water District (GWWD) railway yard and saw GWWD 201 shut down, with the hulks of CP 8016 and 8018 nearby.

On to CN's Symington hump yard, where I found hump set CN 7511, 501, 504, 7528 (two GP38s with two slugs in the middle) and another set working the hump at 10:15.

Two Geeps, two slugs

There were two sets of power at the intermodal terminal, one led by CN 2531 and 5360, and the other by weathered CN 5367.

I noticed a few odd cars at the foot of the hump. One was GO Transit car 2647, and the other was a Loram unit LMIX 601. There were also a few pressure vessels on flatcars behind the Loram unit. I guess they were on the "do not hump" line.

GO Transit 2647 in Winnipeg

LMIX 601 in Winnipeg

I heard CN train 840 get permission to leave the yard, and I quickly deduced they were heading east toward the Perimeter Highway, so I went down by CN Navin and parked by the Tinkertown amusement park. Great place to take the kids, by the way. As is typical on the Prairies, I saw the train long before it was close enough to take pictures.

CN 840 arriving in Winnipeg

CN 2531 and 5360 rolled by at 10:39 with a long grain train.



From there, I moved to the CN main line along Wilkes Avenue, but that will wait until my next post.

UPDATE: Someone asked on the CanPassRail mailing list why GO 2647 was in Winnipeg. The answer: "A friend of mine from the CN has come up w/ the answer, & even more. Go Transit is receiving new Bi Levels from Bombardier in Thunder Bay. They are being taken to Winnipeg Symington Yard. 2647, & 2648 are going out on Train #302 tonight (Symington-MacMillian Yard). 2646 Is Currently at Mac yard, 2645 Arr. Mac Yard Dec 23, 2644 arr. Mac Yard Dec 14, Arr Mimico Dec 17, 2642, 2643 Not on the CN System as of yet. I'm sure in the next few weeks prob more GO Coaches will be arriving at Symington Yard."

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