Winter Is Here

It has taken a long time, but winter has finally arrived in Winnipeg Winterpeg.


After a couple of weeks of near- or above-zero days, the temperature dropped to -13C today and we had a fair bit of blowing snow. I was driving home along Wilkes Avenue when I spotted CN 199 heading the same way. I slowly overtook it and pulled off at La Fleche Road just west of the Perimeter to grab these shots. The train was moving at a good pace but I imagine they had to slow a bit to actually see the signals in the blowing snow.

Part way down the train was CN 8884 in DPU mode. This was the 15th time I've seen CN 199 and only the first time I've seen a DPU engine on it. Unusual.


I guess I'll be bundling up more!

Reprocessed

Remember those "blah" shots I took a while ago? Especially this one?


I decided to try reprocessing it in Photomatix using the "single shot HDR" method, like I did earlier. What a difference!


There is some detail to the sky now, and the elevator and train show more detail too.

I think I will have to invest some money in one of these HDR programs. They bring out a lot of detail that is not evident when I do my normal photo processing.

Blah Shots

I love it when I go out to shoot trains and I get great shots... it's a great feeling. Sometimes, though, all you get is "blah".

This past Saturday, I had some time after noon to shoot trains. In the past few Saturdays, I've gone over to CP to check out the action there. This time I figured I would go over to CN's Symington Yard and see what I could shoot at the shops using my telephoto. You can stand on Lagimodiere Boulevard and get some long distance shots, and I have not done that in quite some time.

That would have been a good idea. However... I heard CN 114 was just leaving Symington so I elected to chase that instead. I went to Bournais Drive just off Dugald to wait for them to roll along. It did not take long before CN 8018 rolled into view. CN 8889 was the second unit.


See? Blah. The sky is totally blown out and the shot was really not great to begin with. I think the problem is that the pole line is too close to the tracks. I was not willing to go any closer to the rails, for my own safety.

After the head end passed, I hopped in my car, figuring that I would shoot them crossing the Floodway on the big bridge there. Well, that did not work out because A) they were going pretty fast, and B) the road work that has been done in the area has put a big concrete barrier between the two sides of the highway that prevented me from cutting over to get the shot. I decided to carry on to Dugald to shoot them at the grain elevator.

I beat them to the elevator by a couple of minutes, and set up to get the train and the elevator in the shot. Here it is.


Again, blah. I would have liked the engine to be a bit farther along and a bit more in focus... and since I'm asking for stuff, a blue sky would have been nice!

Oh well, you can't win them all.