another lerro productions photo charter, on the everett railroad, based out of holidaysburg pa. # 11, cooke works of the american locomotive company, (alco), in paterson nj. a 2-6-0 mogul type, built in 1920. the weather was ok saturday, and nasty sunday, to the point i bailed sunday while we were at roaring spring station with 2 hours left on the charter, but a 7 hour drive home, and steady rain which is not good for the camera/lenses, made that an easy call. here we are with the first runby of the day, just west of the holidaysburg station. another runby, a little lighter daylight pete lerro seems to have a huge contact list for period cars, and he goes to great pains to get only vehicles that would have been on the road during this locomotives prime
so let's get a little later in the morning, we have moved the mile or so to the hollidaysburg depot, we brought that car along it can be quite a show when they blow down some steam, and if you like this you should see it when one of the bigger restored engines such as nickel plate 765 does this and here is a perfect example of why you shoot all day, multiple exposures, not sure what happened, but this whole runby my technique just died, no idea why i apparently suffered a total loss of concentration, i just pooched the drivers completely in fact at this point i had to step back, and even went so far as to reinitialize my camera settings just to get back to baseline and return to normal from there. now part of that was my own fault, it was just about then i realized i had not had the a7r2 in my hands since may, one of the pitfalls of shooting with 2 bodies, even though both are sony, i should have picked up the larger sensor camera a few times over the summer and through the fall. so while the train backed up i went into base landscape mode just to get centered again
i do like me a train in the countryside, especially crops and barns around it, i feel the train does not even have to be the large focal point, how many young men grew up in scenes like this, wondering if someday they too could ride the steel rails to adventure, far off places they had only read about or seen on newsreels. or anxiously awaiting the draft notice, knowing the iron horse would take them off to war, maybe to return under a flag pulling into the roaring spring station, for some reason we never did go further on this line, but this road has 3 lines, and one of them has a Y to turn the train on. working that new 12-24 it'll be interesting to have that lens at pixelmania where the claysburg branch goes off, we did not go very far down the branch, only to the bridge above as the tracks are rated for 10 mph and we did not have the time to go the full 7 miles
let's bring that train down the other branch for a runby or 2, most photo line locations the charter organizers do 2 or more runbys, sometimes more in a narrow constricted area, switching out the participants so everyone gets an equal shot at the view, and maybe moving around, such as trackside, then up a hill into a pasture our a cornfield for different angles it's a shame the tracks were not aligned to have the building and grounds in this shot, behind me, over my right shoulder is an absolutely gorgeous immaculately manicured franciscan monastery, it would have been a great shot, and at one time they had their own small station and a milk loading platform, both probably shared with the surrounding farm community back at that bridge again, different sun angles
and let's wrap up saturday with a lerro productions feature, one used by many photo charters, but by pete lerro with good effect, the staged night shoot, here at the roaring springs station, arguably the most scenic feature of the everett railroad i am pleased with this one, i was getting my train mojo back by this time
