Street Running

Last December I tagged along with my wife to Pittsburgh PA.  She had meetings all week long; I had a camera and a rental car.  Perfect set up if you ask me.  I stayed within a 100 mile circle of Pittsburgh until the weekend, when we both drove to......well that has nothing to do with the story.

There is a little town south of Pittsburgh called "Elizabethtown."  They have railroad tracks that run down a regular street.  This is known as "street running."  COOL!  I set up about five Nikon SB-25 flash, put the Nikon 20mm f1.8G lens on my D800E, and waited.  And waited.  My wife called me, wanting to know when I'd be back.  I told her, "After the train comes."  When would that be?  Dunno.  It's a shot I always wanted and I was going to wait it out.  Train finally came, I got the shot.  As the train was noisily rolling by my wife called again.  It's a sort of longstanding joke that I'll be sitting for hours seeing nothing, then my wife will call and while talking to her a train will come.  Once again this is exactly what happened.  She asked, "did your stupid train come yet?"  I quickly walked over to within five feet of it and hollered over the din into the phone, "What did you say?  Can you talk louder?"  That got her laughing. 

This was a CSX train hauling empty hoppers back to the mine.  Train was at least 100 cars long and moved 5 mph down the street.  Locals report there is a train about every two hours.  (Longer than that when I'm waiting for one, of course.)   Oh yes, the train blows its horn at every block.  I figure the air horn on top is about 10 feet from someone's bed, LOL.  Anyway, this is what I've been up to.


Kent in SD