ICE Follies

I was off to a good start on this bitter cold but clear January morning. I'd hit the road early - way early - and only upon reaching Hampshire or Genoa did the coming dawn brighten the skies enough to call it anything other than pitch darkness. Cautiously proceeding west from Genoa, I rolled through Kingston and was more than a little pleased to notice the westbound block signal there displayed "Stop". Ah, this was a good sign, particularly so since the radio had been silent so far since I first turned it on way back at about Route 59 and 20. Now I was either overtaking a westbound train, or more likely, was about to encounter an eastbound. I could live with that! With my eyes glued to the tracks, I headed west as far as Kirkland... Bam! Here comes the eastbound. I made a quick turnaround, and headed east to follow him. The sun wasn't up yet, but soon enough it would be. I just needed to find the right spot.

I attempted a shot on the west side of Genoa, but promptly screwed it up. I was using Autofocus with this new camera, and still hadn't mastered all the little quircks of it. Even though the sun was not yet up, I tried my shot at Genoa and was quite embarassed as the lens hunted back and forth to find focus, no doubt its little electronic brain numbed by the headlights of the locomotive. The shot was worthlessly out of focus. Not to worry though; the train was going slowly and the sun would be up in a few minutes. Again I made a move east; setting up my tripod trackside at the tiny town of New Lebanon.

I liked what I was seeing at New Lebanon. The trees were covered with ice and the snow on the tracks had been sculpted in interesting patterns by the wind. The first little hemisphere of sunlight was peeking over the horizon behind me and was ever so faintly starting to shine on the classic New Lebanon grain elevator. I watched in silence as the smoke cloud over the tracks slowly materialized into a headlight as the train crested the little rise between Genoa and New Lebanon. Oh My Gawd did this have the potential to be a stunning shot. The train moved ever closer and the weak but noticeable sunlight splashed across its nose as it peeked in and out of the various tree and house shadows. From where I stood, I couldn't be absolutely certain the locomotive would be in sunlight (after all, I'd picked this spot and set up the tripod before the sun had peeked over the horizon), but it was too late to change anything now if it was not. I was here and I was going to have to make it work.

The train got into my pre-focused zone and I squeezed off about three shots. It looked good in the viewfinder. Quickly dismounting the camera from the tripod, I stashed everything back in the car and got the engine running and the heat blowing. I checked the monitor on the back of the camera. The locomotive was indeed in the sun, and the cab windows reflected the orange sky. The ditch lights lit up the sculpted snow on the tracks in a neat way. In fact everything jumped out at me as though it was 3-D. It all worked - it was a screamer! This was going to be a good day.


Two or three hours later, I was marveling at such terrific luck I was having that morning. The Chicago Subdivision of the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad was no fantasticly busy mainline; for the most part a pair of manifest trains in each direction each day, a local train six days a week and occasional ethanol trains made up almost everything one could possibly expect to see on this stretch of railroad. Sometime around the first of the year (2008), they'd made a flip-flop and moved the longtime daytime trains CCHU and HUCC to nights and put the old nighttime trains CCNA and NACC on during the day. For photography purposes, this was a good thing, since timekeeping became a LOT more reliable, particlularly for the eastbound NACC. My train at New Lebanon, however, wasn't the NACC at all; it was a late-running HUCC. A bonus! So a few hours later, with the Davis Local and the "regular" daytime train NACC safely in the camera, I was feeling pretty good about the day's efforts.

I forget exactly where I ran into the other railfan. Perhaps it was at Kirkland where I'd set up to shoot the NACC. Maybe it was a little later when the CCNA was heading west and I set up for a photo at the Genoa "mulch pit". Its not important exactly where. At any rate, somewhere later in the day I ran into another railfan; a guy whom I'd describe as a Man with Many Credentials. He didn't seem the talkative sort, although maybe he felt I was a hack and unworthy of smalltalk. Still, I pressed on, feeling pretty good about the morning's photography so far. I commented that the ICE was running "like streetcars" on this cold morning. He squinted at me as though I was a bug, and commented, well, sure, only if you're counting the one that arrived right at sunrise this morning. Oh, you bet I am - I got a killer shot of it. He was silent. Evidently he wasn't there in time to catch the HUCC. Oh well, you snooze, you lose.