Originally posted by Ed Hurst Thanks so much, my friend. For many years, steam railway photography was my main obsession. All this landscape stuff that rules my life now really only took over about a decade ago! But it was nice to dip my toe back in the steamy water :-)
Thanks! Appreciated!
As for star trails, I fully understand what you mean. But there are several reasons why I don't think I would do that:
1) The desire to get the whole shot at the best possible quality (this silly, obsessive reason is probably the main one!)
2) The 645Z has the best high ISO, low noise, high resolution performance of any camera I have seen (this probably just explains point 1 above!)
3) Different aspect ratios
I realise this is making very hard use of the camera, but this is one of the main things I have it for, I guess.
Thanks!
The topic of Australian track gauges is a complex one. The short answer (relevant to these pictures) is that main lines in New South Wales are 'standard gauge' (i.e. 4 feet 8.5 inches). So any impression given otherwise in these shots is some sort of illusion.
As for the wider story, allow me to quote from an article I wrote for Steam Railway magazine eight years ago:
"It seems strange now, but when the railways were being built, the vastness of Australia meant that most things, famously including track gauges, were decided on locally rather than nationally. Each state was, to all intents and purposes, an independent colony. It didn’t occur to anyone that there was much need for these things to work together; certainly there was no immediate prospect of the railway systems being connected to one another or resources being pooled. This meant that New South Wales chose standard gauge for its main line railways, whilst Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland went for 3’6” and Victoria adopted the rather grander 5’3”; South Australia had a mixture of gauges from quite an early stage."
There were also many narrow gauge lines, but that's another story.
Hope that helps!
Ed
Hi,
Yeah, when the time came, they just put two stations next to each other and unloaded one train into its' station, then carted the stuff across to the other where they put it onto the other train. Passengers, of course, could just hoof it.
Even with the same gauge, this happens between two different rail lines. The little town in New York State (USA) I grew up in had such for quite a while. Two short lines into the town, and two stations next to each other. They went bankrupt during the Great Depression and the tracks taken up during WWII for the steel. So, I knew the two stations as (1) my Uncle's John Deere dealership and (2) the local Farm Supply Store.
But, it was always odd how the roadway went, and how the buildings were constructed. Then, when I was about 10 or 11, I found this old stairway to upstairs. Up there was a unused, as far as my Uncle went, business office for that Short Line RR. All the desks and filing cabinets and paperwork still in place. After that, I understood.
There were a couple oddball silos nearby. Huge ones made of concrete. This being a farm town, they made zero sense. I figured out that they were coal silos, or what was left of them. They offloaded the coal from the trains and had an elevator (gone by the time I showed up) to fill them. The unloaded into wagons. So, the local coal supply company.
And, all that right next to our school, which came in the 20s as well, and all this rather out of place in the early 1970s. I have a picture from Back When showing the stuff when it was still in use. But, where do I have it? It isn't a shot of mine, so not in the usual places. I might be with the data I have on my Great Grandfather's work on the stiffening up of the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge. That fed one of the lines. He was a bridge engineer and the work was needed for WWI. I'll dig up that CD and look.
Anyway, the two lines came into town from different directions and left in different directions. They met up only at the one spot. I imagine this happened in many places. And it would work just as well for different gauge lines
There is some sort of a old running steam train near me here in North Carolina. The end of the American Tobacco Trail. This ran from New Hope to Durham and was a major item in our old tobacco operations. Gone now. Most of the line is a hiking and biking path. But, there is something about the New Hope and and a running museum. I need to get over there and do some shooting, I think.
Stan