Black Card Trickery. With advance warning that a short Q302 approached Hilldale, I devised a plan. A bit of exposure pre-train to silhouette the signal, a black card (ok, a piece of cardboard) i... (more)

A foggy morning at Hilldale. A Westbound passes under the colorful glow of a classic cantilever, which illuminates a clear signal halfway through the exposure. an 870 second exposure @ f4.5, ISO... (more)

CSX 5000 Diversity in Motion rounds the curve at Hilldate.

2 GE's lift this eastbound coal drag with nearly 20,000 tons of West Virginia's bituminous coal up the .57% grade towards Big Bend tunnel and points east. The old C&O still lives...

Mountain railroading on the old C&O.

Evening Glint in Run 8

An hour and twenty minutes late is right on time for me. The Westbound Cardinal heads downgrade at Hilldale in the late evening.

Another eastbound crawls under the classic C&O cantilever at Hilldale. A 300 second exposure @ f8.0, ISO 100.

Westbound at track speed.

Eastbound Cardinal, in the expert hands of Engineer Hensley.

Looking down the barrel of 6188' long Big Bend Tunnel.

My wife always questions my desire to climb out of bed at 4am to chase trains. Coming home with scenes like this helps my cause. Climbing the grade to Big Bend Tunnel. 90 second exposure @ f5.6... (more)

The last rays of the day.

A morning in which everything came together. Sunlight, waning fog, and a train with perfect timing. Q302 gets the green to go after following a slow moving coal train.

An increasing rare catch, talking that classic GE 'chug' as she climbs the grade to Big Bend Tunnel. If you take a peek in the engineers window, you'll notice one benefit to having a control stan... (more)