Photo of the Week #009

Still looking sharp in their "executive" paint jobs, BNSF units #9808 and #9778 (both SD70MAC's) roll past snow-covered pines west of Butte, Montana on December 28th, 2018.  The train is a local from Garrison, MT, and will interchange with the Union Pacific in a few short miles.

Cold weather should never deter a railroad photographer.  Sometimes, scenes can be greatly enhanced with snow and ice.  Such is the case with this photograph. On the first day of my vacation, I was headed to Rapid City from Missoula.  South of Garrison, I spotted these SD70MACs on a line which I've never had time to photograph before. Taking advantage of the good weather and my new lenses, I exited I-90 and got on the frontage road which follows the tracks closely.

The first location was the typical view of a train, the standard since the days of Otto Perry.  In this particular shot, the train forms a wedge shape in the middle of the image, separating the foreground from the background while simultaneously creating attractive leading lines the eye will automatically follow.  While a decent image, its nothing the write home about, so I decided to try again.  The next location had the advantage of a well-lit clouds in the sky and sun reflecting of the hills in the background.  This crossing had a deep ditch between the road and the tracks, so as the train approached I stumbled down into the bottom of the ditch and sat down in the snow.

A much better shot this time, the clouds completed the image. But I was hoping to do better, so as the train made its way to the mouth of a canyon on the way to Butte, I went over the hills on the interstate and got off again about 5 miles west of Butte.  Here the frontage road crossed the tracks at the top of the canyon the train was currently traveling through, only now there were two sets of tracks!  One set had a trestle, certainly an attractive feature, the other was near some trees which were freshly covered in pure white snow.  Both were unique, both were good candidates for a photograph.  But not knowing which track was the mainline and which one was the siding, I was forced to wait.

Soon the train came around the corner going about 30 mph, kicking up some snow as small drifts over the track were obliterated under the plow and wheels of the "macs".  The soft light coming from the left background presented a slight challenge for post processing, but aside from that the image was a breeze, making a split-second decision on which track was to be photographed was the real challenge here.

The settings on the camera were as follows: 85mm, f/5.6 aperture, 1/640 of a second shutter speed, and ISO 100.  The image is just about as good as it gets when out in the field chasing trains.  A classic paint scheme, fresh snow, and a bright day along the continental divide came together for this photograph.  The only thing I would have done different, and I would have if there was time, was to use my polarizing filter.  Unfortunately, I didn't have more than about 30 seconds to make a decision on what to photograph before the train came down the line and caught up with me.  Despite this, the scene still works well.

And so this brings me to the lesson to be learned from this photo, quickly deducing what will make the best composition and then getting into position before a train arrives is yet another skill which needs to be mastered for the railroad photographer.  Being slow means missing opportunities, and overthinking means sometimes going with the wrong composition.  In this case, I got lucky.  My intuition, and a bit of luck, gave me the chance to get this shot.  In the future, however, I hope that shots such as this one come my way more often.

--James Willmus