At The Strasburg Railroad

I took these pictures when we stopped by the Strasburg Railroad Depot in Strasburg, PA, in October 2009, with my little Kodak digital camera. These were some of the first pictures I took using this camera. Some turned out pretty good, but others were mediocre!

Reading & Northern's 425

I took the photo's of this locomotive, coming into Jim Thorpe, PA on October 9th, 2010. It was a beautiful day there and was perfect for taking pictures. This train runs once every weekend during the fall foliage festivals from Port Clinton To Jim Thorpe.

This is a beautiful 4-6-2 blue painted Loco with white trim. I photographed it backing to the turntable, which was around the edge of a mountain a half mile away. When I got to the turn table they already had it turned around so I only got to see them back it off. Because of parking issues, I couldn't drive back and forth from the station to the turn table and had to walk. They didn't move it slowly and once it passed the station, they pored the coal to it and it was gone around the mountain in seconds.

After turning it around, they serviced it, then backed it back down to the station where they filled the tender with water. That's where they let spectator's climb into the cab for a look. This train had about a 3-4 hour stopover and during that time, they ran a couple of fall foliage viewing trains, pulled by diesels, in and out of the station. At about 3 PM they pulled this train back up to the station, with a diesel loco. They then backed the 425 up to and hooked to the diesel, loaded up the train and took off, returning to Port Clinton.

Trolleys!

At the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, they run these rail trolley's on a large loop around the campground, to ferry campers up to the show and back. They've all been restored to their glorious splendor and give you a look into the past when these trolley were used in cities in the early to mid 1900's.

My favorite is the yellow No.1779 with vintage seating and brass handrails and hardware!

These pictures are from the sparks show at the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa during Labor Day weekend 2009. The would hook these old steam tractors up to a belted load and get them chugging up to full steam, then shovel saw dust into the fire box to produce the sparks out of the smoke stack.


The pictures of the tractors in the parade are only an example of the ones they used at night and may not be the actual tractors they used. What looks like a solid flame was how the camera took the shots. It was really more of only an accumulation of the sparks that made it look solid. Sometime in the future I want to go back and re-photograph this and play with my camera to see if I can get better pictures. I was going to go this year but was short of funds for the trip!

The Railroad Museum in Golden Colorado!

To wrap up all the pictures of my trip to Denver, here are the last of the pictures taken at the Railroad Museum in Golden Colorado! This is the third time I've been there. It is a nice place to visit if you are into railroading. Lots of nice vintage locomotives and equipment on display, a small roundhouse and manually operated turntable, a reference and research library, an outdoor garden layout, an indoor layout and displays downstairs in the main building and a nice gift shop.

The last five black and white photos are from pictures hanging inside the museum!

At Cody Park, North Platte, Nebraska

After we went to the Golden Spike Tower, we headed over to Cody Park to view the train display there!  They had one of the Challengers, a huge double diesel and a nice little depot along with a few cars.  If you are ever in North Platte and want to check these out, they are located toward the back of the park on the southeast corner.

Union Pacifics Boy Scouts Of America 100 yr Anniversary Locomotive

We were fortunate enough to get to see this locomotive.  It's a one of a kind paint scheme by the Union Pacific railroad to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America!  The locomotive road number is the same as this year '2010'. 

We found this locomotive parked on a siding between the Golden Spike Tower and Cody Park in North Platte, Nebraska!  Just had to stop and get some pictures of it. 

We only learned about this locomotive tow days before at a seminar put on by the Lionel Train Company, as they are going to produce a model of this particular locomotive in the near future!

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Union Pacific's Bailey Yard

On our way back from Denver, we routed our trip to North Platte, Nebraska to go to the Golden Spike Tower at Union Pacific's Bailey Yard.  We watched as they assembled trains and sorted cars from the hump yard.

Good Place to Eat in Denver

If you are ever in Denver around the south side in the Denver Tech Center area, I suggest you eat at the Delitech restaurant. It's located at 8101 E. Belleview Ave., Denver! We had great breakfast's there!

When you are there, ask for Emily to wait on you. She was certainly a highlight to out trip back there, causing us to make a couple of return visits to the restaurant. We gave her a hard time and she took it all in stride! Here is a picture of her with my friend Lee!

Emily and Lee

The LCCA Special, Part 2

Here are some of the pictures I took of our tour at the UP Steam Shop! They had a E9 Diesel parked inside for maintenance and the 3985 4-6-6-4 Locomotive in for repairs. The front truck was off of the 3985 and the were doing other maintenance to the boiler.

We were supposed to have the 3985 pulling our train this trip but they didn't get it finished in time. All work in this shop is done on a volunteer basis so they don't push schedules for work to be done.

A few of the pics were taken in what's left of the round house and one of the turntable. I've seen a photo of the grounds in it's hey-day and it was a huge yard and locomotive servicing facility with a complete round house. Only a few stalls remain.



After lunch and completing our tour, we boarded buses and headed back to Denver!

The LCCA Special

The highlight of our Denver trip with the Lionel Collectors Club of America (LCCA) was our train ride behind Union Pacific's 844 4-8-4 Northern locomotive. Our club was fortunate enough to acquire a ride on this train which is not usually open to the general public. We also got a tour of the steam shop to boot! Another special surprise was they covered over the 'Union Pacific' logo on the tender, with 'Lionel Lines', just for us!

We boarded the train at Denver's Union Station and headed to Cheyenne. They stopped in Nunn, CO, let us off and did a couple of photo run by's. Then we boarded and went up into the plains somewhere close to the Colorado-Wyoming border and led us off for another run by, re-boarding the train again and headed on into Cheyenne to the depot!



Photos of the rest of the tour of the steam shop will be in the next post.

The Georgetown Loop

These pics are from our excursion to the Georgetown Loop railroad on Tuesday July 27th, 2010, which is located 45 miles west of Denver, CO. We went to the upper end of the loop to the station at Silver Plume, CO. There, we rode the train down to the new station at Georgetown and back. I didn't take many pictures of the actual ride as I shot video most of the way.

I recommend anyone wishing to ride this train to board at Silver Plume. That is where they house and service the equipment and you can take some time viewing everything before boarding or after riding the train. If you go in the morning before the first ride you can watch them preparing the equipment. Then after the ride, drive back down to Georgetown where there are some nice shops and restaurants downtown.



A little about this railroad, taken from the brochure we got at the station;

The Georgetown Loop Railroad was one of Colorado’s first visitor attractions. Completed in 1884, this spectacular stretch of three-foot narrow gauge railroad was considered an engineering marvel for its time.

The thriving mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume lie two miles apart in a steep, narrow mountain canyon. To connect them, the railroad’s builders designed a “corkscrew” route that traveled twice the distance, slowly gaining more than 600 feet in elevation. It included horseshoe curves, grades of up to 4%, and four bridges across Clear Creek, including the massive Devil’s Gate High Bridge. The Colorado & Southern Railway operated the line for passengers and freight from 1899 to 1938, when it was abandoned.

In 1973, the Colorado Historical Society began restoring the railroad as part of its 978-acre Georgetown Loop Historic Mining & Railroad Park. A replica of the High Bridge was completed in 1984, in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its original construction.

Back From My Trip

I made it back from my trip to Denver and have a lot of nice photos to share on here.

The first group of pictures I'm sharing is the trip we took on the Royal Gorge train. On Thursday, July 29th, our group left Denver by bus which took us to Canon City, CO and to the train depot. We boarded the train in Canon City and rode it to the upper end on the gorge. Then they backed the train halfway back down and stopped at the incline rail, which took us up to the top of the gorge, where we looked around and walked across the old suspension bridge, viewing the gorge from the top. From there, we boarded the buses and headed back to Denver.

I took these pictures with my little Kodak digital camera. I didn't take a lot of pics on the train ride itself as I was taking video during the ride!



These seven pictures were taken by my friend with his little digital camera.

The Right Camcorder Battery

The other evening I went to BestBuy and got the correct Sony Camcorder Battery for my new little Sony camcorder. After pulling one from the shelf, I flagged down an employee and brought him over to the same camcorder that I had purchased and asked him for sure if this was the right camcorder battery for this camcorder. He assured me that it was and when I got home I plugged it in and it works. Yea!

My Camcorder came with a NP-FV30 Camcorder Battery, but for the extra one, I bought a NP-FV50 Camcorder Battery. This battery stores a lot more juice, which will run the camcorder much longer on a charge than the original does, so I've made it my primary battery!

There was so much unnecessary confusion over buying the right camcorder battery for my application, especially with batteries that look the same. Do all manufacturers produce too many variations of batteries for their cameras and camcorders?

Camcorder Battery Returned to Store

When I got the Sony camcorder the other day, I also bought an extra Sony camcorder battery for it. Unfortunately it didn't fit so I had to return it to the store today. This is one of my pet peeves! There are a bunch of batteries that all look alike but won't interchange. I hate this 'lack of interchangeability' in all forms of manufacturing and this practice tends to waste a lot of peoples time and money having to contend with these issues.

There's just is no good reason, other than trying to bilk more money out of consumers, that they have to make so many different varieties of components for everything. The manufacturer, in this case Sony, could have made two or three batteries in different capacities that would plug into and operate any of their cameras thus creating less complications! Do you hear that Sony?

Slide Show

I took these pics on April 24th, 2010 of the Union Pacific's No.844 4-8-4 Northern steam locomotive when it stopped in Wagner, OK. These were taken with my little Kodak digital camera. I took some others with my 35mm but haven't had them developed yet.

Camcorder Shopping Review

Today I'm going shopping for a small camcorder to take with me on my Lionel Collectors Club convention trip in Denver, the last week of July. We will be riding several trains and I'd like to take some video of the trip!


7/11/10
This blog is supposed to be about cameras, 35mm and digital, but I've seemed to have hi-jacked the blog right at the first to chat about camcorder shopping. I'll try not to dwell on this issue but I just want to share some of what I've learned.

I purchased a Sony DCR-SX44 mini camcorder this weekend. I chose this model because of price, quality and features. I won't say where I purchased it but several stores carry it like Walmart, Target and Best Buy!

The first issue was price! Since I have a limited budget I chose to hold around the 2 to 3 hundred dollar price range. This leaves out any High Definition camcorders. Average price of this unit is $269.00. I paid less because it was on sale!

As far a quality goes, I talked to several different salespeople in several different stores and the consensus was that Canon and Sony were the top two in that order. The others were JVC, Panasonic and Samsung. The reason I chose the Sony over the Canon was features. I thought the JVC looked cheap in my opinion and was not attracted to it. Panasonic had the best anti-shake stabilization but the color they said would be a little off. Though Samsung makes some of the best TV's and Video players, their camcorders are not up to par yet, but they said that they were getting better with each new model.

Now for the features. It has a 60x optical zoom which was better than the close to same priced Canon and I believe the Canon had no flash memory and a little higher price. The Sony has a 4GB internal memory and now you can use the regular SD memory cards in it. The Sony has new low light technology that makes it better for use indoors in lower light areas. There are a lot of other features that I don't yet understand but I chose this model because of how I wanted to use it and the salespersons recommendations for my purposes!

Welcome to my blog!

Though I'm no professional photographer and I don't know much more than point and shoot, I do have an artistic eye and have taken some awesome photos. For years I've been using an old Canon T50 35mm camera with an adjustable lens. I've never known any of the technical stuff or much more than loading the film and shooting pictures.

The last several years I have been interested in getting a digital camera, as I've seen a few in use and I like some of the features. The problem is I don't know what to get, as the cameras I've been looking at with adjustable lenses are quite expensive, especially with my limited budget. I decided that I should learn more about the cameras before I spend the money to purchase one.

So I thought one way to learn would be to buy a cheaper camera without the fancy lenses and learn about the camera operation first. My girlfriend found an ad for a used one at less than half price than they were charging for them at Walmart, so I bought it. It is a little Kodak Easy Share ZD710 with a 10X zoom. I've also taken some awesome pictures with it, but I've had trouble with focus when using the zoom and taking action shots. The manual doesn't give me much information about all the features and I wouldn't even know what to do with them if I knew how to use them.

So as I post on here, I hope some more experienced people can help me with my difficulties. All advice welcome!

This is a photo I took of a locomotive coming thru Wagner, Ok in April 2010