Chuffer train

[Graeme Harvey]

The sun was very low and it made this really shadowy, I'm afraid, but this was the best chuffer train pic I got yesterday...

 

[Darren Turner]

i like steam engines, although i havent been on one........... you have done a good job here grezzino, i like it. were was the pic taken matey??

Daz

 

[Graeme Harvey]

This is pulling into Bridgnorth station (Severn Valley Railway). The loco ran round and pulled the carriages (and us) back to Kidderminster. Nice day out all told.

 

[Darren Turner]

o kool.......how long is the journey grez?

 

[Graeme Harvey]

The journey is about an hour each way ... some lovely views of the Severn Valley along the route as well as a look at the Safari Park just as you approach Bewdley Station from Kidderminster. The Engine House at Highley is a little railway museum containing locomotives and other railway artefacts, as well as a cafe and entry is free to anyone who has a valid ticket for travel on the day. An adult return is about sixteen quid - kids are half fare I think. We got on a summer special where kids accompanying an adult rode for one pound only!

We had a great day!

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Nice one!

I like the composition with the train and the station - very nice

The driver leaning out makes it special

 

[Graeme Harvey]

Nice one!

I like the composition with the train and the station - very nice

The driver leaning out makes it special

Thanks, Chris. You can't pre-plan anything about how the driver's going to look, but I've always enjoyed taking and looking at shots like this. To make the most of them, it's always best to be on the opposite platform to the one where the train is - you get full view of the wheels and you can get the tracks to lead you into the shot. I used to do a lot of railway photography as a kid with my old Cosina CT1A and I've got hundreds of slides up in the loft of trains in England during the early 1980s (lol).

And before you start tarring me with all that stereotypical trainspotter nonsense (i.e. no girlfriend, spotty, ugly, fat) can I just tell you that it's all true!

Back to the pic - I always like the train to be somehow framed by its surroundings - when I was a kid I was a darling for taking the thing too early and even when I was taking this, I remembered my old mate John Cookson (he had a Fujica STX1) and his legendary catchphrase looking at my photos: "You could have let it come a bit further!"

A lovely capture is when the sun is high and the tops of the rails are glinting - take an oncoming train from quite a front-on angle with the zoom large as you can muster - gives a great feeling of power as the sleepers get compressed together and the natural wiggles in the track become quite exaggerated - enhanced of course, by the reflection from the tops.

I've never been keen on what we used to call three-quarter shots (front end and one side) of a locomotive taken with zoom because the distortion at that angle never works for me. However, from the front and above (especially if you can get the trailing carriages going round a curve) telephoto/zoom pictures can be quite spectacular.

Sorry for dribbling on. I'll leave it, now!

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I see a lot of parallels with motor-sports photography in what you say n- excellent tips

 

[Frank N. Baker]

Suuuuper Chuuufa
Like it a lot

Frank