If You Don’t Succeed At First
After photographing the inaugural run of Amtrak’s westbound Sunset Limited at its new time this past Monday in less than ideal conditions, I found myself trackside this evening hoping for better luck.
When I arrived at the east switch of Sugar Land siding (MP 25) at 1920, there was nice light. I thought I could replicate the shot from Monday, but by 7:30 PM I had to re-locate due to shadows from the Nalco Chemical offices creeping across the right-of-way.
I ended up about 200 yards west of where I had originally set up, not the shot I wanted, but light trumps scenery. It’s not ideal light, but then again the sun is barely above the horizon, so I won’t complain.
At 7:36 PM, the train arrived.
Just like that, the train was by me. In reviewing the file data, I see the first image was captured at 7:36:02, the last image was made at 7:36:16.
It seems like a lot of time and effort must be expended for a mere 14 seconds of photography, but somebody’s got to do it…
Southwest Rails 
Good work, and just while these shot possibilities for this train now open up for you, they essentially close for me here in southeastern Louisiana!
Thanks for the compliment! With the new NOL departure at 0900, any shots of #1 in your neck of the woods would be backlit?
Mostly, yes, though there are a few places that might be good for midday in the fall and winter (or when it’s cloudy.)
I will try to remember to plug your stuff in one of my upcoming posts. I don’t know if you saw, but I have an automatic mailing list for my blog now.
Yo, foamie, I plugged your stuff in my latest post here: http://jimbaux.com/2012/05/20/a-fleeting-sunday-sermon/
Just try to catch #2, this morning it was reported as 22 hours late & by the time I checked the status map’s, it had completely dropped off the map with no notation of service disruption..
That’s crazy. It departed Houston around 7 AM yesterday morning, supposedly arriving NOL by end of day yesterday. Here in about 45 minutes, #2 of the 9th will depart LA, scheduled to be into Houston 11:10 AM on Friday. We’ll see…
AND-YOU-ARE-THAT-” MR.SOMEBODY ” & WE-THANK-Y’ALL-KINDLY ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !