Precision Transportation

Being a railfan in the era of social is pretty darn cool. Keeping track of the movements of the Norfolk Southern Heritage fleet is done quite well through a several pages on the Facing Book. The latest win was the Norfolk and Western 8103. 

Most railfolk knew that it was scheduled to drag the NS611 steam engine from Roanoke to Spencer, NC for the Streamliners at Spencer event the weekend of May 29. But it had been hanging around in southern Indiana for a a couple of weeks. It snuck (is that a word?) into Knoxville TN in the late evening of 5/17 and was gassed up and ready to go somewhere. I was hoping that it would be making its move to Roanoke on Sunday morning on 38Q, which usually gets to Jonesborough about 6:30AM.

Armed this info I decided to take a chance and just go hang out in Jonesborough about 6:15 Sunday morning and see if it was on 38Q. I reckoned that since it was still very early and the clouds were really thick that I'd need some street lights to help make a picture. The scanner has been completely quiet so I had no confirmation of train movement to go on. 

Just as I got to to Main St in Jonesborough I saw rail cars going by ... crap crap crap ... I missed it. So I banked hard left and drove back toward Johnson City, hoping that I could outrun it to somewhere that had street lights or was really open toward the morning sky. I decided on the crossing at OmniSource (Johnson City Metal) which had both. I'd never shot there so I knew I would need a few minutes to see if there was a reasonable angle with reasonable light. I fired off a few test shots with the F-stop wide open and kept bumping the ISO and shutter speed until I had a workable histogram. I knew the pics would be noisy at ISO 800 but you gotta work with what light you have. About a minute later I heard the horns.

As you can see below, the pics are noisy. When I got home I saw how underexposed they were and that will only make the noisier when I brighten them up in LR5. Regardless, I have pics of a new heritage motor for me! I'll get better pics when it comes back through, they always come back.

It wasn't until I got into post processing that I noticed the front door was open and the lead engine was #8013 (close to #8103).

NS Heritage 8103, Johnson City, TN (05/18/2014)

NS Heritage 8103, Johnson City, TN (05/18/2014)

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This is a new heritage engine, # 14 of 20.

#00  1030 The Forgotten Heritage Engine
#13  1065  Savannah and Atlanta

        1066  New York Central

        1067  Reading
#12  1068  Erie
  #1  1069  Virginian
  #8  1070  Wabash
        1071  Central RR of New Jersey
#11  1072  Illinois Terminal
  #4  1073  Penn Central
        1074  Lackawanna
        8025  Monongahela
  #2  8098  Conrail

#10  8099  Southern
  #5  8100  Nickel Plate Road
  #7  8101  Central of Georgia

  #9  8102  Pennsylvania

  14  8103  Norfolk and Western
  #3  8104  Lehigh Valley

  #6  8105  Interstate

        8114  Norfolk Southern

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This is not a new Special Interest engine for me.

#1 6920 Honoring Our Veterans

#2 6963 GoRail

#3 Southern 630