NS Heritage 8100 (Nickel Plate Road)

I struck out badly Sunday night trying to snap a picture of the NS 6920 (Honoring our Veterans) in Jonesborough. It rolled through about 8:00. I just don't have the skill-set and the equipment necessary to take a picture of an object moving that fast in that low an amount of light. I can learn skills, but I don't see that grade of hardware in my future. 

So, I woke up Monday morning to hear that the Norfolk Souther Heritage #8100 (Nickel Plate Road) was on its way through Johnson City to Jonesborough. The 8100 is my favorite of the mostly black heritage paint schemes. The yellow stripes and the scripted  Nickel Plate Road  look really sharp.

It was going to get there about 7:00 AM and it would still be dark, and I knew that Jonesborough was a bad bet. So on a whim I drove to downtown Johnson City hoping there would be enough street lights to get a reasonable picture.

Once again I got there with less than 2 minutes to spare. As soon as I opened got parked and opened the truck door I heard the train horn ... crap ... I hastily setup my iPhone on the tailgate and quickly looked around for the most light and metered a couple of possibilities. It was going to be too dark again, but what the heck, give it a go.

Did I mention it started misting and blowing right into the camera? This is the only picture I got that wasn't a blurry blob or covered with water spots. A grainy train with yellowish stripes. Yeah, not so good. If you didn't know it was the 8100 you couldn't figure it out from the picture.

Heritage NS8100 Nickel Plate Road

Not a complete fail, but far from what I want. I tried to grab a single frame from the video but no joy as they were blurry too. Maybe next time ......

#1 1069 Virginian
#2 8098 Conrail 

#3 8104 Lehigh Valley

#4 1073 Penn Central
#5 8100 Nickel Plate Road