Big Alice Revisited

[canonloader]

Well, I went by the Ace Hardware this morning on my way back to shoot Big Alice again, got over there and parked and a guy pulled in with a pickup pulling a trailer. I hurried over and asked if he could let me inside the gate. No problem, he took me on a personal tour and let me go inside the cab, even taking off the plywood window covers to let in some light. Showed me all kinds of stuff and let me take my pictures. :)

Most if not all of these are 3 exposure sets and run through Photomatix, to overcome the light limitations. I tried to keep the colors as close to reality as I could, but the Caboose might have gotten away from me. ;)

I will be putting many more up on a webpage and will post it back when it is up (http://www.picturelacrosse.com/train/train.html).

http://www.picturelacrosse.com/hdr/tranportation/caboose-set1-img_3564_2_3-100608.jpg

The big wheels means this one was a passenger "power unit", making the run from Chicago to Denver and Minneapolis on a regular basis. It could do the one way trip in 24 hours...
http://www.picturelacrosse.com/hdr/tranportation/drivers-set2-img_3608_9_7-100608.jpg

Here's the firebox. I can now say I have been inside the firebox of a Baldwin Steam Locomotive...
http://www.picturelacrosse.com/hdr/tranportation/firebox-img_3539-100608.jpg

Capable of top speeds of 100+ mph, it easily maintained speeds of 90-100 mph. At those speeds, the squeaking and banging of hinged plates and access panels was descriobed as "fearsome"...
http://www.picturelacrosse.com/hdr/tranportation/front-view-set2-img_3581_2_0-100608.jpg

They just don't make them like this anymore...
http://www.picturelacrosse.com/hdr/tranportation/power-set-set1-img_3637_8_9-100608.jpg

[Razor524]

Real cool, I love train photos!

[canonloader]

Thanks Ray. I was smiling the whole time. Couldn't believe my luck, to have one of the maintenace people there and let me in to crawl all over it. :)

[DigitalSpecialist]

Mitch, I envy you. I would have loved to climb all over a beauty like that. Oh hold on, I have a whole museum minutes from my work with running stock. Guess I need to go shooting!

[canonloader]

Hey Jim, it was certainly a high point for me. In the other thread, I said they fired this up every now and then, but that turned out to be urban legend. What they do is have open house now and then, and use an air compressor to run the horns and stuff, then some sort of smoker they put up in the stack to make it look like it's running. LOL It's nice having someone there that is willing to answer all the questions you have. :)

[Woolburr]

Your shots came out well considering the lack of elbow room. Very tough to shoot something this big from inside the fences...the shot of the tender is very good...

[canonloader]

Thanks Dan. Even though I had access to inside the gate, I think I will have to shoot more from outside the fence. Luckily, it is a short fence and I have the Tokina 12-24. I don't need too much more room to move back, and I think I can get what I need by just being a couple feet outside the fence and use a steplader to shoot over it. That should give me some wider shots. Gonna try it anyway. :)

[PhotosGuy]

Nice. Good ones on your site, too.

[canonloader]

Thanks Frank. I just now finished uploading 5 pages of images. It still needs work, but I've been at this for 12 hours already today. Enough! :lol:

There are still some more to process too. ;)

[Woolburr]

Thanks Dan. Even though I had access to inside the gate, I think I will have to shoot more from outside the fence. Luckily, it is a short fence and I have the Tokina 12-24. I don't need too much more room to move back, and I think I can get what I need by just being a couple feet outside the fence and use a steplader to shoot over it. That should give me some wider shots. Gonna try it anyway. :)

Fences are the bane of a rail shooters existence. The dang things always seem to be right where we want or need to be.:confused:

[canonloader]

They could have given this one more room, that's for sure. It's not like there wasn't plenty of space to put it back further. Still, without it, people would be climbing all over it, spraying graffiti and falling off and killing themselves. It's a long drop. :)