Suggestions for Night photos of Trains.

Recently I went to a night photo session at a train museum. I used my 28-135 with varing exposure times in TV mode. Pictures are good, but can not seem to get the whole train in picture. How do I get that up close look but with the whole train in it. I just aquired a 35 - 105, and I have a 18-55 but the 18-55 seems to make the train look so far away. Any suggestions would be great on this or just on train photography in general as I have another all day and night shoot on the 3rd of July.

What about cropping it later in post processing?

Yeah I have done the whole cropping thing but to me for some reason it didn't look right.

Your 18-55 should allow you to get up close to the train. It may exaggerate the front a bit, but if you are close, that should allow you to include more of the train, without it appearing to be too far away. If it does, then try zooming in a bit, and backing up until you find a composition that works for you.

Use a wide angle lens (such as your 18-55 near the 18mm end of the range) and get close.

This was shot with the equivalent of 20mm on your camera (it was actually made with a full frame camera and a 24-70 set to 32mm, but that's equal to 20mm on your crop camera)....

As Amfoto ably demonstrates, a wide angle and three-quarter view is a good starting point. It usually gives good diagonals and can imply a sense of motion; a side view may be good for documentary photography, but tends to return a more static image.

How's the in-house lighting? If it's fairly dim and you're using on-camera flash, a three-quarter view is going to give you significant light fall-off - a locomotive is a long machine. And if it really is a train (locomotive + say, a couple of wagons or coaches), you're in real trouble.