CP 2816 Empress Steam Train

As part of the BC 150 year celebration, I managed to stake my claim on a spot to shoot the Empress as it crossed the Pitt River on Friday. IMO, this is the last spot on the tour to capture this train with a scenic backdrop. The final leg of the tour has it running through the cities now.

My only wish would have been for the engineer to blast some steam as it exited the bridge, but I'll take what I can get

Enjoy!
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Nice shot!

Steam Trains - a good topic. It's about time we brought the old coal burners back into service.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #5822004
Nice shot!

Steam Trains - a good topic. It's about time we brought the old coal burners back into service.

Thanks Robert.

I've been waiting 2 months to take that shot now. It's for a client who's grandfather worked on that train. I used satellite images (thank you google) to determine the location I wanted to shoot it from. As you can see there wasn't a lot of room for error getting the whole engine between the bridge and the treeline.

It's the first time I've ever been at a location I wanted to shoot, and I could actually feel my heart beating faster. Knowing I would never get another chance at this shot really pumped up the adrenaline.

We have a similar situation at the Thomas Viaduct near Elkridge Landing in Maryland. The Chessie line was still running annual excursion Steam over that viaduct when I was last there in the early 80's.

Nice shot. It looks like you might have gotten your socks damp.

There's always Photoshop steam, but it probably would look cartoon-like.

bill boehme wrote in post #5822865
Nice shot. It looks like you might have gotten your socks damp.

There's always Photoshop steam, but it probably would look cartoon-like.

I had to walk over many logs in the muck to get where I was. I had my tripod set up on three different logs at different heights, and I stood on a patch of sticks over the muck for an hour. I was there early so I took some preliminary shots of the scene which made it much easier to clone out the other people that came to stand at the base of the bridge. They didn't have my sense of adventure though, and they shot straight up at the train rather than at a nice angle.

I'll forget about the steam. It's not really necessary for a nice image of the train itself. The full size shot is quite nice in that you can see the train number very clearly. In the final I'll dodge and burn the bridge and train to bring the train more prominently as the subject, but I think I'll call it a day after that.

Your story of how you did it makes it even better.