Shenanigan's Awesome Railroad Feature 4!

Hello and welcome to my fourth awesome feature, making use of my anonymously given subscription to feature some awesome and lesser known works of the railfan community! As usual, I took the time to write something about each of the featured pictures, since I don't think much of features that just contain a very large amount of photos, with no explanation on why one chose them. Some information about why I submitted the latest poll and about current events can be found at the end of this entry.




On to the feature!

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I thought I'd start off with a non train pic again, since I find it quite refreshing. Rob might be a railfan most of the time, but his latest plane shots are quite impressive! I liked this one the most, due to colour, composition, and that ever so slightly visible heat distortion behind the engine, revealing the speed of that plane. Very dynamic!




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Very strong sense of abandonment here, with the rail the loco is presumably standing on being completely overgrown. I do like the soft colours of the analog film, and the composition is great as well. It almost seems like a monument, making the viewer wonder about what its past might have been like, how it ended up here.




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It's always good to see some non-standard angles, considering that some railfans only seem to shoot from the same one each and every day. I liked the way this shot seems to focus more on the well lit trainshed in the background, with the locomotives being present in large numbers, catching the viewer's attention just a little bit later.




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A simply fantastic shot, with a nice tight crop, and a really spot-on focus. The locomotive came out so sharp it could cut you, and the contrast between it and the blurred background is incredible. Not to mention the ever so slightly visible heat distortion, yet again.




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Sharon decided to edit some of her older shots, making them much more moody and interesting than they were already. This one has a very nice background colour, and again, that contrast in sharpness that I just love. Locomotive extremely sharp, background blurred, a very large aperture having committed the crime.




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Let's have some German steam! If it's not already a nice surprise to have someone who doesn't normally focus on trains draw a picture of one, it is an even nicer surprise to get a photo of that train served for dessert! The Class 52 shown here consists of what is known as war-locomotive, simple, easy to build, easy to maintain.




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Staying with German steam, we have a very nice shot of a class 50 on display at a park in Berlin. Albeit missing its running gear, it still has a monolithic aura, considering that this was once the backbone of the Bundesbahn's freight sector. Who knows, some day, she might steam again.




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Hopping over to Northern Ireland, we find that even DMUs, normally something railfans don't really like, can look quite nice in the right light. Here, it is ascented by the concrete structure under the tracks as well, as it reflects the warm light of a low sun.




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A very moody night shot of an awesome locomotive, not much more to say about it. I liked the little details, the reflections on the wet locomotive, and even though the photographer complained about droplets on his lens, even those add to the general atomsphere of the photo.




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Again, we have what once must have been a loyal servant, and is now just an ancient memorial. I liked the choice of colour, as well as the nice texture on the locomotive. One wonders how it might have looked during it's golden years, or where it might have worked. Abandoned locomotives always seem so mysterious!




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Staying with abandoned locos now, this one offers a very different mood. The black and white photo looks harsh at first, as abandonment always hurts, but the running gear suggests strenght and structural integrity. Yet again, it also seems mysterious, when thinking about how those still, silent, rusted wheels once must have spun to get the job done.




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I guess most railfans here on DA know the narrow gauge mail trains that ran along their own tunnel system under London. Well, there was something similar in Chicago, which I didn't know until I saw this photo. Sadly, the tunnels were flooded, but some of the rolling stock has been rescued for us to appreciate.




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Last but not least, we have something that was quite a failure as far as transporting people goes, but as far as looks are concerned, it is eye catching in the closest sense of the word! GM's Aerotrain made the error of putting form before function, but is it a pleasure to look at? You bet!


The feature is over, I hope you liked it!


Current Events

As you may remember, I mentioned something about an exam today. Well, to my shame I have to admit that I totally failed it. It does however take real men to go in there and screw things up with dignity! Never had much pride, so it didn't hurt that badly, and there's always the second chance of re-taking the exam, which is several weeks away. Until then, I shall be prepared well enough to walk out with a reasonable grade, or so I hope.

And until then, in order to handle this epic failure, I shall get drunk! No, wait, I don't like alcohol... Yes, I shall go to that night-long LAN-party tomorrow, that's a great idea! Getting wasted on Ownage is much better anyways.





The Poll

The reason that made me submit my latest poll (concerning the colours in my photos) consisted of several people with whom I chat noting that the colours were a bit off sometimes, the red of the loco having a tint of orange, or brown, or the image itself not being quite right in that matter. It did help a great deal to get some advice on how a photo looks before I uploaded it, but since I didn't make use of any help in the past, I wanted to make sure that my gallery isn't full of weirdly coloured photos.

In case you didn't know, I'm colourblind, normally limited to green, but I'm also liable to mix up green and brown sometimes apparently even red, depending on how saturated it is, or how close it is to another colour in the spectrum. This sometimes leads to me being quite insecure with determining what colour object X has, often not because I can't see it, but because I can't really decide what one would call it. So in case you're on my chat list, and I jump at you with "do you think the colours are okay on this one?", don't be surprised.