I went down to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania on Sunday to try some new things. I knew they were undergoing construction on a new geothermal heating and cooling system and that there would be a few things that would be cordoned off but when I got there I found that most of the locomotives and artificts had been either cordoned off, had a tarp over them or had signage or construction things within the frame or were things I had already shot a million times. The air conditioning was also disabled which meant it was close to 100 degrees heat inde especially at the back of the building. So I decided to go in close and try shooting some of the teture to be found on some of the old boxcars like this open top car.

For more information on visiting the museum, visit their web site at www.rrmuseumpa.org.

Nikon D7000 with a Sigma 10-20mm lens, manual focus, aperture priority mode, exposure bracketing for three brackets @ F8, ISO 100. HDR and tone map post-processing completed with Nik HDR Efex Pro.

The conductor (standing) and the Engineer for Locomotive 90 have a pre-departure conversation at the Strasburg Railroad. The roles and responsibilities for each employee on the railroad are explained onthis helpful page.

For information on Strasburg Railroad and their different events and programs, click here.

Shot as a single exposure back on 11-27-2010. When I shot this I immediately thought of a Norman Rockwell cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Feelings I have at the time I shoot something often dictate the post processing. In this case I used NIK HDR Efex Pro to take that single image and create a tone mapped HDR from it to give it some artistic effect and then applied and blended the “Act 1″ texture fromShadow House Creations “Aged Canvas” texture set to give it a little tone and aging then erased some of the texture layer in varying degrees of opacity and flow until I got my desired look.

New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Locomotive # 759 sitting in one of the maintenance bays within the roundhouse at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA. This locomotive was build by the Lima Locomotive Works in 1944, carrying builders number 8667. It was a 2-8-4 drive train configuration producing a tractive effort of 64,100. It is a NKP Class S-2 One of a large fleet of fast freight Berkshire locomotives built by Lima. These fast, modem locomotives were among the last steam locomotives to compete successfully with diesels. Sold to Nelson Blount in 1962, later to be leased to the High Iron Company from 1968 to 1972 for special fan trips and excursions. It’s last excursion was from Boston, MA to Montpelier,VT over the Boston and Maine and the Central Vermont railroads in October, 1973.

During the winter of 1973, #759 was stored outside without being drained. Various pipes, connections and fittings that contained water froze and broke. Some of the damage was repaired but in 1977 a flue burst rendering the locomotive inoperable. Today the engine sits in the roundhouse at Steamtown awaiting restoration while being protected from further damage by the elements. From my trip to Steamtown National Historic Site back on 4-25-2009.

5 bracketed RAW frames @ .7 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1. Conversion to Infrared B&W done with a filter from the Tiffen DFX V2 filter pack.

This is a front view of Conrail locomotive No. 2233 a GP-30 class locomotive built by EMD in April of 1963. Gifted by Julia Sanders to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in March of 1998. Serviceable. Restored June of 2002 by Norfolk Southern to 1976 Conrail appearance. There is a video available on YouTube that shows the inside of the cab of this locomotive. The cab is available for touring during certain times of the day and climbing up there really gives you the Engineer’s vantage point.

For more information on visiting the museum, visit their web site at www.rrmuseumpa.org.

7 bracketed RAW frames @ .7 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1.

This steam locomotive is a “Berkshire” Class S, 2-8-4 built by the American Locomotive Company in Lima Ohio in 1944. It was the first locomotive donated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

These locomotives had 69″ diameter drivers, 25″ x 34″ cylinders, a 245 psi boiler pressure, they exerted 64,135 pounds of tractive effort and each weighed between 261,100 to 266,030 pounds. Locomotive 757 used by the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad which was dubbed the “Nickel Plate Road” in a newspaper article in 1882. That name would stick with the railroad for many years. Of the original eighty Class S 2-8-4′s that were built, only six survive. They are: number 755 at the Conneaut Railroad Historical Museum in Conneaut, OH, number 757 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA, number 759 at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, number 763 at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA, number 765 at the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society on Edgerton Rd in New Haven, IN and number 779 at Lincoln Park in Lima, OH.

For more information on the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, visit their web site atwww.rrmuseumpa.org.

9 bracketed RAW frames @ 1 stop increments. HDR and tone map post processing via NIK HDR Efex Pro version 1.1. From my 11-07-2010 trip to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

Locomotive 89 pulls into the station at the Strasburg Railroad. This locomotive was built in 1910 by the Canadian Locomotive Company and saw service on the Canadian National Railway as locomotive #s 89 and 911 and on the Grand Trunk Railway as # 1009. before Strasburg Railroad took bought it from the Steamtown Foundation in 1972. Enroute to Strasburg that June, it was caught in Penn Central’s Buttonwood, Pennsylvania, yard when the Susquehanna River flooded over the locomotive’s stack, delaying its debut at Strasburg. It has a 2-6-0 wheel arrangement.

For information on Strasburg Railroad and their different events and programs, click here.

Shot as a single exposure back on 11-27-2010. I blended several layers from the various commercially available texture packs offered by Distressed Textures to give it a slight painterly quality.

This is the sign in front of the control tower at the Strasburg Railroad. The wind was whipping around pretty good on the day I shot this so I’m pretty happy with the final result especially when you consider it was seven hand held bracketed shots. NIK’s HDR Efex Pro did a pretty good job of aligning the images during the creation of the HDR image.

For information on Strasburg Railroad and their different events and programs, click here.

Several times each year the Strasburg Railroad puts on a “Day out with Thomas” where they bring out a special locomotive outfitted with specially painted skins that give it the persona of “Thomas The Tank Engine” from the books, TV and movies franchise. The character of Thomas first appeared in a book containing a series of four short stories published in 1946 called “Thomas the Tank Engine”. HiT Entertainment, who owns the copyright and licensing rights to the Thomas The Tank Engine franchise licenses the “Day out with Thomas” program to various heritage and tourist excursion railways like Strasburg. These special visits by “Thomas” are always very popular with the kids and parents alike.

The passenger car you see with the plastic sheeting on the windows is setup so that they can place a heater in there for passengers on cold days, thus converting one of Strasburg’s open air passenger cars into a all-seasons car for heavy ridership days like when Thomas is in town.

For information on Strasburg Railroad’s “Day out with Thomas” programs, click here.

This diesel locomotive was built in 1951 and was used primarily in the role of a “yard switcher”. Yard switchers were used by railroads in the large freight yards to pull together the various freight cars into a train with the classification of cars according to commodity or destination and for changing the position of cars for purposes of loading, unloading, or weighing and for the placing of locomotives and cars for repair or storage. This particular locomotive was donated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in 1992 by the U.S. Navy Ordinance Department located in Earle, New Jersey.

For more information on the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, visit their web site atwww.rrmuseumpa.org.

I shot this as nine bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments and then processed them into a tone mapped HDR with the HDR Efex Pro plugin from Nik Software.

This particular electric locomotive has an interesting history. Pennsylvania Railroad 4800 aka “Old Rivets” is the prototype GG1 electric locomotive. This particular locomotive took part in the trial against PRR R1 number 4800. The 4800 pictured above was at the time known as 4899 and was pitted in a race against another locomotive which was, at the time, labeled 4800 (later renumbered to 4999). The race was from Philadelphia to New York City. The winner was 4899 (now 4800) and the GG1 was selected as the Pennsylvania Railroad ultimate passenger locomotive.

This launched the construction of the GG1s from 4801 to 4939. For years the 4800 ran with its sisters in intercity passenger service until the 1960s when they were used in freight train service as well. When Conrail assumed freight and commuter operations 4800 was painted for the bicentennial of the United States. GG1 #4800 is the only GG1 on the roster of Conrail’s G’s to receive the blue with the white wheel on white rail logo. In 1980 when Conrail abandoned electric rail operations the 4800 and her sisters were retired. Today 4800 sits on static display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. There is a very detailed six page PDF available that details the history of the 4800 along with photos of it through the years available here.

For more information on the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, visit their web site atwww.rrmuseumpa.org.

I shot this as nine bracketed RAW frames at 1 stop increments and then processed them into a tone mapped HDR with the HDR Efex Pro plugin from Nik Software.