HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wish you success in life while navigating through 2016! May 2016 be a good year for us all.
Please enjoy the attached photo! Finally............the winters first snowstorm arrived in my neck of the woods December 29th and 30th. On cue, the NECR ran northbound 323 with New Englands only Tunnel Motor, NECR 3317 leading the night with the most snowfall advertised! Wanting to take advantage of the opportunity, but remembering the Vermont Highway Departments policy of not maintaining roads overnight during winter storms, the nearby gazebo in Waterbury suddenly became attractive again! What better place to shoot a passing train in a snowstorm than a gazebo? Plus it is only some twenty miles away from home, most of it Interstate driving. Once I reached the Interstate it was an entertaining drive over to Waterbury in the middle of the night. I found very little competition for space on the Interstate and was able to maintain a forty mph speed. In little more than thirty minutes I was off I89 and driving through the downtown to pull in beside the gazebo.
Temps are in the low twenties as I set up the lighting with maybe three inches on the ground. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters security came by but kept on going after they saw me! In the heavy snowfall, maybe an inch an hour, I placed a zip lock bag over the flash units. If you don’t, the flash heads get snow covered, reducing the light output! Any snow buildup can be easily shaken off the plastic bags if needed. Meanwhile, some ten miles away southeast of me, 323 & 324 were meeting in Montpelier Jct. 323 with 3317 was in the passing siding, waiting for 324 to switch out a salt storage shed and leave town before they could come out and head towards me. This sequence takes quite a while and it seems like I have been set up and ready for an hour or more before 324 has departed and 323 is headed my way. I alternate positions between kneeling on the gazebo floor looking at angles and composition/test shots, (the preferred activity) and sitting in the car five feet away drinkin’ tea.
The drivers side window is left cracked open two or three inches to facilitate listening to the scanner, and predictably, snow builds up on the inside and armrest of the door but it’s worth it. Once I hear 323 has departed Montpelier Jct., I give ‘em a few minutes then find my spot on the gazebo floor again to kneel on and wait. Around me the streets are busy with pickups and small tractors clearing snow, thankfully none are equipped with those roof mount rotating yellow beacons which set off the flash units when their light hits them. So far, no one has ventured into the parking lot next to me to begin plowing either! The snow flying in the air dampens my hearing, and I don’t pickup the sounds of EMD exhaust as 323 comes down Slip Hill, but I hear the engineer laying on the air horn for a little used grade crossing! Maybe 1/8 of a mile away headlights round the curve, silhouetting the swirling snow. I fire off the lighting, and down the tangent track comes 3317 at thirty to forty mph.
3317s cab rolls by, it’s in the gazebo window and just as quickly gone! The flash lighting and the GRs leaf shutter capture the dramatic image amid favorite conditions for me! The difficulty presented in getting on location at night in a snowstorm are more than compensated for with images you have a chance to capture. By the time I have come back down from cloud nine and packed everything up the snow has changed to freezing rain! Nasty stuff if you are driving on bare pavement, but............the plows are not out at night here so it falls on packed snow! That’s a horse of a different color and the slow drive home is uneventful. Shot in Waterbury, Vermont on December 29, 2015 at 04:25. Special thanks to Ed Ferguson! Please enjoy! Comments are welcomed.
All The Best In 2016;
Gary Knapp
