May 24, 200817 yr Kentucky State Capitol, Frankfort, Kentucky. Nikon D70, f/8, 1/2s, 20mm lens (35mm on the D70) (IIRC). Nikon D70, f/8, 1/60s, 20mm lens (35mm on the D70).
May 24, 200817 yr Florida Guy, amazing sky and gorgeous reflection! My contribution to gearheads and machinery geeks everywhere:
May 24, 200817 yr Speaking of, RJ Corman ran their first steam engine from Frankfort to Lexington today. I had the opportunity to see it while on my bike-ride-of-death.
May 24, 200817 yr Thanks Rob. My neighbors were all out on their balconies with cameras and video recorders as the sky was just amazing! http://photobucket.com/mvd_urbanohio
May 24, 200817 yr I didn't even know R.J. Corman was considering a steam locomotive; he's known as a very good, all-business, service-oriented short-line operator, and that breed often regards steam as an unnecessarily expensive diversion. Maybe he's seeing some PR value in it.
May 25, 200817 yr ^ Rob, Louisville to Lexington, carrying freight!! :) 'Old Smokey' train draws crowds By Jim Warren, Herald-Leader, May 24, 2008 If you noticed a strangely familiar huffing and puffing, and a long mournful wail in the air around Lexington Saturday afternoon, it was no dream. That really was a steam locomotive, making a small piece of history. The R.J. Corman Railroad Co.’s steam locomotive, “Old Smokey,” made its inaugural run Saturday, hauling 119 tons of construction sand from Louisville to Lexington, and delivering it to the company’s rail yard at the end of Buchanan Street near Rupp Arena. No one knows for sure, but the best guess is that it was the first time since about 1960 that a steam-powered train has hauled commercial freight between Louisville and Lexington. History or not, it was enough to bring out rail fans from all over. They gathered in droves at virtually every crossing and overpass along the route to snap pictures and shoot video of the train and hear the lonesome moan of its steam whistle. At brief stops in St. Matthews, Baghdad, Frankfort and Midway, crowds of people young and old pressed close enough to smell the coal smoke and feel the heat from the boiler. Somehow, even in the 21st century, people are still fascinated by the look, the sound and the smell of a steam train. “This was an adventure,” said engineer Matt Schwerin, sweaty and coal blackened at the end of the trip. Old Smokey was built in China in 1986, but based on a 1920s American design. Rick Corman, who owns R.J. Corman Railroad Group, bought Old Smokey last year from Pittsburgh’s Railroad Development Corp., which once owned three of the Chinese engines. Corman, who plans to operate the engine a few times each year to celebrate Kentucky railroad history, soon hit on the idea of using it to actually haul freight on its inaugural run. Since the Corman company regularly delivers sand from Louisville’s Nugent Sand Co. to commercial customers in Lexington, it was simple to substitute Old Smokey for a diesel locomotive on one of the trips. After word of the steam run was announced last week, rail fans turned out in force. Many already had gathered at 6:30 Saturday morning at the Nugent company yards off River Road in Louisville to watch the train pull out. Among them was Ed Christensen, 86, of Louisville, who grew up beside the Union Pacific main line in Nebraska. “I’ve always loved steam engines ... the City of Portland, the City of Denver, all those beautiful old trains,” said Christensen, who flew Navy Corsairs in World War II. “And I still love that lonesome sound.” Louisville’s Steve Ferry brought his son Nathan, 9, and Nolan, 5, to see the train, as well as neighborhood kids Leyton Wilburn, 5, and Hannah Costen, 10. Ferry and his wife got engaged on a train. “I told the kids that if they were willing to get up really early, we’d go see a steam engine,” Ferry said. “I think it’s important for them to see a little history, and you never want to waste any opportunity to see a stream train.” Old Smokey rolled out of Nugent Sand at 7:30 a.m., belching black smoke against the Louisville skyline, pulling six gondola cars full of sand and a traditional little red caboose with a few invited passengers. People lined Louisville’s Frankfort Avenue, which parallels the railroad tracks, whooping and waving as the train rumbled past. Youngsters marveled at something most probably had never seen before, while older folks waved and clapped and grinned at a vision out of their own childhoods. Heading out of Louisville onto open track, Schwerin cracked open the throttle and Old Smokey soon was hitting more than 40 miles an hour. Drivers in cars traveling the road alongside the tracks slowed down to keep pace with the train. Some parked at crossings to shoot pictures of the passing train, then dashed ahead looking for new vantage points. At every stop on the route, people wanted to get their pictures taken with the “conductor” — actually Nick Kallas, general manager of the Illinois Railway Museum, who went along on the run wearing a traditional train conductor’s outfit. “Steam locomotives are like magnets that draw people,” Kallas said. “They’re like pieces of history come to life, and people always respond to that.” Paige Prewitt of Lexington is one. When Old Smokey chugged into town just after 2 p.m., she was there to meet it, along with her grandson, Owen Shaffer, 4, of Nashville. “My father absolutely loved trains,” she said. “When I was growing up, anything we did, every vacation we took, involved trains in some way. My father is buried not far from here, and I know he’s hearing this and loving it.”
May 25, 200817 yr That's pretty exciting news. A steam locomotive is a wonderful machine that appeals to the primal in some of us, and it has to be experienced up close to be appreciated. Most of the tourist trains don't give the whole experience because they're running small engines with two or three cars at 5mph over rickety track. On the other hand, a big engine at 40mph with a trainload of sand is the real deal; you get the sharp, almost concussive exhaust and the rumble and vibration in the ground as the train passes. Add the mingled smells of coal smoke, steam and hot oil, and the experience pretty well saturates the senses. Steam locomotives were standard stuff when I was a little kid, and even into my teens some were still in use on branch lines and in switching industrial yards. The olfactory memory is still vivid, and any time I encounter those smells now, it all comes back. One doesn't encounter working steam locomotives very often any more, but the steam traction engines at the antique farm machinery shows do it for me, too. One of those Chinese locomotives operates on the Boone & Scenic Valley RR in Iowa, and there's one on another tourist road in Alberta, in the Calgary area, I think. The Chinese continued to build them until fairly recent years, and if I remember correctly, some of the ones that came to the U.S. were rebuilt in the Chinese railroad shops before being shipped and at least one may have been built new to order for an American buyer. For a long time, steam was best suited to some of China's demanding service in mountainous areas, and the Chinese accomplished the conversion to diesel with some of the most powerful diesel locomotives built until that time. Edit: R.J. Corman moves 350,000 tons of sand annually on that line, for asphalt and concrete road construction. All that sand formerly went on trucks on I-75. There's an excellent article on R.J. Corman's railroad enterprise in the June 2007 issue of Trains Magazine.
May 28, 200817 yr A curious trio from the past week... A booth at Findlay Market: A truly terrible piece of advertising from McDonald's: A dramatic springtime sunset:
May 28, 200817 yr I still don't understand why people need to have a fried chicken sandwich for breakfast???
May 29, 200817 yr I still don't understand why people need to have a fried chicken sandwich for breakfast??? Me, neither. I'd much rather have pigs' knuckles & sauerkraut with dumplings.
May 31, 200817 yr Cleveland's lakeside west exurbs from above: Westlake; I-90 & Columbia Rd, Crocker Park, Bay Village and points beyond: Avon Lake:
June 4, 200817 yr Critiques going on inside DAAP on "hell week" (the final week of the quarter). Looking up from the DAAP Cafe in the Aronoff Center:
June 5, 200817 yr Ugh, DAAP. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 5, 200817 yr Ooooohhh! Purty! Gorgeous shot, lovely blooms. Summer is making its much-delayed appearance.
June 6, 200817 yr Thanks :-) Yeah I did take that. I have the original photo in my Picture Rocks, PA thread, but I started to fool around with it in Aperture.
June 6, 200817 yr Thanks a lot. I really appreciate that. :-) Here was the original: http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f119/carzonmind/UrbanOhio/Picture%20Rocks%20PA/picturerocks5copyright.jpg
June 6, 200817 yr Thanks for the compliment! I love how that locomotive makes the guy look so tiny. That is gorgeous.
June 6, 200817 yr Thanks for the compliment! I love how that locomotive makes the guy look so tiny. That is gorgeous. The guy is tiny. He's only about four feet tall. JK :-D He's a good six-footer. I think the locomotive stands about fifteen feet from the rail to the top of the smokestack. Even though it worked out of Fort Wayne and New Haven, Indiana back in the day, and is still based outside New haven at the shops of the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, it has strong Ohio connections. 765 was built in Lima in 1944 for the Nickel Plate (New York Chicago & St. Louis) Railroad, founded by the Van Sweringens who also developed Shaker Heights and built the Shaker Rapid and Terminal Tower. The Van Sweringens, Oris and Mantis, are buried in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery.
June 6, 200817 yr I think it would be awesome to see locomotives like that run short freight lines. Like in Williamsport, we have the Lycoming Valley Rail Road which isn't very long (40 miles tops) and they use an OLD diesel. I would LOVE for them to get an old steam locomotive though.
June 7, 200817 yr I'm all for steam returning to the rails to haul passengers and freight! Dinner is served! ... Neat photo! I never cared that much for venison, so the deer are safe to browse so far as I'm concerned. Steam is beautiful to see, hear and smell, dramatic and sometimes spectacular, but it's labor-intensive and logistically complex. Running a steam locomotive is damn hard work compared with a diesel. On a day-in, day-out basis you're going to have a hard job finding a fireman who will wield a shovel in a sweltering cab on a summer day for anything a short line can afford to pay, and stoker-fired locomotives usually are big and way out of a short line's league. Coal and water present tough logistics problems compared with calling the local fuel supplier to come to your siding every now and then with a tanker. Replacement parts usually have to be custom made by a machine shop that can handle really heavy work. Railroading is a dangerous occupation, and when you add steam you multiply the hazards. If a neglected boiler fails, it fails catastrophically and instantaneously, and you won't get any eyewitness accounts because everyone within sight will be dead. That's why state- and federally-mandated inspection and maintenance requirements are so rigorous. You won't find much steam in operation except on tourist roads that have an abundance of seriously-committed volunteers, or on commercial tourist venues like Strasburg and Cass and Mount Washington that can sell a lot of tickets for a lot of money to keep things going. To find working steam, go to Kalmbach Publishing and order the current edition of their Tourist Trains Guidebook ($18.95). It lists most rail museums, both static displays and operating steam and diesel tourist operations. Spend some time at some, and if there's one near you, you might want to consider volunteering for a summer. You may start out sweeping cars, cutting weeds and picking up litter, but you'll get close enough to the real deal to see if you want to get more involved.
June 8, 200817 yr I may have posted this someplace before, but I stumbled across it while rescanning a bunch of old negatives to update my web site. The photo is from 1990, but it evokes '70s iconic gay imagery; Marlboro Man with a rope sizing up muscular Greek god with a truck.
June 9, 200817 yr These Allium were in full bloom this evening, They were in a small park at the intersection North Fort Thomas and Sterling Avenues in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
June 16, 200816 yr ^lovely photo, DJ Orion! I've been hankering for some Central PA scenery lately... but with these gas prices I don't know when I'm ever gonna get back there! Here's mixed-use "green" Three PNC Plaza u/c in Downtown Pittsburgh
June 16, 200816 yr These Allium were in full bloom this evening, They were in a small park at the intersection North Fort Thomas and Sterling Avenues in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. these flowers are AMAZING!
June 19, 200816 yr These Allium were in full bloom this evening, They were in a small park at the intersection North Fort Thomas and Sterling Avenues in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. The first time I saw those was in a flower bed in a downtown park, on my lunch break a few years ago. I fell in love with them, but it took a while to find out what they were; apparently they're not planted often around here. The closer you look at the tiny flowerets, the more there is to see. This was taken from one of my favorite roads around Williamsport. That's splendid country. I remember driving across Pennsylvania years ago, following the Susquehanna River in spring when the orchards were in bloom. My offering for the day. Take heed.
June 19, 200816 yr Vine St. in OTR. It's an interesting 5-point intersection which is why you get those angles. When I gave directions for someone to pick me up from downtown Cinci (he's from Columbus) I told him McMillan and he accidentally turned left on McMicken. He had a fun little detour being from Upper Arlington :shoot:
June 20, 200816 yr Hi, I'm pleased that the photo of the allium was well received. I just saw those flowers as we were driving past and decided to stop and take a picture. I'm really not a nature photographer (you can tell by my icon what my photo preference is) but I purchased a Nikon D-40 last month and I've been playing around with it quite a lot as I become use to the new machine (40 years of taking pictures and this is my first autofocus camera - and I need it). Lots of storms rolled through Cincinnati and the Midwest on June 5, 2008. This is a view looking south on Clifton Avenue from Ludlow Avenue. I just like the way the colors stood out on the Marathon Station and Good Samaritan Hospital. Take care, Steve
June 21, 200816 yr Lots of storms rolled through Cincinnati and the Midwest on June 5, 2008. This is a view looking south on Clifton Avenue from Ludlow Avenue. I just like the way the colors stood out on the Marathon Station and Good Samaritan Hospital. Fantastic - wonderful implied sunset shot - very beautiful, and a great eye!
June 28, 200816 yr Florida Guy, I like the embossing effect. Was that done with Photoshop filters? Back in the wet-darkroom days I saw it done by double-exposing a print slightly off-register and then solarizing it during development. It gave interesting effects and guaranteed unique prints, because you couldn't control or predict the exact outcome of each attempt. The unseasonably cold spring has given way to steamy-hot summer. Here's a cool-down shot: That shot is from a trainload of railroad-related slides and negatives that I just scanned and uploaded to my web site. That's a topic of limited interest on these forums, so rather than post all that work here, I'll just give a link for anyone who wants to see them. Once you're there, just click on the Indiana Northeastern Railroad thumbnail.
June 28, 200816 yr ^^Awesome photo!! :clap: I just looked at your album of the paving of Washington Boulevard. Do they think that paving the street will reduce the number of accidents? :lol:
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