That is actually a tourist trap, isn't it? Well engineered and choreographed - I hear they closed down and restructed the whiole thing so as to make it even more attractive (and safer, too, I guess for the tourists who come from all over the world to see that. Definitely on the trainophile's bucket list.
Trains and people - there is something about 'taking the train' that appeals to everyone - though not necessarily the subway or even the smaller DMUs that shuttle between urban stops. I'm talking about the bigger passenger locos - a couple of 1500 HP engines - a consist that runs the entire platform - First Class Sleepers and 2nd and 3rd Class, too, with a Buffet and Observation car. Every trip is an adventure.
Because trains link major cities and have to run through rural areas as well as really dangerous-looking passes and bridges that even sometimes cross the sea, it can be quite an experience.
Trains are also a source of income for poorer folk who live through the business that come by way of passengers - and quite often in coastal areas where trains run regular short stops people squat on land close to the station and villages and communities populate and survive this way - adding to the flow of exchange.
Impossibru! Did the Yardmaster know? This was obviously a lark - that engineer could have kissed those buffers if he wanted. I lived by a siding once and used to watch the field crews for hours thinking '
MG! These guys are grown up and they still get to play with trains - real trains, too. Shucks.'
All I had was my Canon AE-1 and a telephoto lens.
Quite calm. And now I know for sure that penguins live at a completely different speed.
What's the story on all the horn-blowing? Never experienced that IRL.
No lack of locos on that consist - the idea being I guess that even if half of them go down the other half will get them out of trouble. I have been parked while a CN freight train passes and actually have stopped my engine and got out of the car. These consists are unbelievably long.
Great fun watching one of these when it threads through a spiral tunnel.
And, Oh! man - to be the engineer. . ..
*sigh
Nice shoot, Johnny.
@Swagger897 - how goes it with the MSTS? You're perking my interest, too.