A couple of weeks ago, BNSF ran a train of Vestas Wind Turbine parts up the Seattle sub from Vancouver WA to somewhere in Canada. A second train with the tower’s followed this past Saturday.
Here’s a shot of the first train in Steilacoom WA.
…That certainly is a nice shot of the wind turbine parts train…And glad to see the product is moving by rail.
About 3 mi. from me a large {Itialian}, Co. {Brivini}, is setting up shop in one of our Industrial Parks to manufacture gearboxes {48,000 lbs.}, for wind turbine units. A new rail spur will be built into it as soon as an agreement can be forged with land owners trying to make big bucks from it…Need roughly 1 to 2 mi. of spur off the NS.
Certainly a comprehensive illustration of the many different aspects of these loads, and . . .
What really jumped out at me was the juxtaposition of the foreshortened cars and loads in the left foreground, with the full-length versions across the upper background. I realize that many of the loads at the front of the train are the gearboxes/ nacelles, and hence are not as long as the turbine blades in the background anyway - but it looks like at least some are. This might be a good spot to try the same kind of photo, but with a different consist - say, a train of uniform cars such as the hoppers of a grain or coal unit train, or the well cars of a double-stack, etc. - and it might be even more interesting with a train of consistently longer cars, such as a multi-level/ autorack, TOFC flats, center-beams, etc. to emphasize the apparent length differential from the forced perspective. Or maybe just a general freight train with a mix of car types and lengths would make the point just as well.
Thanks again for sharing, Steve.
- Paul North.
Glad the photo was appreciated.
Paul:
The location and angle is somewhat of a challenge. My best shots from that spot are night images. The best you can do is get the train side lit with the area in the background typically in shadows. No nose light possible unless there is a dramatic change in the rotation of the earth. I took this one, mainly because I expected a potential client wouldn’t care about the nose of the train being unlit, which RP.net usually does care about. The client didn’t want the shot and RP accepted it. Go figure!