Looking back, here are the top ten rail related things from my past year.
1 – Newly found railfan location to me
I discovered CN Wellington just outside of Central Station in Montreal. This was a great place to photographs from because of the level of activity, diversity of equipment (AMT, VIA, Amtrak) and background choices depending on your angle.
2 – Night Time Rail Photography
I ventured more into night rail photography. My first attempt was actually in late 2014, but I had several other successful images in 2015.
3 – Antwerp Central Station
Due to an unexpected trip to Europe for work, I got to knock off another one of the best railway stations in the world off of my list. The Antwerp station is a great building which encompassed the old and new together quite well together. Unfortunately my photograph doesn’t do this station any justice at all.
4 – Biggest Regret
The QCGR is only a short drive from my place, yet I’ve only had one successful time photographing it.
5 – Favorite VIA Photograph
My favorite VIA photograph from 2015 was the simple shot from Fallowfield station. There were a couple of good contenders such as this winter shot, but for some reason this nice simple shot stood out as my favourite of the year.
6 – DB High Speed Train
This year, I was able to knock off another high-speed train ride off my list. The shot above was on DB from Brussels to Frankfurt. Hat tip to DB for also having good beer at a reasonable price on the train as well.
7 – Favorite CN 589 Photograph
Over the course of the year, I ventured out after 589 following it Arnprior this year. I was able to knock off some of the shots that I’ve been looking to get including the one above and one of downtown Carp as well. In 2016 there are still a few locations and angles that I’ve been scouting out, but haven’t had the right conditions to make it work yet.
8 – Favourite O-Train Photograph
I liked the color in this shot of the O-Train in the blue hour. A close second was another photograph of the O-Train crossing over the Rideau River. With my new 70-200 lens, it has openned up many shots to me in 2015 that weren’t possible on my old lens. For 2016, I think that there are only a few more shots of the O-Train on my bucket list to try and take.
9 – CN589 to Fallowfield
Accidentally catching 589 one Saturday morning was a surprise. I seem to only ever venture out to take shots of 589 going to Arnprior and forget about the weekly service out to Twin Elm. Thankfully I had my camera with me that day and was able to capture it here crossing Woodroofe and at the VIA station.
10 – Diversity
The diversity of what I photograph over this year was much larger than I was expecting. I managed to shoot: {CN, VIA, O-Train (Ottawa), QGRY (Quebec and Gatineau Railway), Amtrak, MTBA (Boston), Metro North (New York), SNCB (Belgium), Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Netherlands), SNCF (France), Thales (France), DB (Germany), Freiburger Verkehrs AG (Freiburg – Germany), Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (Munich – Germany), SBB (Swiss), and OBB (Austrian)}.
Surprisingly, missing from this list is CP. I did spend a couple of hours in Parry Sound hoping to get some CP, but we only had CN.
…Running Extra…
In the past year, I also created an Instagram account. Although, I’ve found that second Instagram account I created of a lego minifig much more fun to take images for at times.