Train Chasing Video
Amtrak's California Zephyr is running daily again, which means that I don't have to try and figure out whether it's an Amtrak day or not, but instead can just check to see if it's running on time around 7:45 AM (westbound) or 4:45 PM (eastbound). Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook from someone who had left Chicago on May 28 on the westbound Zephyr, train #5, and I quipped that when they were passing through Fernley (about 30 minutes before Reno) to look out the left (south) side of the train and we'd be waving at them. Apparently they had an internet connection, because this morning I saw a reply from them asking if I would take a picture when they passed through and post it. I checked Amtrak's Track Your Train map, and the train was running pretty much on time, so I took my camera out to the tracks, intending to shoot a video of their train passing.
When I took my position, I saw that the signals at West Fernley were lit, as I would expect, but they were both red, which I did not. Soon a headlight appeared coming east. It was a Union Pacific freight train, possibly a "no-fitter" (too long to fit in a siding, so everything else had to get out of its way), holding the main. As luck would have it, it met Amtrak #5 right in front of me (I recorded it), but as the siding is on the north side of the main and I am on the south side, it meant I couldn't get the video of Amtrak or get a good picture of the train.
Amtrak coasted up to the signal. Even after the long freight passed, the signals did not clear. That gave me an idea. I quickly trotted back to the house, grabbed the rest of my camera gear (but not one of the tripods, because I didn't think I'd have enough time), and ran for the minivan. As I drove towards the underpass at the west end of town, I could see why Amtrak wasn't going anywhere: there was another freight train going east behind the first one. I stopped and briefly snapped a few photos of Amtrak from the north side of the tracks, then jumped onto I-80 and put the hammer down to get to Painted Rock Road (six miles west of Fernley), the next grade crossing and easy place to access the tracks. I got their ahead of the train, but only just barely, so all I could do was park, jump out of the van, turn on the camera, and shoot, without being able to frame it the way I would have preferred. However, I did get some footage and photos.
I've been trying to teach myself more about using Adobe Premiere, and this was a good opportunity to do so. I assembled the photos and video into a video about this morning's impromptu train chase, and posted it to YouTube:
I posted it as a reply to the person on Facebook, and I saw later that they saw it and liked it. I'm glad I was able to add something to their trip while also learning more about how to use Premiere. Now that I have a computer that has enough power to actually edit video, it's less of a chore to do this. The more I know, the faster I can pull the video from the big Panasonic camera after each WSFS Business Meeting and convert it to a reasonably-sized video that I can upload later the same day. While we do have the "proxy card" low-resolution video thanks to a donation from Detcon I, it would be better if I could just run the conversion after each day's meeting when we go to lunch, then upload the video after lunch. This is more likely than it has been in past years now that I have a decent laptop and also know that I should set the "target bitrate" down to only 1 mpbs instead of the 8 or 10 to which it was defaulting. Based on past experience, setting the rate too much higher just inflates the size of the file and massively extends how long it takes to upload without resulting in a significantly higher-quality video once YouTube has processed it.
When I took my position, I saw that the signals at West Fernley were lit, as I would expect, but they were both red, which I did not. Soon a headlight appeared coming east. It was a Union Pacific freight train, possibly a "no-fitter" (too long to fit in a siding, so everything else had to get out of its way), holding the main. As luck would have it, it met Amtrak #5 right in front of me (I recorded it), but as the siding is on the north side of the main and I am on the south side, it meant I couldn't get the video of Amtrak or get a good picture of the train.
Amtrak coasted up to the signal. Even after the long freight passed, the signals did not clear. That gave me an idea. I quickly trotted back to the house, grabbed the rest of my camera gear (but not one of the tripods, because I didn't think I'd have enough time), and ran for the minivan. As I drove towards the underpass at the west end of town, I could see why Amtrak wasn't going anywhere: there was another freight train going east behind the first one. I stopped and briefly snapped a few photos of Amtrak from the north side of the tracks, then jumped onto I-80 and put the hammer down to get to Painted Rock Road (six miles west of Fernley), the next grade crossing and easy place to access the tracks. I got their ahead of the train, but only just barely, so all I could do was park, jump out of the van, turn on the camera, and shoot, without being able to frame it the way I would have preferred. However, I did get some footage and photos.
I've been trying to teach myself more about using Adobe Premiere, and this was a good opportunity to do so. I assembled the photos and video into a video about this morning's impromptu train chase, and posted it to YouTube:
I posted it as a reply to the person on Facebook, and I saw later that they saw it and liked it. I'm glad I was able to add something to their trip while also learning more about how to use Premiere. Now that I have a computer that has enough power to actually edit video, it's less of a chore to do this. The more I know, the faster I can pull the video from the big Panasonic camera after each WSFS Business Meeting and convert it to a reasonably-sized video that I can upload later the same day. While we do have the "proxy card" low-resolution video thanks to a donation from Detcon I, it would be better if I could just run the conversion after each day's meeting when we go to lunch, then upload the video after lunch. This is more likely than it has been in past years now that I have a decent laptop and also know that I should set the "target bitrate" down to only 1 mpbs instead of the 8 or 10 to which it was defaulting. Based on past experience, setting the rate too much higher just inflates the size of the file and massively extends how long it takes to upload without resulting in a significantly higher-quality video once YouTube has processed it.