On a c-h-i-l-l-y Spring evening in May 2003, about 6:15 pm , after dragging the camera bag and tripod from the car, I set up my camera catch a quick picture of a CSX freight train chugging through Taylorsville Preserve MetroPark in Vandalia and Huber Heights, Ohio.  CSX keeps this stretch of tracks in top notch condition as you can see from this pile of brand new ties, buckets of spikes and a new, but left out in the weather sledge hammer handle, all remaining from last summer's track maintenance season.

...And by a "quick picture" I mean in terms of shutter speed!  The flashing "ditch lights" on the front of the locomotives, if they are flashing alternately as I've noticed on some engines, will "fool" the camera's electronic eye so it can't focus.

You'll notice I learned that when shooting train pictures to put your camera in the "motion" or "sport shutter mode" so you can catch good train pictures like this one without blurriness while framing them with the surrounding environment.

It was a true mixed consist of boxcars carrying who knows what cargo, gondolas with scrap metal and new coils of steel...

..and hopper cars of grain and plastic pellets as well as tank cars holding petroleum products, corn syrups and chemicals.

The train smoothly came by in less than a minute, probably cruising along at 25 to 35 miles per hour, on their way northbound on fully signaled track....

...passing under the famous National Road (U.S. 40), and turning the track signal for the next block red behind it.

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I hope you liked the pictures.  All these pictures were taken from a safe distance away using a telephone lens or even regular lens.  After processing by my pals at Kodak onto a CD, the photos were further cropped and zoomed to what you see above. Remember--always, always, always--practice safe railfanning--a long lens, good film processing and photo cropping gets you as good a picture from a distance as getting one taken too close up to the trains!