I have found out that it is hard to get a long train in a picture. I don't have any scenery done yet, but when it is finished, what do others do to get the whole thing in a picture? Some guys run trains as long as 80 cars, I have been told. I am guessing you would need to design a part of your layout, just to take pictures of those long trains. Maybe a 6' wide section, with a removable backdrop? Here are some pictures about what I'm talking about...
Long trains.
- Thread starter SD90
- Start date
Pretty Impressive train SD90.
Im a member of NTrak and long trains are common among our community, however, we tend to run them long in order to see how many cars a particular locomotive will pull or how many locomotives it takes to pull everyone's cars.
We do take some photos of these trains, however, the purpose is to show only the length of the train, as any detail is lost due to the distance of the camera from the train.
Most big layout owners (in my experiance anyways) don't run extremely long trains and those that do, don't have the space to be able to show the entire train in the open unless they are modeling the great plains,
As an example, Featured in the July-August issue of N Scale Railroading is an article on Brian Morgan's Selkirk Division.
Having had the honor of operating on his layout,I have run train #57 which is a unit grain train and, depending on the session, can run anywhere from 50 to 90 cars in length.
Even though Brian has a large layout, there is no way that the entire train can be seen at once as the tunnels, rock cuts and other scenery tend to block it out.
I have done a lot of railfanning over the years here in Western Canada and I have never been able to get an entire large train in one shot and,If you are modeling a mountain scene as I suspect, it will cost you a lot of valuable real estate in order to model a scene which will allow you to get an entire long train in one shot.
Please don't get me wrong, as I am not criticizing your ideas, but I do feel that your long trains will look Grand snaking their way through the tunnels, rock cuts, over the bridges and through the scenery of your layout and that they will photograph very well even if you can't see the entire train at once.
Have a great one and Happy modeling!
Cheers!
Terry
Im a member of NTrak and long trains are common among our community, however, we tend to run them long in order to see how many cars a particular locomotive will pull or how many locomotives it takes to pull everyone's cars. We do take some photos of these trains, however, the purpose is to show only the length of the train, as any detail is lost due to the distance of the camera from the train.
Most big layout owners (in my experiance anyways) don't run extremely long trains and those that do, don't have the space to be able to show the entire train in the open unless they are modeling the great plains,
As an example, Featured in the July-August issue of N Scale Railroading is an article on Brian Morgan's Selkirk Division.
Having had the honor of operating on his layout,I have run train #57 which is a unit grain train and, depending on the session, can run anywhere from 50 to 90 cars in length.
Even though Brian has a large layout, there is no way that the entire train can be seen at once as the tunnels, rock cuts and other scenery tend to block it out.
I have done a lot of railfanning over the years here in Western Canada and I have never been able to get an entire large train in one shot and,If you are modeling a mountain scene as I suspect, it will cost you a lot of valuable real estate in order to model a scene which will allow you to get an entire long train in one shot.
Please don't get me wrong, as I am not criticizing your ideas, but I do feel that your long trains will look Grand snaking their way through the tunnels, rock cuts, over the bridges and through the scenery of your layout and that they will photograph very well even if you can't see the entire train at once.
Have a great one and Happy modeling!
Cheers!
Terry
You can't photo a real train of that length so why do you want to photo your model that way? A photo of that type would certainly kill the realism factor. 
I guess you are right K.V.Div and Tyson, I looked at some of my pictures of trains in the mountains, and I can't see all of the train in them either. Thanks for your thoughts! On with the scenery!
Terry, it must have been an experience to operate on Brian Morgan's layout! Tell us more about that please!
SD90 - your tapeworm of a freight train surely looks great. And it must be even greater to see something like that on the move!
This brings me to an idea: While you probably can't photograph such a long train on a scenicked layout - did you try to take a movie of it? With today's handycams this should be quite easy. I think it would be boring to look only at such long trains, but imagine the following scene: The camera is fixed on one point of the layout, say a tunnel portal. And then...
Out of the bore bursts a lashup of a few engines and then the freight cars are coming, and keep coming 
, and keep coming 
, and keep coming 
... (like in real life )
For ONE scene it could be quite impressive to show one single, seemingly endless train. Has anybody tried anything like that?
Ron
This brings me to an idea: While you probably can't photograph such a long train on a scenicked layout - did you try to take a movie of it? With today's handycams this should be quite easy. I think it would be boring to look only at such long trains, but imagine the following scene: The camera is fixed on one point of the layout, say a tunnel portal. And then...
Out of the bore bursts a lashup of a few engines and then the freight cars are coming
, and keep coming , and keep coming , and keep coming ... (like in real life )For ONE scene it could be quite impressive to show one single, seemingly endless train. Has anybody tried anything like that?
Ron
SD90,
I've had the opportunity to run 31 tank cars, with C&NW SD50,SD60, and SD40-2, on the San Diego Model Railroad Club's layout in the Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego.
I've also been privileged to run 30 cars with two articulated steam locos, one in front, and the other as helper, on Gary Pfiel's home layout.
Couldn't get a picture of the whole train in either case.
The modular layout I'm part of, has a yard that will hold twenty feet (35-40 cars) of train. Too big for one picture
Pete
I've had the opportunity to run 31 tank cars, with C&NW SD50,SD60, and SD40-2, on the San Diego Model Railroad Club's layout in the Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego.
I've also been privileged to run 30 cars with two articulated steam locos, one in front, and the other as helper, on Gary Pfiel's home layout.
Couldn't get a picture of the whole train in either case.
The modular layout I'm part of, has a yard that will hold twenty feet (35-40 cars) of train. Too big for one picture
Pete
Impressive indeed! Those will be really neat pictures to look back at once all the scenery is in.
SD90:
I think you'll have to knock out your basement wall and dig over to your neighbour's to get the distance. And model Cascade mountain there as well.
Have you tried a 24mm lens?
I think you'll have to knock out your basement wall and dig over to your neighbour's to get the distance. And model Cascade mountain there as well.
Have you tried a 24mm lens?
60103, I am using a digital camera, fuji finepix 2800, so I can't change lenses, I will play around with the idea of a video......
that might be cool, video is always more interesting than still! If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would a video be worth?!
that might be cool, video is always more interesting than still! If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would a video be worth?!
This is just personal opinion, but one of my frustrations with video is that the only thing that moves is the train. You look at pictures in Model Railroader, Craftsman, etc. and you see details. You will see people, animals, cars on the street, etc. In a still picture, it looks like the action has been frozen in time for a millisecond. In a video, it looks like everything except the train is frozen. When you are operating, you concentrate on your trains, and don't notice the lack of life on everything else; but if you view it on video the lack of life is obvious.
That is very true. Some of the pictures I have seen in the magazines look like real life. There was one that had a tug boat going down a river, and you could see the wake from it in the water! I guess if that was a video, it wouldn't look so real.
sd90 i have pulled 200 90 and 100 ton hopper cars behind 3 sd90's. the train workes out to be about 2 scale miles. i have never tryed to get a pic of all of it. but i will try
200 cars?! You must have a 70 foot straight section on your layout to do that! The most I have got an SD90 to pull is 50 cars all with microtrains trucks on them. And that was on a straight part of the layout. Please post pictures of that, now I'm going to have to do more experiments!
sd90 the layout that i run it on is 12 by 26 or so. it would be hard to get a pic of a 200 car train cuz there is only about 10 feet from the loco to the last car LOL. the only way this works is with nothing but MT. anything else and the train will just pull the couplers rigth out of there mounts
That still must be alot of stress on MT's! How old are your SD90's? I notice they pull better once they have been run for a while, but mine won't pull 66 cars each. 45 is the most I have been able to get them to pull on straight level track. Again, all with MT's. Do you have extra wieght in them?