And now for the second half of the day. ; As Gary noted earlier, it was cold and rainy out, but the charter operator had arranged for a pair of period correct trucks to meet us in the yard after lunch, so we did some static shots out there:
After that we headed back out on the line for a couple of final shots. ; First up was a stop at Verdant View Farm where we did the traditional shot over the barnyard. ; With the cloudy skies, that location didn't do much for me since I couldn't crop the sky out without loosing the barn, so I opted to shoot over the calf pen on the other side of the barn:
Since the Great Western #90 originally came from the plains of Colorado, and had been returned to its 1950's look by the charter operator (minus the extended smoke box and the second sand dome which would have been overly difficult to re-create) the operator arranged for a cowboy to attend the "sunset" shoot. ; While we ended up without a sunset, working with the horse was rather interesting since it was a retired race horse and didn't want anything to do with the train at first. ; After a while, the cowboy was able to get the horse to settle down and chase the train:
After the dinner break, we assembled at the engine house to find out what the plan for the night shoot was going to be. ; Since the lights used for the night shoot don't like water at all and it was still misting, the planned shoot out on the line was canceled and we moved inside to shoot scenes in the engine house. ; First the locomotive was parked outside with the crew standing at the door. ; I shot this one from down in the inspection pit while trying not to get any grease on anything:
After getting my shot I got out of the pit and grabbed a shot of the rest of the group in the enginehouse:
Next the locomotive was brought in and parked under the first of the two smoke jacks to allow plenty of room for the photographers to get shots of the locomotive. ; It was later discovered that only the second smoke jack was open since the first one is almost never used. ; This resulted in a nice atmospheric layer of smoke high in the enginehouse:
Once parked some static scenes were set up. ; The first involved a crew member at the work bench:
Next up was a crew member oiling the locomotive:
The final scene of the night was a crew member adding some coal to the heater to ward off the chilly night air while hostler tends to the locomotive:
On my way out, I noticed this lantern sitting on the work bench and stopped to grab a shot of it:
Despite the weather, it was still a good charter. ; Now that I finished editing these shots, I'm looking forward to attending the Cass Railfan Weekend later this month, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.
