I have had a few visits to Cars and Coffee over the last few months. Plenty of cool vehicles to check out and justify getting up early on a Sunday morning. This time I figure I will just share a bunch of pictures of what has been there. Of course, these are but a small fraction of the total number of cars appearing but they caught my eye.
I stopped off at Coyote Point in the Bay for a short while. It hasn’t been so long since I was last there so the new addition I saw must have occurred pretty recently. It appears that someone has had a little incident with their sailing boat. I don’t know whether they had a problem making it into the channel to the marina or whether the boat broke loose from a mooring somewhere else in the bay. Whatever the origin, it is now lying on the rocks just outside the marina. I didn’t get closer to see how bad the damage is but I am guessing that it is not in great shape!
One of the fun things about going to Cars and Coffee at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville is the variety of vehicles on show. You get things from one extreme to another. One of the first vehicles I saw after parking was a Lamborghini Aventador. This is a serious piece of supercar technology. There was also a McLaren to take a look at. Compare this with an old Datsun or a selection of old VWs and you are poles apart. However, they are all loved by their respective owners.
My enthusiasm for the Honda/Acura NSX was satisfied by three of them lined up together over in one corner. A very nice thing to find on one side of a big event. This proved to be a popular edition of Cars and Coffee. Over 800 cars were noted by the organizers. I got there a little early and it was already getting very full. Supposedly some people were there from 5:30am. That is enthusiasm for you.
When railways were first being developed, the companies that built them were very competitive in creating terminal stations that would impress. Sadly, over the years many of them were knocked down and redeveloped. Thankfully, not all of them were destroyed and now the approach is to take the existing infrastructure and use it as the basis for a modern facility.
St Pancras in London is a great example. I used to use it in the late 90s and early part of the 21st century when it was the terminal for Midland Mainline. At that time, it was not a terribly busy station. It had the original hotel fronting the station and the roof structure over the platforms. It had an air of faded glory at that point.
Then the big changes came. Pancras was chosen to be the terminus for the extension of the channel tunnel rail link. A major rebuild was started that involved the new high speed lines coming in, the addition of the international facilities, opening up the lower level of the station, rebuilding the Thameslink station and generally turning the place into something far more impressive. Most of this took place after we had left London so, when we were back, I was interested to see how things had changed. Also, Nancy had never been to Pancras before so I thought she would like the architecture.
The hotel fronting Euston Road is still as it always appeared. It is a fantastic gothic structure and something that is probably worth exploring if you have the chance. Inside, the roof has been beautifully cleaned up. The clocks are also really cool. There are statues around the concourse too including one of the poet John Betjemen who was instrumental in a campaign to save the station.
The lower level redevelopment is very impressive. This area used to be a storage location but now there is retail and dining on a far larger scale which should suit the significant increase in customers with the Eurostar business as well as the new commuter services that make use of the high speed link. Of course, there are also the customers for services on the Midland routes. The changes are impressive and are connected with e overall redevelopment of the Kings Cross area of which more will come.
Rochelle IL is about half way between Chicago and the Mississippi River. For those with an interest in railroading, it is known as a location where the Union Pacific and the BNSF railroads cross. The town has taken this crossing to heart and created a park where the two lines intersect. There is a place to sit under cover and watch the trains come through while there are areas for kids to play. There is even a gift shop that stocks railroad related gifts.
I was in Rochelle for work and my colleagues were interested in seeing where the crossing was located so, during a lunch break, we headed to see it. It was a rather hot day so hanging around in the sun did not seem like a good idea to me. I went straight to the covered area to stay in the shade while they took a look around. Of course, I wasn’t going to go somewhere without taking my camera along.
We weren’t there terribly long but we did have a few trains come through. If I had thought about things, I might have come better prepared and had some hearing protection. The two tracks cross on the flat and then there are grade crossings for the local streets so they sound their horns as they come through. In such close proximity, this is a touch loud!
There have been a lot of plane shots recently and that shouldn’t be too surprising given that this is primarily an aviation photography blog. However, I do mix it up and you probably deserve something different. How about some trains. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this is still related to a plane shoot though. Two locations on a day out were alongside rail lines and we got some traffic while we were there.
One location was near a bridge over a small river. We got a loco running along the line so I got a few shots as it came by. That was the only thing we saw on that line. The tracks on the other side of the airport are a different story. They have a steady stream of traffic. We sometimes were frustrated by a train in line of sight while something cool was departing but other times the trains rumbled through while little was going on.
I figured I should grab some shots of the trains whatever the circumstances. While rail may be the day job for me, I am not much of a train photographer. Those that do this on a regular basis will, no doubt, identify the shortcomings of technique for capturing train images. If they want to let me know what I was doing wrong, feel free. I am always happy to learn. However, I won’t be taking a lot of train shots so the chances for practicing will be limited.
There are plenty of historic railways in the UK but most of them are a tourist attraction and operate at limited speed to allow people to experience something from days gone by. However, there is a slightly more unusual railway on the Kent coast. The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway runs along the Kent coast from Hythe down to Dungeness. It is a narrow gauge railway that, while popular with tourist, does provide a year round service. It is even contracted by the council to take kids to a local school.
The railway has been in operation for decades. In the Second World War they even had an armored train for coastal defense. The service was restored after the war. Most of the locomotives date from before the war and are outstanding scale steam locos. These are a few shots I got of the trains from a crossing in Hythe about ten years ago.
With Dad and Jan visiting, it was a chance to get out and see some of what the area has to offer. Dad likes trains and is also quite partial to wine so what better trip to make than a visit to the Napa Valley Wine Train. For those who are not familiar with it, the service runs from the town of Napa up through the Napa Valley. It pretty much parallels the main road (or you might argue the road parallels the rail line) and passes by many of the vineyards and wineries as it goes.
We took the trip that included the tour of the Grgich hills winery as well. Lunch was served on the train shortly after we departed Napa and we ate as we gently rumbled through the countryside. Since it was a rather damp day, being inside and watching everything outside while eating seemed to be a good plan. When we reached the winery, the train stopped to drop us off. It then continued up to the end of the line where they ran the locos around to pull them back down the route.
Once we had finished our tour of the winery, the train reappeared to pick us up. At this point, we boarded a different car. This one was a lounge car where we were served our desserts. Sitting inside facing seats eating dessert while watching the vineyards roll past was a great way to wrap up the trip. They ran a second trip later in the day with dinner served on board but, since it is dark so early at this time of year, I think our time was a far better one for the trip.
A short distance south of us is a preserved railway, the Niles Canyon Railway. They run services all year along their corridor which runs in the attractive Niles Canyon between Niles and Sunol. During the time around Christmas, they run a train with lights illuminating the vehicles. They have a mix of coaches and open cars all of which have lights and illuminated shapes along the sides. A diesel locomotive at each pulls the train in each direction.
I figured I would pop along to see what it looked like. I got to Niles ahead of the departure which was still before the sun had gone down. I found a location near the station where the train was just up a bank from me. I got some shots as it passed by and then headed up the canyon to be in Sunol when it arrived.
As I drove along the canyon, it was clear that there were a few places where it would be possible to stop and see the train pass. I picked one location and waited for it to come through. This was a far better place to shoot from. I was at pretty high ISO and handheld but the low shutter speed did mean that I had parallax issues causing the distant parts of the train to blur out a lot.
The train is pretty slow – like all preserved railways – so I was still able to get to Sunol ahead of it. I saw it come in and the crew turned it around for the leg back to Niles. By now it was quite dark. I chatted to one of the team after it left on the return leg and he explained that they would run a second journey later in the evening but this time starting at Sunol. Ridership was very good so this is obviously a popular trip for people.
Until this weekend, the connection between BART’s Coliseum Station and Oakland Airport was a bus service called AirBART. It was $3 and was reasonably frequent and didn’t take too long provided you times it well. However, it wasn’t the easiest connection. Consequently, a rail connection has been built. I won’t get into the doubling of price for the ride. That can wait to another day. However, Friday 21st was the day in which the commissioning ended and the first public access was given. There were free rides for the public before formal service opened on the following day.
I went along to check out the system. It is a cable operated vehicle which runs automatically. There is a station connected by escalators to the existing BART station at one end and the other end is in the parking lot at the airport. Halfway along the track (which is elevated for a large portion of the journey and at ground level or underground for a section) is the maintenance facility and power source. Here the train briefly stops as it changes from the cable for one half to the cable for the other. The stop is quite brief.
I filmed the operation during the demonstration runs and you can see how the system looks below. Now we shall see how much use it gets!
