Last train of the day at Rawtenstall. I must have misread the timetable as I didn’t think Tornado was timetabled for this train, but I nipped over anyway to experiment with some low light shots, and was pleasantly surprised to see Tornado hauling the train in.

It wasn’t as dark as I’d expected or hoped which turned out to be no bad things as the lights on the platform and from the surroundings weren’t as bright as I’d expected or hoped either. Also, despite being dusk, the clouds meant there wasn’t one of those deep blue skys that I’m so fond of.  From an equipent prspective, I left my tripod at home and used a stabilised lens and high ISO to give myself more flexibility.

With this one, I wanted to get the line of lights on the platform and some of the reflections in the puddles. I’d like to have got a bit more of the cab on, but a gaggle of people were camped out talking to the driver, so I had to cut my losses and compose with what was available to me. There’s two things missing from this photo – 1) steam  – I only noticed when I got home and was looking at the picture on the computerand 2) people on the platform. Yes I know I’ve just said there was a gang of people talking to the driver, but I could have done with them shifting 30 feet further down the platform. Never mind eh?

And here is the aforementioned gang of people, or some of them anyway. They weren’t for moving hence the composition in the top photo. 

Finally, one of the train leaving. The lighting conditions made exposure tricky, but I still managed to freeeze the moving train. Not sure whether it would have looked better blurred, but the steam in the sky gives the game away that it’s moving.

All these images have had quite a lot of post processing done on them, lightening the bits that were too dark, and darkening the bits that were too light. I’ve also upped the saturation as well to give them a lift as they looked somewhat flat. Overall, not a bad result, but the lack of ambient light made this a bit of a struggle.