East Coast Icebreaking

Winter's gone, we don't have to review it, we all know what it was like, either too cold and snowy or too warm and dry.  Adios winter.

Back in March I had to take a jaunt home to Cape Breton for a few days.  I took along my most aggressive trail shoes, a small smattering of running shirts and a pair of shorts, and the Sony.  I managed to win the weather lottery and snagged what was probably the few decent days they had weatherwise.  Chilly air but bright and sunny and plenty cozy for running.  I was staying just outside the Coxheath area and the sidewalks were less than ideal for running on.  Apparently the plows gave up at some point during the winter and I had to make my way along 5 foot wide strips of ice (homage to my trail shoes for keeping me upright).

If you know Keltic Drive in the Sydney River area, you would be familiar with the railway bridge that crosses it just S/E of the vehicle bridge.  The county decided the sidewalk underneath it would be a convenient place to store snow.  With the new bridge in place and open, and Keltic Drive now very busy, I opted to stay on the west side of the area and not get smooshed by passing traffic (being from the area I'm a bit familiar with driving habits of the locals).

The harbour was as frozen as I've ever seen it in my life.  Enough that people were out walking on it, snowmobiling on it and making ice skating patches on it.  Not sure it was wise to clear snow for a skating patch given the strength of the sun and it's effect on clear ice after a few hours.  It is salt water after all.

Toward the outer harbour I was fortunate enough to catch one of the big ice breakers in action, keeping the laneways open to the coal port and government wharf.  The ship performing duty was the CCGS Henry Larsen, a 'medium' ice breaker.  They classify it as medium but it is no small ship.  It's the second largest in the icebreaking fleet, even larger than the classified heavy icebreaker Terry Fox.

Since I had to keep the zoom up for this, and reliance on handholding the Sony, I opted to allow yootoob to steady the vid for me for a bit more comfort in viewing,  Apologies for the occasional waviness that inherently results in the toob's stablizing algorithm.  It was a challenge for me to see the viewfinder with blazing sunshine over my shoulder.  It was great to keep me feeling warm and toasty, sucked a bit on figuring out what I was framed on.

Turn the volume up at the 1:27 mark.  You'll hear a train horn in the background.  That's the GP38-2s of the Sydney Coal Railway accross the harbour, somewhere on the trackage between the coal pier and the Lingan generating station.

These days the SCR is the only functioning railway on the island.  The long standing line from Sydney to the causeway was closed last year after seeing train service for the last 135 years.  While there I was staying at a house mere meters from the CBCNSR trackage just beyond were it crossed Coxheath Road.  It was eerie to see it unmaintained and snow covered.  Snowmobile tracks abounded along the line, the thick unplowed layer making an excellent pathway for skidooers.  Hard to say what the future may hold but for now there will be no other activity on this line.

I've rode on many a unit along those tracks.  As a kid we took a trip to Toronto, first boarding a big old F unit led CN passenger train out of the long gone Sydney station to Truro, then overnight service to Montreal and finally into hogtown.  VIA eventually came to be and the F unit led trains out of Sydney switched to rail diesel car service.  Smelly things the RDRs could be but I always enjoyed them, particularly while in college and sitting in the back at the bar, it's always fun to sit at a bar on a train.

Passenger service in and out of Sydney on a seasonal basis did revive on occasion with VIA's Bras D'or making a weekly touristy run but that ended in the early 2000s.

Recording under a bridge

Yesterday morning I ran over to the Danforth GO station to catch the morning commuter runs.  On weekdays it's a mix of services, VIA, GO regular service, GO express runs.  The regular services stop at each/most of the stations and the express units sail right on through.

The bridge grants a nice straight view along the westward tracks and you get a head-on type of shot of the oncoming eastbound units.  I usually shoot from Main Street on the bridge over the station but thought I'd shoot at track level for this one.

VIA 50 / 52 is a connected pair of trains that head to Montreal and Ottawa.  They depart together from Toronto and then separate in Belleville.  It makes a few stops along the way but not at this station so it has time to pick up speed before blowing through on it's way toward it's first stop at Guildwood station.

On this morning 50 / 52 was a few minutes late.  Waiting on a bench I caught sight of it's lights far down the track and positioned myself against a post, using it to help steady the camera.  The train was on the center track of three and my view is straight down the middle, it's a quite warm morning and the heat is eminating from the surfaces as it approaches.  Since I'm staying focused on the viewfinder and pointed westward, and it's noisy, I'm unaware of a GO express from Oshawa bearing down from the east on the track immediately to my left.

Trains, being rather large, displace a fair amount of air.  One train moving in open air pushes it out and up and draws some along with it as it goes.  Two trains in opposite directions and both moving quickly gives some additional dynamics to the whole process.  Have it occur under a bridge adds jan extra element.  Thus as I'm anchored to this post, VIA zips by on center track and at the same moment the express GO blows past me from behind.  A brief but violent swirl of air throws the viewfinder of the camera shut, immediately terminating my recording.  I quickly reopen the panel and feverishly hit 'record' until it started up again.  It would have been a good clip had it all been a single shot.  Unfortunately I ended up with two scenes and had to blend them together in editing, making the GO passing seem oddly brief.

Anyway, here's the outcome.  All part of the fun.

Railfanning without a scanner

In radio-free land, catches are luck and observation.  Well, really just luck.  And schedules.  Commuter trains run on schedules you can usually look up.  This works great near the source end but the destination end is considerably less reliable.  Such is true of catching the Canadian as it rolls through the Don Valley on it's four day trip from the west coast.  I've caught it by pure luck as late as 26 hours after it's scheduled arrival time.

I'm not big on long waits at crossings and locations, I give maybe 15-20 minutes if I have time, less if my run is more critical than catching some video.  The Canadian is a frequent target since it's in my running territory and usually the only train rumbling through lower Bala on a Saturday morning.  Since I don't know when it might arrive, I generally stop at a level trail crossing and look for signs that a train may have passed through, usually a clean path along the top of the rails free of the mud and dirt left behind by cyclists and foot traffic.  The line signals help but only one is in a convenient spot, and it's for the south section so won't tell me if the north section is occupied by traffic.

Last Saturday I ran over to the valley and stopped at the bailey bridge crossing near Don Mills Road to check.  The signal south was full green, unusual as it's normally yellow since it's not far before it feeds into the Union Station corridor.  I decided to check the north signal which meant following some trail near the rails that offers a peak at one point.  The signal glowed red, indicating a closed line north.  Southbound train?  Maybe, or maintenance work or something else.  I ran a few hundred metres further to an open viewing point and prepped the camera just in case.

Within a minute came a heavy rumble form the north, and the sound of a ringing bell, definitely the Canadian.  Passenger services through here always ring the warning bell.  The Northlander when it would pass through had a quite loud and distinctive bell that could be heard well before it arrived.  Sure enough, seconds later the Canadian pops into view, and on this morning had a decidedly sprite pace, unusual along this winding and aged section of Bala.  6435 lead, 6446 second, 19 Budds.  The location granted a slightly lowered view and from the bright sunlit side.  With the camera held well overhead to clear the ROW fencing, I grabbed my minute of video, another successful catch VIA's train #2 from Vancouver to Toronto.

After packing up the camera and heading back along the trail I rechecked the north signal...still red.  I'm not sure how long the interval is before it switches status, or maybe there was something up line still holding it closed.  Hard to tell.  Maybe I just got lucky.

Ottawa

A brief trip to Ottawa gave me a small bit of time to scout around the local trackage and see what was happening.  Our hotel was a couple of kliks aways from the main VIA Rail station near Vanier Parkway of Tremblant Road.  I had been down that area last year scoping out viewing locations.  A local trail near the transit road offers good sitelines and for westbound traffic out of the station.

I timed it on Sunday morning to catch train #643 on exit.  I had little time for neither running nor fanning so I had to keep my wait period down to a minimum.  I arrived about 5 minutes before departure and had enough time to pick an angle and focus points.  The trail pathway is however on the northerly side of the tracks which means you don't get a direct sunlit view on departure.  Trains will get full sun once they round the bend and turn southward so the morning sun catches them full side, as seen in the Youtube thumbprint.

For this morning, 643 was lead by F40PH unit #6455.  I believe the parked unit on the right is #6415 but hard to tell in the shot hear, the original 1080 vid reveals the numbers a bit better but I'm still not positive if it's 6415 or not.

The departure is quite slow.  The train doesn't start to throttle up until it rounds the bend so it's a fairly quiet pass.  Next time I'm in the area I'll venture down line a bit, there are some level crossings further south that should offer good views and units at higher power output. 

Winter blahs - in spring

It's starting to brighten up out there.  However, I will have to have a talk with those gophers that predicted an early spring because it's been anything but for the last several weeks.

I managed to turn an ankle while running frozen trail a couple of weeks ago on some ruts and sidelined myself for a week.  I could have run as it doesn't really affect straightline running but I wanted to play it safe, and the less than desireable weather meant I didn't feel too bad about sitting around for a few days.

The trail system is peppered with signs informing users to stay off the trails in muddy conditions as this damages the slopes and really messes up the surface.  I've been running them all winter and conditions have been good but it looks like plenty of people ignored the signs when the temps crawled over freezing and the trail was heavily rutted from walkers and a small handful of cyclists.  After it froze over, which is when I ran it, it's like cobblestones turned on their edge and I managed to misjudge on a downhill, rolled my ankle and hobbled home.  The swelling a couple of days later let me know it needed some rest.

Nonetheless, back at it this weekend and inspected the trails on Sunday.  They seemed fine until I got to some messy muddy sections near Bayview Avenue and had to run off-trail.  While high in the section near Bayview I heard a consist trundling it's way southbound on Bala near the trial crossing at the 5 mile mark.  I had my camcorder with me and was a bit out of position for a clear shot which left me finding a reasonable opening through the trees.  Much to my surprise, being a Sunday, it was VIA train #2, the Canadian, running more than a day late after being held up by snowstorms in Saskachewan.

Related news article:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/via-train-moving-again-after-spring-storm-leads-to-major-delay-in-prairies-1.1207173

Quite the catch as there isn't much activity on south Bala outside of the Canadian and the weekday GO commutes.  I used to see a lot more freight action along this line.  For freight action these days I hang out around the level CP crossing at Wicksteed when time allows:

Happy Spring!

Some notes on the new camcorder - Sony HDR-CX250

Having now played around a bit with the new camcorder (Sony CX250B) I thought I'd write some notes on its use and performance in case anyone is considering purchasing one or its current incarnation.  It previously looked like Sony was reducing options in this segment, but I returned to the .ca website today and see the range is similar although the 250 and 260 versions are no longer offered (the 260 versions shows available on the US website).

The CX250 I have is the same as the more common CX260 versions but without internal memory.  Same G lens, imager, processor, interfaces and so on.  While I'm plenty happy enough with it, the G lens has some obvious chromatic aberration which is particularly pronounced at long zooms.  The winter has made this much more apparent with strong contrasts between bright white snow and just about anything dark in the frame.  It becomes even more apparent when you have dark tree branches against a white cloud background.

The low light performance is pretty good and you can get a lot of detail that's hard to see even with dark adapted eyes.  I'm quite surprised at how good it is especially compared to my older SX63 standard def.  With low lux on (sensor backlighting) you can see stars in the sky and subtle shadings albeit with some definite graininess, but the images are quite usable.  I'm hoping to do some night shooting on some busy lines when it warms up outside and compare it to a couple I did with the older 63.

The optical Steadyshot is much better than the electronic version of the 63.  You can zoom in near max and still get a usable image, although you'll never completely eliminate the shake without a tripod.  Normal wider shots appear rock steady.  The optical Steadyshot also avoids the tendency to chase a moving image.  With the 63 I had to kill Steadyshot when close shooting a train.  If I didn't you could see the background and side areas shift as the camera tried to lock onto the foreground object, which in this case was a moving train and it renders the video unwatchable without feeling seasick.  The optical version doesn't do this since it works to reduce physical lens motion.  I've been keeping it in optical mode only.

Colours are much better.  The 63 always seemed washed out while the 250 is much closer to what you see.  It's not up there though with some of the higher end non-pro models.  To be fair, I've had mainly dull grey conditions to shoot in, with brighter sunnier summer weather it might show better.  The interference with the chromatic aberration cuts into some of the colour accuracy as well since it tints darker areas slightly towards the purple side even when it's not otherwise noticeable.

Autofocus works better than the 63.  I think the higher definition has a lot to do with this.  Manual focus, as with a lot of these models, is wretched.  Much better is spot focus by zooming in preshot and getting it sharp at the critical point, then zooming back.  I prefer to disable auto focus when I can to prevent focus motor noise in quiet settings.  Mind you, passing trains aren't known for quietness so it hasn't been an issue.  It also helps to not have the autofocus jump away at an awkward point.

The white balance is basically indoor, outdoor or auto, with auto just switching between the two.  I leave it on auto and so far so good.  Manually selecting means I might blow it when outside as the screen is hard to see and detect in bright outdoor light.  I have one vid I did (Richmond Hill New Year's Eve GO Train) that would have been great except it was outdoors with incandescent white balance on and everything looked purple.

One peculiarity, I have had to stop/start it a couple of times when it indicated a failure to detect media.  Some searching says this can happen if the camera is jostled a bit (shocked) and simply needs resetting.  It hasn't happened in a while now so maybe I'm just being more careful in transit.  I use a soft case when I run with it held in one hand to keep it from being banged about.  I've also noticed the memory card picks up some scoring on the terminals, which I didn't seem to see happen on the 63, perhaps the connectors are a lot tighter in this model.  Nonetheless, I've decided to use the USB dongle to transfer content instead of removing and reinserting the card.

Battery life is better than in the 63 even though it's the same capacity battery.  A virtue of more efficient circuitry.  I think I could get a good hour and a half or more out of a charge and I've only had to recharge once every couple of weeks despite now having 3 batteries on hand.  HDMI connector works great, I could use a longer cable though, this one is a bit short and stiff when connecting up to the TV.

That G lens tho, it's a shame about the chroma issue because it's otherwise quite sharp and zooms well.  The Zeiss lens on the 63 also had chroma issues so it seems a trait to all of the lower end Sony camcorder lenses.  I have no experience with the higher ends or the SLR lenses to compare.  If I keep the zoom to a reasonable level it's pretty decent.  A lot of the higher end cameras keep the zoom range down anyway to more modest 10x or 12x instead of 33x or 55x.  A sort of a paradox that lower end cameras have longer zooms, I guess because that's what sells.  Nice to have if you want it but I need to discipline myself to avoid the long zoom in the interests of quality.

Audio was really good in the 63, with Dolby digital stereo.  Same on this one and it is selectable in two steps of sensitivity.  You get a good rumble on the low end and the stereo has great separation.  It also has a jack if I want to upgrade but I don't see too much of a reason beyond reducing some of the clicking and clacking as I work the controls and maybe get more low-end thump from a better external.

Bottom line, it works pretty well.  I've been recording in 1080 60i (instead of the max 1080 60p) at max quality.  I haven't seen any diff between 60i and 60p and 60i saves a lot of disk space.  I use windows movie maker to reduce the vids down for upload to youtube in 720 30P to preserve bandwidth since we're on Rogers and they cap limits to 80 gigs before adding a hefty per-gig-surcharge, and that's between 4 of us in the house sharing it.

This will do for a while.  I might start pining for a Panasonic 720 or higher down the road.  We'll see how it images in bright summer weather with high overhead sun.  I did some test vids yesterday in bright morning sunshine and they looked quite smashing without noticable chroma, but that was all wide angle.

I think about how it compares to cameras from the past, big clunky things that sat on your shoulder with crappy resolution, tape media and iffy colour.  These cameras are tiny, much less expensive and blows all of those old units away.

My channel is here if you wish to peruse some of the content.  All of the HD entries are shot on the 250 while the SD entries use the 63.

https://www.youtube.com/user/JimboFR1