captxmas Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

These are nothing like the quality so many of you railroad aficionados share but I thought you might like a few pics from the Sunol Railroad. It operates two weekends a month and more often (I think in the Summer). the rails extend from Sunol to Niles, CA, and stop in Niles for riders to partake in the Railroad Museum in Railroad Park. The old Niles Station has been converted into a museum and two model railroad groups share their displays on the first and third Saturdays every month. Historically, Niles was the original Hollywood where the likes of Charlie Chaplain made films. The town (now part of the City of Fremont) is very quaint with numerous antique stores and small restaurants and bars. The railroad has several operating engines. A steam model, and 1950's style diesel, and the more modern example seen below. One never knows which engine or set of cars will be operating. They have an extensive yard filled with rolling stock. If only the ride was longer.

Hope this is enjoyed. I am a complete novice to railroads short of emergency response.... These are a few pics from one of my bike rides.

Thorny Devil Loc: Alice Springs, Central Australia

Nothing wrong with the quality of your photos captxmas. Good use of grey scale too. Regards,
Richard.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

JustJill Loc: Iowa

I enjoyed your series!

badapple Loc: Twin Lake, Michigan

Very enjoyable.

profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Thanks for sharing these photos. I like them. If you are a novice, I must be a low middle buff or a... oh, who cares. You have some nice shots.

As to quality, you have done well. There might be a tille noise in these, but I noticed that they are not posted onto the forum's storage. So, you or the UHG software reduced all of them to 1200 pixels wide which may have added noise. Since you took these with a long-distance lens (a zoom lens maybe), you may have had to use a high ISO which will introduce noise.

I don't know what software you use for post-processing. I tend to use the most basic software in which actions can be added together to make the more sophisticated actions of commercial software. My free choice is IrfanView. So, I downloaded one of you reduced-size photos and did some "BLUR" followed by some "SHARPEN". The blur action reduces the contrast between neighboring pixels, so they are similar in values, and the sharpen action makes the remaining steps in values larger and more continuous so they stand out better. Those are not real technical definitions, but they essentially describe what happens with these two actions.

Below is my experiment with one of the images.

Again, thanks for sharing this with us. How long is a ride on this railroad? --Richard

De-noised with "blur" and "sharpen"

captxmas Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Thanks for the education. I also now know what happens when I "store original". I have never done that and will now begin to.

Again, I appreciate your comments.

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

I agree with the young lady from Iowa!
Enjoyed viewing the series!!
Pat