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Southern Pacific:


Sacramento Division


The time from the late-1950s


until the mid-1990s were years of transition and decline of the SP’s influence in the west;


however, the photographs and extended captions presented


here emphasize the railroad in its former, healthy condition. With 223 photographs by


45 photographers, Southern Pacific: Sacramento Division presents a thorough look at


SP’s mainline and branchline operations from Dunsmuir to


Fresno, and from Sacramento to Ogden. The presentation illustrates the dramatic geographic and geologic


conditions through which the Southern Pacific’s various Sacramento Division lines were built, from pastoral


farming land, to deserts, to rugged mountains.


$79.95


S/H per book: $5 US, $9 Canada, all others, call or email for rates. Order item SPSD


877-787-2467 TOLL-FREE 816-285-6560 NON-US


WhiteRiverProductions.com 56 AUGUST 2015 • RAILFAN.COM


Seattle’s Monorail glides as gently as a cloud towards its terminus at the Space Needle on January 30, 2014, in Seattle, Wash. The Experience Music Project, seen here surrounding the monorail track, was built around the line in 2000. Monorails are well within the realm of acceptable content on Railfan Atlas. NICK BENSON PHOTO


the field. The GPS feature, which zooms the map into your current location, is particularly helpful when stumbling across some track in an unfamiliar area, assuming you have a good signal for your data connection. While the site has a solid foundation of


work already, there’s plenty of room to grow, and there are plenty of locations that are under-represented. In short, if you’re not uploading to Flickr, geotagging, and adding your images to a railfan group or two, now’s a great time to start. Some people have expressed concern with flooding the map with their work, but those fears are unfounded; in a perfect world, the database would contain every train related photo on Flickr. If you’re already geotagging your train


photos and adding them to a rail-centric group or two, it’s likely that you’re already contributing to Railfan Atlas — thank you! If you’re not keeping up with your metadata, you should! Not only will you make it faster for you to review and find your old photos, it will also make it much easier for other photographers, railfans, modelers, and anyone else on the internet to discover and enjoy your work. What’s the point of spending time and effort getting out to capture the image if nobody else can find it? The first step is to share your photos on


Flickr. Signing up for a Flickr account is free, and it’s a great way to network and meet other photographers. If you’re interested in getting your photos


added to the map, including them in the “Railfan Atlas” group on Flickr will get them ingested into the database and showing up on the map within an hour or two; images added to any of the other groups that are monitored may take up to a week to appear on the map, but, they will get there eventually. Geotagging, or assigning a geographic


latitude and longitude to a photo, is fairly straightforward. A GPS module attached to your camera itself can do it automatically as you take pictures. Or, you can add it yourself with post-processing software like Lightroom or by using Flickr’s map interface. Finally, in order to get your work on the Railfan Atlas map, you’ll have to add the image to a railfan group on Flickr — up-to-date instructions for doing this, which are subject to frequent change whenever Flickr updates its interface, can be found by clicking on the question mark icon in Railfan Atlas. Which sorts of photos are appropriate for inclusion in Railfan Atlas? If it’s not a toy train, and it’s a vehicle that moves on at least one rail, it’s fair game. Freight trains seem to be the most popular subject globally, however trolleys, cable cars, funiculars, light rail, monorails, commuter, and passenger operations all fall under the potential interests of a “railfan,” at least as far as I’m concerned. In summary, Railfan Atlas is a tool you


should take advantage of next time you’re planning a trip or needing to invest some quality time in front of your computer, smartphone, or tablet. While coverage of many areas is good, further contributions from you would be much appreciated by myself and the rest of the railfan community.


Nick Benson lives with his wife and three children in suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. When the duties of fatherhood and self-employment permit, he occasionally gets trackside.


All experienced photographers are welcomed as guest columnists for CAMERA BAG. To get started, please contact editor Steve Barry at editor@railfan.com.


DO YOU HAVE A RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY QUESTION? Send your questions and comments to camerabag@railfan.com.


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