The first RPSI Santa Special of the day steaming towards Pike's Bridge on it's way from Dublin Pearse to Maynooth on the morning of the 12th of December 2009.
The train is pulled by steam locomotive No. 4 which is owned, maintained, and operated by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland (RPSI).
I find the Santa face stuck to the front of the loco rather annoying, but I'm sure the kids love it, and lets face it, the Santa Specials are all about the kids, as indeed they should be!
This is my second take on this image. You can see the first version here.
Tags: collage train rail railway steam train RPSI Santa Special No.4 Maynooth Kildare Ireland 2-6-4T
The first Santa Special of the day approaches Pike's Bridge on it's way from Dublin Pearse to Maynooth. As you can see from the puff of steam over the cab, the driver gave me a whistle!
Tags: train rail railway steam train RPSI Maynooth Kildare Ireland Santa Special No.4 2-6-4T
Here we see RPSI steam locomotive No.4 on the return leg of the first Santa Special of the day as it rounds the corner near Intel. Unfortunately, because there is no turntable in Maynooth, No.4 has to do the return leg bunker first. Although locos like No.4 were designed to run in both directions, and have windows for the driver on both sides of the cab, I still think it looks a lot less pretty this way around!
Tags: train rail railway steam train RPSI No.4 Santa Special Leixlip Kildare Ireland 2-6-4T
RPSI's steam locomotive No.4 steaming into Maynooth with a Santa Special in December 2009. The water in the foreground is the Royal Canal.
Unfortunately, even shooting RAW, I blew out some of the detail in the steam.
This shot was generated by tonemappign a single RAW image in Photomatix Pro and then tweaking the resulting image using Aperture's Doge & Burn plugin.
Tags: train rail railway steam train RPSI No.4 Santa Special canal Royal Canal reflection tonemapped HDR TTHDR Photomatix Maynooth Kildare Ireland Historical Engineering Works HEW 2-6-4T
Here we see RPSI 2-6-4T steam locomotive No.4 coasting towards Maynooth with a Santa Special on a December afternoon. As you can see by where the steam stopped, at this point the driver had closed the regulator and the train is now just running on her momentum for the final few hundred yards into Maynooth station. The water in the foreground is the Royal Canal.
This shot was generated by tonemappign a single RAW image in Photomatix Pro and then tweaking the resulting image using Aperture's Doge & Burn plugin. This is a panoramic crop rather than a stitched pano.
Tags: train rail railway steam train RPSI No.4 canal Royal Canal reflection Santa Special HDR TTHDR tonemapped Photomatix Maynooth Kildare Ireland 2-6-4T