Tehachapi Railfanning

Watch in HD! Two weeks ago, I made the trip up to Tehachapi hoping to catch some good trains in equally good light. Unfortunately, the clouds I found at the East end of the pass never cleared up, and I spend most of the day fighting clouds while catching great train traffic. This past weekend, I went up again to Tehachapi to try at it again, and succeeded beyond my expectations for sure! Lots of train traffic is seen in all areas of the pass, from Edison to Mojave trains are seen climbing and descending the tortuous grades of Tehachapi. Many trains are seen on the pass, including lots of foreign power, Santa Fe DASH 8-40CW's, DASH 9-44CW's, and SD75M's, brand-new ES44c4's, BNSF SD70ACe's, CREX ES44AC's, NS 8099, the Southern Railway Heritage Unit, and much more!
||Equipment List||
|||Photography|||
Canon 7D Mark II - www.bhphotovid...
Canon 5D Mark III - www.bhphotovid...
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM - www.bhphotovid...
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM - www.bhphotovid...
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM - www.bhphotovid...
Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 Tripod - www.bhphotovid...
I use hexagonal plates for my tripod mounts, though your usage may vary with those
|||Video|||
Canon XHA-1S - www.bhphotovid...
Bogen 3040 Video Tripod - No link, but it's relatively easy to find on eBay for about $150
|||Misc|||
ATCS Monitor - groups.io/g/AT...
Uniden Bearcat BC245XLT - wiki.radiorefe...
Final Cut Pro X - www.apple.com/...

[@ghosttrainsnorcalproductions]

Beautiful footage! I am in awe!! Ive gotta railfan out there in 2024!!

[@charliebrooks2570]

Nicely shot video!

[@robwestdyke5520]

Thanks for taking the time to capture modern railroads in action for everyone's pleasure - good photography and great HD.

[@patrickschadowski1937]

Simply Awesome! Great to see a another NS Heritage Unit enter the Tehachapi Mountains.

[@willberestartingthischanne9984]

Awesome Video

[@ebtmikado]

Incredible! Now I have to go back again.

[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

Bhjheu

[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

Dbfjfh Fh56 Fh F

[@hopethehermit]

Love the sound of those SD70s...

[@koenkoen8556]

great movie, great quality! compliments from Belgium - Europe

[@charlesb3208]

great work as usual. thx for sharing

[@orgcoast]

A great new perspective (at least for me) of the Loop. Great idea and excellent camera work.

[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

Ghbgvh

[@RailTime1786]

what a sight. 10/10

[@AlfonsoVazquez2024]

Nice

[@crail4ever]

Great Catches Zach. Love that scenery out there, this area is definitely on my list of must go places to go railfanning.

[@gregwhiley4438]

I am . . . speechless . . . gobsmacked. . . overawed. I've subscribed. I'm coming back

[@griffinlipman]

Great lighting! Nice job!

[@davidsduncan3427]

ZACH, JUST TO SEE WOODFORD SIDING AND KEENE, THEN CLIMB THE HILL WAS NEAT TRIP FROM LAS VEGAS!!!

[@f15chase]

Excellent, as always.☺

[@berndkeiser9981]

Was tolle Aufnahmen

[@Bruno.Trains]

very nice vidéo and trains

[@robrock8568]

Your Footage & Camera work are amazing!! I just find the trains of Tehachapi absolutely Boring for the past twenty years!!! These wide Cabs... two or 3 Engines on a short train, almost stalling... No mid train helpers..... Locomotives are now quiet.. way too quiet... I say this because I use to railfan this line and the loop back in the 1980's when it was SP & SF! Man, It was amazing back then! The Sound! The Look! I use to see 10 sometimes 15 locomotives on a train... mid train helpers, rear end pushers... The trains were colorful and long! None of this stack train shit! The sound of 10 or 14 SD40s, SD40T's and SD45's, GP40's.. GP38's.. GP35's..GP30's... Man The Sound of these units roaring on throttle 8 was Incedible!!! Fascinating!! Thrilling! Amazing! The Best! ... It was such a great time! Now I went to the loop 3 times since UP & BNSF took over and I was like What!? Where Am I? Yawn! ..... I could not believe how different it became!! short trains, too many stack trains... quiet Wide Cabs... It is just nothing like it use to be.... It is sad! I wish young people today could have seen how amazing this rail line was back in the 1970's and 1980's.... It was the best line in the world ... now, its just another line.... I am sure many out there would agree with me... Its almost like seeing the death of railroading..... I wish it were still the 1980's! What a time for trains, all over! NO locomotives will ever be as good as the second generation diesels that once ruled the rails across america in the 1970's and 1980's! LONG LIVE THE SD40!

[@RailfanJunction]

Thanks Rob- couldn't agree with you more. Tehachapi is just like any other area now. It has especially gone down since all of the pole lines have been removed and the SP signals have been replaced. It is particularly disappointing that so much of it is now off limits. There are so many areas we would like to get back into but it is all now closed off. If only we all had time machines...

[@robrock8568]

Yea its the same back here in the East with places like Sand Patch Grade! In the Days of The Chessie System it was an amazing place to Railfan... CSX has basically chocked the line with fewer trains and they don't run mid train helpers like Chessie use to... You may see one unit pushing on the rear now .. so its not the same at all anymore..

[@interstateruler]

Hey you got some good trains videos but I do wish that you get it in one instead of multiple shots. Anyway great show

[@nxtyrjrslm]

Wow! Better vid than everybody's!!

[@danielhiggins4331]

WONDERFUL STUFF ... THE GOLDEN SUN ON THE HILLS AND PLANTS ... AND THE EMPURPLING SHADOWS ... TRULY REMARKABLE COMPOSITIONS ... THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!! NOW, NOT BEING SNARKY HERE, JUST WONDERING ... ISN'T ALL TRAFFIC HERE ... TECHNICALLY ... EAST OR WESTBOUND?

[@RailfanJunction]

UP actually classifies trains going to LA as southbounds and those going toward Oakland as Northbounds.

[@TheNomadicRailfan]

This is amazing. Subbed.

[@user-kz4ye6lm9v]

🌐🌏🌎🌍🌐

[@CGT867]

Nice work Zachary! I still don't know how you can upload such a long HD vid to KZbin.

[@4seeableTV]

Must be uploading for a week! = ]

[@lawrenceogden8682]

great video

[@hebertbarajasbetancio785]

lawrence ogden j

[@hebertbarajasbetancio785]

J

[@airthreypark]

Wow!! This amazing and great quality too. I am visiting in Sept 15. Any tips??

[@ceciledeguire2265]

Gr8 gr8

[@catmodels]

Wow , nice video! What type of camera is used to get this quality?

[@MySonyVegas]

Superb photographing, beautiful scenery, great composing. Just and advice: Shoot progressive! The interlacing artifacts is reducing otherwise almost perfect shots. If you really have to shoot interlaced, for some reason, whatever it might be, at least find a proper way to deinterlace the footage in your video NLE. But better turn off interlacing completely, ad keep the mode switch in progressive mode, forever :) And - pity you cut off the particular scene at 23:30, I wanted to watch the end of the train! Keep up the good work!

[@RailfanJunction]

Thanks-at 23:30 I was hiking down the hill from where I had shot the initial shot of that train to get another Northbound (There was one stopped right behind him in the siding at Cliff) so I didn't have time to hang around if I wanted to get a different shot of a train there. From experience, the XHA-1 I have shoots trains best in 60i (which is interlaced) as opposed to 30f (progressive), so I generally keep it on 60i.

[@MySonyVegas]

RailfanJunction Interlaced is good ONLY if you watch it directly on TV or submit your footage directly to a TV station. All other ways of publishing, your scenes eventually will become progressive. As on KZbin. So with such a fine Camera, as you Canon, I would definitely shoot 30F. Your video is super duper fantastic, but the jagged edges you get everywhere due to the interlacing artifacts, are degrading the overall look and quality. If you still insist on shooting 60i, apply a workflow which includes proper deinterlacing. I say this as a friendly advice. Because I like your scenes so much, they stand out, as simple as that. I have a professional camera myself, and also shot a lot in interlaced, which I now regret. Interlaced is good for sport events, with fast action, if the target audience is old CRT TVs. Nowadays people have flatscreens, so deinterlacing is taking place in the TV set, which normally does it well. But on the Internet, the artifacts are too much degrading, to my liking. Ok, that's my opinion :) I NEVER shoot deinterlaced, and I hope the option will be removed completely in new cameras.

[@rociovalencia99]

MySonyVegas rd '😣😐😇☺☺☺☺☺😊😊zzzxcvb

[@finaldraft151]

+MySonyVegas - 24fps with shutter at 1/48th - ??

[@ryeistoasted8577]

Tehachapi has a lot of spirals, switchbacks, and other things, doesn't it?

[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

B

[@MySonyVegas]

At 1:48:00 you cut the scene. I would rather have fewer scenes and watch the entire train pass, completely, having the empty rails fill the view at the end of the scene. This scene is particularly beautiful, Steven Spielberg quality. Pity is is cropped, removing the dramatic and magic effect it would have been, if the whole train could pass. This applies to many (most) of your scenes. All in my humble opinion of course. Normally I would never had bothered, but your photographing is unique, just missing the final epic touch, by letting the entire train pass..

[@hebertbarajasbetancio785]

MySonyVegas i

[@4seeableTV]

Everybody has their preferences. What if he cut out the middle of the train and just showed the front and back. Would that be a good compromise?

[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

Dhfjf

[@olafmichelson8017]

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[@user-xe2sk3zm2x]

Ffvcfffcc💜

[@user-kz4ye6lm9v]

🌐🌏🌎🌍🌐