Photo of the Week 166 & 167 – Irish Rail Class 22000

I was bold again last weekend so this is yet another double post to get caught up again. The theme for this post is the new(ish) Irish Rail Class 22000 InterCity trainsets. These modern looking diesel multiple units have now replaced more traditional locomotive-hauled trains on the majority of Ireland’s InterCity routes. As well as being quite fast (rated to 100 miles an hour in Ireland), they also have plugs at every table, and are both quiet and comfortable. A nice modern addition to the Irish Rail fleet, at least from a passenger point of view. The die-hard train spotters all hate them for not being locomotives of course, but change always comes hard to fanatics. Personally, I love to travel on them and I think they look good and are very photogenic, so put me down as a fan

This first shot was taken on a beautiful summer evening and shows No.22043 rounding a corner at about 80mph as it approaches Maynooth with an InterCity service from Sligo to Dublin. The unit was quite new when this shot was taken, but already one of the covers for its couplers was missing.

on Flickr – Full-Size

Camera: Nikon D40

Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm

Exposure: 1/640 sec

Focal Length: 165mm

Focal Ratio: f/5.3

ISO: 400

Camera Mode: Full Manual

Processing: tonemapped lightly with Topaz Adjust, then tweaked a little using the built-in Dodge & Burn plugin in Aperture 2

The second shot is a more recent one, taken on a lovely spring evening this February, and shows the same trainset, this time approaching Pike Bridge with an InterCity service from Dublin to Sligo.

on Flickr – Full-Size

Camera: Nikon D40

Lens: Sigma EX 30mm f/1.4 DC HSM

Exposure: 1/200 sec

Focal Length: 30mm

Focal Ratio: f/3.5

ISO: 200

Camera Mode: Full Manual

Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, tweaking the result with the Topaz Adjust 4 plugin, and finally making a few small adjustments in Aperture 3