I left later than I wanted but got to Hopewell a little after Noon and figured I had made it but it would probably be close. I parked in front of the station and ran to the tracks to do a quick signal check. CLEAR. "What! What timing!" I thought as I went back to grab my camera. As I got the 'ledge' where the shot of the station and tracks are I realized what I hadn't been thinking about all morning......WEEDS!!! I started stomping down the closest/tallest weeds and then snapped off a few of those annoying 'tree' weeds (I forget the name but they're the easy ones to break) as horns could be heard for the Route 518 crossing a mile down. I ran back to my spot and was disappointed to see that my efforts were of little use. Within a minute, the nose of an EMD (but not an F40PH-2) popped out from behind the trees and a sense of relief came over me. "Good, I still have time to clean this place up."
Once Q190 was out of sight, I went back to the truck and got out my work gloves and put my boots on. I set the camera up on the tripod just in case something snuck up me which isn't likely but the construction on the other side of the tracks was making me nervous. *I HATE not being able to hear horns or rumbling since Hopewell is on the grade out of the river valley.* But anyway, I continued clearing the tall weeds off the ledge which had apparently been burned at some point making them very easy to snap at the base. THANK YOU WHOEVER DID THAT! As I worked my way towards the station, I noticed someone had also bent the tallest weeds on the hill down towards the tracks. I spent a few minutes stomping them down more running back to the camera to see what I still needed to get. Just a few more small trees and stray weeds...signal check first...another clear. I hurried to snap the tallest trees down and went back to the camera. Something must have changed in the signaling system on the Trenton Line because it was usually a really short wait when the signal would turn on to when it would show up but today it was literally a 10+ minute wait. After standing around pointlessly, horns...but this time it was a GE leader not an EMD. Q418.
I checked the Trenton Line Yahoo! group and TrainOrders to see if there had been any sightings yet. "13:05 at Vine St. in Philly," which was about an hour ago. I'm not too familiar with how long it takes trains to get from place to place on the Trenton Line so I figured it would be there 14:15-14:30. By now, the annoying drizzle that had been falling since I pulled into the lot began picking up. Getting antsy I took care of some more really little, unimportant brush and trees that will pose the same problems next spring. Clear signal!...finally. 14:15, I was close. I get back to the camera and wait...and wait...and wait...14:25...14:30... I hear the construction guys talking and hear one say to the other "Yeah, there's gonna be a passenger train coming through with a bunch of CSX guys on it in the next 15 minutes..." GREATTT 15 more minutes of standing in the rain, worrying about screwing up the shot. 14:45...14:50...14:55...finally at 14:58...horns. Check my focus. Check my exposure. Turn off live view. Deep breath as the nose of CSXT 9999 comes out of the tree tunnel...*click* (or more like *click, click, click, click...*)
Below is a shot of Q190 (the before of the weeds) and P929 (the after).
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