West Virginia

Spring Roadtrip Along Franklin Pike, West Virginia /  by Todd Henson

A winding road through West Virginia in early spring

My father suggested a roadtrip into West Virginia the first weekend of April, which led us through some beautiful mountains and valleys. Heading south from Petersburg along Franklin Pike we saw many scenes like the one here, absolutely beautiful country roads weaving through the valley in early spring. It was a wonderful drive with only a very brief moment when it almost began to drizzle.

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A Visit to the Office /  by Todd Henson

A Visit to the Office

I found this scene at the Martinsburg Roundhouse in West Virginia, an historic railroad site.

I attempted to process the photo to have the look it might have been created in the era of the subject, which is the mid to late 1800s. Granted, it does appear as if some work was done more recently than the 1800s, but I still wanted the processing to fit the original era.

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Bunker Hill Train Club Open House - 12/14/2024 /  by Todd Henson

This view shows how their layout wraps around the upstairs space.

My father and I stopped by the Bunker Hill Train Club Open House held on December 14, 2024 in their club house in Bunker Hill, West Virginia. During these open houses they invite the public to stop by and check out what they do and to view their model railroad layout on the second floor.

It’s quite a layout and reminded me of spending time with my father at the model railroad clubs he was a member of when I was much younger. I always loved the details they built into the layouts, and you’ll find similar details in the Bunker Hill Train Club’s layouts. I loved how theirs weaved back and forth along the second floor. And as is always the case, model railroad layouts are forever a work in progress. Even when they appear finished there’s a good chance they will continue to go through updates and renovations. It was fun seeing all the different stages, from completely bare sections they were getting ready to work on to sections that appeared very complete.

On a technical note, photographically, I decided to use my walk-about lens, a 16-80mm f/2.8-4 lens. I chose that one because I had no idea what to expect going into this, so I wanted a range of focal lengths. Even though the layout appeared plenty bright from a human perspective, these indoor events are inevitably dark from a camera perspective, so I had the ISO pushed up to between 1600 to 2000 (thankfully Lightroom now has some very good noise reduction). I used fairly wide apertures of f/4 and f/5 both to allow some shallower depth of field for more artistic views of the scenes but also to keep the shutter speed high enough to handhold the camera. I didn’t bring my tripod because I guessed there would be limited space and plenty of other people moving around, and I don’t have a flash and wouldn’t have brought one anyway to avoid annoying or blinding people. All this resulted in shutter speeds between 1/30 to 1/125 of a second. It might have been fun if I could use a tripod to slow the shutter speed down to show some motion in the trains or to try panning with a train to create motion blur in the background.

I hope you enjoy these views of a working model railroad layout created by an active model railroad club. I really enjoyed seeing their layout and getting the opportunity to photograph it.

You might recognize the name Bunker Hill Train Club as they are the ones I mentioned when we visited their train show held at the Martinsburg Roundhouse in 2023, where I also photographed some trains passing by the active train station. Check out those previous posts for more railroad-related photography.

Click here to learn more about the Bunker Hill Train Club. Consider stopping by one of their open houses (and if you do consider leaving a small donation to help keep the hobby and activities alive). And if you happen to live near there and are interested in trains and model railroading then consider becoming a member of their club.

Thanks much to the people of the Bunker Hill Train Club for opening their doors and allowing us a view inside.

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