BTW - I like your shot of the steam engine rounding the bend. Care to share any details?
-jlc
Thanks! I think in that image it's actually backing up. The NPS runs a facility in Scranton, PA where they house, restore and run steam engines called "Steamtown." It's rather unique and they do tours of the shop where they strip the big locomotives down to the staybolts and repair them (scheduled maintenance needed by NTSB to run them) and restore some other engines though budget cuts have halted some of that. They do short trips pretty-much every week- maybe every day in the summer.
They used to do a ~100 mile round trip to the Delaware Water Gap twice a year. This was a significant undertaking, as they had to pay for access to I think three live rail lines to complete the trip. We had a car derail on the return to the station, so they didn't do it last year, but it looks like it's scheduled for this year. It fills up fast, so I'm probably going to see if there are any tickets left this week. There are also some mid-length excursions on the schedule. If you're a rail fan, or if you have kids in the right age bracket, I can't stress enough how cool the trip is. It's seriously a trip back in time. The smell of the smoke, the sound of the engine- the sway of the cars- it's an amazing experience, and I'd have easily paid 5x the cost and still thought I was getting a complete bargain. 98 miles, or whatever it is is quite a long way, quite a lot of time on the engine, and I'd probably start to wonder if it was 10x the current cost- but I'd probably still recommend it as a one-time thing. Steaming through the fall colors rocked. I hope to get on another trip to get some high-res shots with the D3x- worst-case though, I'll do what half of NEPA was doing and find a good spot by the track somewhere and get pictures. Crowds were out everywhere. Some guy even had a 1930's Dussenburg or similar car out following part of the route.
We had lunch in East Stroudsburg (pic of the Engineer was taken there- he's about as old as the engine!) Then on the way back, they stopped at a small station and dropped us off, backed the train up about a mile, and came steaming past for the photo op! Then they backed up, picked all the photographers back up and kept on (well, we had a few extra cars because of demand, so they *tried* to keep on, but the grade after the station was a bit much for the ~90 year old engine with so many cars, so we had to wait for a diesel to come pull us up the grade- it took a bit because of separation rules- which is why the 3 line traversal is expensive. Most of the time there were too many other people at the side of the track to get a great shot- but that one worked for me because since they hadn't started forward yet, nobody was really in my way.
Most of the folks at Steamtown are volunteers, not NPS employees. It's an anomaly in the NPS system- as it's the only place you'll ever see a volunteer in charge of park rangers. On a train, the conductor is in charge, period. It's NTSB rules. So the NPS rangers on any run are at the beck and call of the conductor, who's a volunteer.
http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
If you're interested in a print, please let me know via PM- I'm changing hosts and I'll probably be offering interested folks discount coupons once I get everything up on the new site. I've got an 8x10 that's at the door when I come in, and it's a good printing image. (Anyone who wants to get on my less than one email a month mailing list that'll go up with the new site can PM me an email address- I'll be offering discounts and probably some shooting tips/tutorials once I get everything moved, which is supposed to happen in the next 45 days or so.)
Paul
I will have to pass on the d3000. Damn that was a good deal 399 shipped 
