For my 10'000th contribution on Railpictures.net I choosed this moonlight picture:
The full moon above the 2622 metre high Muchetta mountain (Rhaeto-Romanic for fire extinguisher or candlesnuffer and also called sugar loaf mountain) illuminates the snow covered Albula and Landwasser Valley in the Filisur area. Shortly after 08 PM, two trains of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) draw their light traces through the landscape. From Filisur station, which is hidden behind a knoll on the right, the regional train 1856 (upper light trace) turns left through the wood towards Davos Wiesen and Davos Platz . At the same time, the Interregio train IR 1168 from St.Moritz to Chur runs a little lower behind the trees, then through the 216 meter long Landwasser Tunnel and crosses the 65 meter high and 136 meter long Landwasser Viaduct, landmark of the UNESCO World Heritage „Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Landscape“. The train then passes through the Zalaint Tunnel, which is only 27 metres long, and finally in the foreground over the Schmittentobel viaduct, 35 metres high and 137 metres long, towards Alvaneu and Tiefencastel. During the exposure time of almost 3 1/2 minutes (205 seconds), a helicopter also draws a faint intermittent colored trail of light into the sky. In the background on the right, the 3268 meter high Piz Uertsch can be seen, and on the left the 2907 meter high Leidbachhorn above the hamlet Jenisberg.
The photo position on the steep slope was explored during the day. After nightfall it was visited a second time with a 3/4 hour walk from the hotel in Filisur, this time with aditional required equipment like wide angle lens, tripod, cable remote release, head lamp and warm clothes. I was very satisfied with the result achieved.
How it all began: A good friend of mine, a retired flight engineer with the former legendary „Swissair“, and before that, in the 1950s, fireman on the last steamlocomotives of the SBB between Bellinzona and Luino and for shunting duties in the Basel area, very interested in the American railways and owner of a large O gauge layout with American models, was a regular user of RP since quite some time, not as a contributor but as a visitor to the website. He had noticed that Switzerland was relatively poorly represented, the quality of the pictures was also mostly rather moderate and what he disliked most was that the pictures practically never had captions/explanations/remarks. He then approached me, if I could "help" a little bit with my pictures from Switzerland. That was about 13 years ago and in February 2008 I started uploading my first pictures. Already the fourth submitted picture was awarded with a "Photo of the Week", which of course encouraged me to continue. I always tried to add something to the picture in the captions, i.e. additional information around. So, over more then 12 years there are now 10000 of my pictures on RP, of course not only from Switzerland, but also from the USA, Canada, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, China, Mongolia, Japan, New Zealand and of most European countries including Great Britain.
Covid-19 crisis. Maybe you have noticed that in the last weeks, apart from a few older pictures, only recent photos from the Winterthur area were uploaded. Since I reach all my photo locations in Switzerland, with very few exceptions, exclusively by using public transport and on foot or by bike, I am now somewhat limited, since the use of public transport is strongly recommended only for essential journeys since mid march 2020. Therefore I have not used trains, buses, trams, boats etc. since mid-March, but only my bike.
Landscape photography is difficult due to the challenge of combining good light and good scenery. Good railroad photography enters another level of complexity since it requires the first two while there is a train in view.
