Timelapses on the railway

[dakta]

Posting this as something I've started to do as a hobby might actually merge with being a rail enthusiast.

Never really dug rail photography, I rarely use trains but enjoy it when I get the excuse but I've never actually done any rail photography, but I do do a bit of photography - what I want to do a bit more of is urban photos which I do find a bit awkward but it's hopefully something that fades.

I've been thinking of taking on a bit of a personal project with respect to doing some timelapse photography, montages etc - I've been penning some ideas for it and one of the things I'd like to get is some timelapse clips depicting rush hour or busyness (it doesn't literally have to be rush hour), in the street I don't think it poses much technical difficulty other than common sense H+S, however I would have really liked to get a kind of panning timelapse shot of trains pulling into a city station and after spending an evening reading up the network rail guidance I think it's going to be nigh on impossible.

My aim will to capture travel as opposed to trains, so whilst the shot will include trains as a representation of mass transport its the flow of trains arriving and departing sped up which is what I'm after.

Whilst NR do seem pretty open to photography in general bar some of the horror stories you can find on here, it seems as long as you're respectful and not daft (i.e stick to the authorised places, sign in, make yourself known, don't block signals or infrastructure) there's little drama.

In my case I'd need to sit for 30 minutes with the camera dead still, which really completely eliminates not using a tripod. Based on NR guidance this is a bit frowned upon:

• Tripods should be avoided where possible. If you need to use a tripod you must speak to our station staff to ensure you are in a safe area.

So it seems it's not a complete rule out, but you need to sort of pray to the gods that you'll be allowed. I'm not that fussed about speaking with them in advance but has anyone any direct experience, particularly of busier stations how tolerant NR to tripods?

There's a few potential workarounds:

- turn a luggage carrier into a sort of tripod, i.e sit it down and stick camera on top, downside is levelling will be an issue, slow panning an issue and someone might interpret it as an attempt to circumvent rules
- get creative with zoom and locations to try and get the same scene albeit further away without being on NR property at all

still mulling this over, it might ultimately not be worth the effort

 

[Western Sunset]

What, something like this?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Stay in a hotel overlooking the railway and do your filming from the room...? There's quite a lot of hotels which do offer such a view; a fair few can be found in this thread:

Accommodation suggestions and reviews

firstly if this is in the wrong place mods feel free to move. Wondering where people have gone to crash whilst making longer trips from there home patch and if there good, average or so bad youd rather have slept on the station! Particular points of interest being if there at or very...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[dakta]

A combination of both your answers, the photo above sums up the sort of thing I had in mind - the front lineup but also would be great but overlooking the station itself would also be a good one.

This isn't anything major projectise as such, just a personal pasttime but it's something I've been thinking of doing for ages and I've been planning some shots, then going out and getting them - it's all a bit of fun at the moment I am slowly building up gear (including editing skills) to have a serious quality attempt but I did wonder if the logistics of this (given the justified H+S and security conscious nature of the environment) would rule anything out.

So far I've been all over the place in places where I won't really be in the way but urban is where I want to go.