How to "catch" a train (on video) with a TRICYCLE! (MBTA "Cape Flyer")

[Tom Lapointe]

This past June, while vacationing on Cape Cod, I decided to try to catch the MBTA's new summertime weekend Boston to Hyannis train, the "Cape Flyer", on video.  I own a full broadcast-grade Sony camcorder & set it up to catch the "Flyer" as it crossed the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge, as well as getting video of the bridge being lowered (built in 1935, it's the second-longest vertical lift RR bridge in the world), & also caught a Mass Coastal "Trash Train" (which hauls trash from transfer station to a large waste-to-energy power plant alongside the Canal in Sandwich).  A few days, later, I got an after-dark shot of the "Flyer" about 15 minutes out of Hyannis at Yarmouth Junction.  On either side of the Cape Cod Canal are the Canal Service Roads that the US Army Corps of Engineers uses to maintain the Canal (they also maintain & operate the railroad bridge); they are open to the general public as bike trails.  (I've ridden them often).  About a ½ mile north of the railroad bridge, the line to Hyannis parallels the bike trail.  I don't ride a conventional bike (partially due to some severe knee injuries I've had); instead, I ride a tricycle (but not what most people would think when they hear the word "tricycle").    My ride is a Catrike recumbent – a very comfortable, low slung "tadpole trike" (2 wheels in the front, one in the back).  It has 27-speed gearing, disk brakes, and with the low center-of-gravity, corners like a Porsche!    (I also have a lot of fun surprising the hell  out of 20 year olds on racing bikes with it - & I'm 60!  ).  So last Friday, I mounted a GroPro Hero3 on the Catrike frame facing the railroad track, drove down to the Canal (about 45 minutes from where I live, if the Cape traffic isn't too bad), parked under the Cape side of the Bourne (highway) Bridge (where I stationed my girlfriend with the big Sony on a tripod), while I rode the Catrike down to the railroad bridge just as the "Cape Flyer" was crossing - & got a different sort of "pacing shot"!  Here's the result:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL21BrzBzi4&feature=share&list=UU16ll7Zsaf3MDKXajV761UA     Tom