On June 25, 2015, I made these photographs at New York’s Penn Station. This is Amtrak’s busiest station, and a terminal for Long Island Railroad and NJ Transit suburban trains.
Once it was one of the world’s most elegant railway terminals, built in a style inspired by the Roman baths of Caracalla; but today Penn Station is mostly functional, with little in the way of elegance to inspire the traveler.
However, good and interesting photographs should not rely on great architecture as a crutch to draw the eye of the viewer, right?
Welcome to New York!Tracks, wires, iron girders and fluorescent light.A large black & white photo may remind passengers of the age of elegance. Yes, Virginia, we are standing in the same place.On the plus side, all Amtrak trains were running to schedule. Really!Penn Station allows direct connections between various railway services. Onward to the Long Island Railroad!
Photos exposed with a Panasonic Lumix LX7 digital camera.
I’ve spent a lot of time researching railroads in Worcester. It was the site of one of the earliest North American railway junctions and was perhaps the first significant railway gateway city.
Yet, for all its history, Worcester can be a difficult place to make satisfying railroad photographs, owning in part to a massive grade separation project a century ago that raised the tracks above the city streets and effectively partitioned the city.
So much of what’s good and bad about Worcester are direct effects of its railroads.
CSX Q423 assembles its train at the west end of Worcester Yard. The passenger platform at Worcester Union Station offers a decent view of the CSX yard, however most of the year this is lit from the south, which make photography challenging. Exposed with a Fujifilm X-T1 Digital Camera. The multistory building to the right of the train is the old Osgood-Bradley building.I could title this photo, ‘The Grand Partition’—it is where two primary transportation corridors cross; I-290 spans the former Boston & Albany line. Both partitions (corridors) have facilitated traffic through Worcester, but disrupted the fabric of the city beyond comprehension. Worcester is a city of contrasts; fascinating, and frustrating.
On the long days of summer. The sun swings far to the north and makes for nice afternoon light at Worcester Union Station. Near the Summer Solstice, I made a few photos of CSX symbol freight Q423 (Worcester-Selkirk, NY) with one of the remaining AC6000CWs wearing its as-built ‘Bright Future’ paint.
I exposed this view of the infrastructure at Helsinki in September 2001. This is some impressively engineered and perfectly maintained track structure.
Exposed on Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO) slide film using a Nikon F3T with 105mm lens.
At the end of July, I’ll be revisiting Finland and expect to ride and photograph Finnish railways during my journey! Stay tuned!
