On May 2, 1987, Doug Eisele and I spent the day photographing trains on Conrail’s former Erie Railroad.
We been following Conrail TV301, a double-stack train carrying APL containers on a transcontinental land-bridge movement toward the west coast. At the time, the Erie route was preferred for double-stacks.
At Dalton, New York we spotted an eastward Delaware & Hudson stack train carrying Sealand containers. This was crawling along the old Erie eastbound number two track at about 10mph, as Conrail didn’t maintain the eastward track for anything faster than that, and instead preferred to route all movements over the number 1 main.
As the Conrail train was flying along, we pulled over and bailed out the car; and I made this hastily composed photograph with my father’s Rollieflex Model T on Kodak TMY (Tmax 400).
While not a perfect composition, for me this captures the spirit of the moment, and shows the old Erie Railroad alive with heavy freight.
They said we were mad driving to the Irish Midlands in a March rain to look at bog trains.
But we did anyway.
And we did very well.
Friday March 8, 2019, Paul and Jay Monaghan and I made a foray toward Lanesborough, County Longford to observe Bord na Mona’s Lough Rea system in action.
For me this was repeat of similar trip three weeks earlier.
Here’s a hint: Bord na Mona has one of the coolest train sets in Europe.
The whole operation is like a big garden railway. Well, except that it runs in a bog.
Here’s another hint: just because rain is forecast, doesn’t mean it will rain all day!
November 2018, Anaheim, California: I made this trailing view of Metrolink train 661 with F59PH 854 working northward amidst lots of transportation infrastructure.
Working with my Lumix LX7 I made these three evening glinty views of Irish Rail trains to and from Cork at Dublin’s Heuston Station.
I’ve always loved the soft orange glow of filtered evening light.
Where’s the filter you ask? It’s in the sky. A mix of clouds and pollution—particulates and other stuff—alters the spectral qualities of the setting sun by pushing the color balance toward the red-orange end of the spectrum.
Check out podcast Episode 17 ‘Conversations with Brian Solomon’: On a frosty day, I discuss the ins and outs of the freight car business with industry professional Dan Bigda. This offers an inside look into real freight railroading.
Dan has often asked me to make more photographs of freight cars when I’m out and about on the railroad, so here’s a few recent views of North American freight cars on the move exposed on frosty days during my January 2019 trip to Wisconsin.
Working with Czech-made Fomapan Classic in my Nikon F3, I’ve wandered the streets of Dublin seeking timeless images.
By careful chemical manipulation in the processing of the negatives, I aimed to extract exceptional shadow detail, maintain rich black tones and control highlight areas.
I’ve exposed these views over the last few weeks. In many instances, I’ve set my lenses to their widest apertures both to let greater amounts of light to reach the film, but also for the effects offered shallow depth of field.
Weather, including fog, added to the challenge and the atmosphere.
(If your not on Tracking the Light, be sure to click the Link to get the BIG picture.)
In the realms of the rarely seen on the move, Irish Rail’s bogie spoil train is one of the rarest.
By luck I’d spotted this train running toward Dublin’s North Wall on Wednesday 6 March 2019. And as it happened, the crew was taking train to the yard to swap one set for another.
Patience on my part yielded this view of the train returning from the North Wall. As seen from my standard location at Islandbridge Junction in Dublin.
The bottom line: it helps to live near the tracks, but it also helps to sit tight when something unusual and unscheduled is on the prowl.
Exposed digitally using a FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm prime telephoto.
I have a variety of my favorite images in my screen saver file that the computer brings up at random when I stop using it.
Many are railroad photos, some recent, some from the archives. One is a photo of a Shinkansen high speed train approaching Tokyo, another is a small critter on a railroad tie in Colorado, a third is a recent view on Canadian National’s Wisconsin Central on a bitterly cold evening.
In my mix is this classic view of Santa Fe DASH8-40BW 575 racing eastward through a curve at Willard, New Mexico.
I exposed it on Kodachrome 25 during a trip to California in January 1994. I worked with my old Nikon F3T with a prime 200mm Nikkor telephoto that was one of my staple lenses for many years.
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Irish Rail makes good use of its quad track on the Cork Line in southwest suburban Dublin. Fast Intercity trains overtake slower moving all-stops passenger trains and the occasional freight.
The other day Colm O’Callaghan and I spent sometime documenting the action.
The sky was a tapestry of clouds with spells bright blue sky. In other words a typical Irish afternoon.
I made these views with my FujiFilm XT1 and 27mm pancake lens. Since top speed for passenger trains is 100 mph/160 kmph, I set the camera to 1/1000 second to freeze the action.
In addition to the digital photos I made a few select views on Fujichrome Provia with my old Nikon N90S and 135mm lens. Those remain in the camera.
Irish Rail ICRs work the Dublin-Westport train on the ‘down slow’ line.
A few minutes later a similar consist races by on the ‘down fast’ line. (Outside tracks are designated ‘fast’, inside tracks ‘slow’. Signaling is set up for directional running.
It was overcast when Irish Rail 218 raced by with a Mark4 set for Kent Station, Cork.
Speaking of Cork, I was on the phone to a Tracking the Light reader there when this ICR set with the new ‘blue doors’ worked up-road on the ‘up-slow’ (Up is toward Dublin; Down is away from Dublin). Previously I’ve reported on the change to Irish Rail’s ICRs with the addition of blue doors in place of green. I described these as ‘purple’ (they still look purple to me, but I’ve been informed the color is ‘blue’.)
Trailing view of a Cork-Dublin train on the ‘Up fas’ line.’ Nice burst of sunlight!Irish Rail 088 leads K803 (Ballina to Dublin North Wall IWT Liner) on the ‘Up Slow Line’.
June 1996: It had been just over a year since Union Pacific absorbed Chicago & North Western.
I made this view of a westward UP train with SD60M 6276 in the lead.
A father with his young son on a bicycle look on in wonder.
This single frame was exposed with my Nikon F3T and 35PC (perspective control) lens on Kodachrome 25. The film’s slow speed combined with side lighting and minimum aperture of just f3.5 only allowed me a shutter speed of 1/250thof a second, which wasn’t fast enough to freeze the train’s motion in this broadside view.
I feel that the slight motion blur makes the photo because it conveys the speed and mass of the train in contrast to the relative fragility of its on-lookers.
The tree branches at top right help accentuated the blurring effect.
Irish Rail moves zinc ore from Tara Mines in Navan to the port of Dublin on weekdays. The trains are short and relatively heavy. Owing to restrictions on trackage serving the mine Irish Rail always assigns the General Motors 071 diesels to this run.
Last week, 27 March 2019, Jay Monaghan and I met on the station platforms at Clontarf Road on Dublin’s north side specifically to catch the laden Tara mines passing in the gloom.
A thick wintery fog made for a dose of extra gloom just for good meaure.
I made a variety of test exposures of passing DART trains (Dublin Area Rapid Transit electric suburban service) and got into position for the Main Event.
The drumming of an EMD 12-645 diesel announced the arrival of the evening’s freight.
I made a series of photos Working with my Lumix LX7 digital camera (with ISO racked up to 800), and a Nikon F3 fitted with f1.8 105mm lens and Ilford HP5 film.
Irish Rail 086 with Tara on film: Ilford HP5 with a Nikon F3 and f1.8 105mm lens.Lumix LX7 set at ISO800Lumix LX7 set at ISO800 and panned a little bit.Lumix LX7 set at ISO800Irish Rail 086 with Tara on film: Ilford HP5 with a Nikon F3 and f1.8 105mm lens.
Big Blue had just six full months left. Mike Gardner and I made another epic whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania to catch Conrail on the move while we could.
I made this view of a helper set working the back of a westward (down hill) freight looking down a side street in Lilly, Pennsylvania.
There’s nothing like a bright clear day in November, especially with Conrail’s brilliant blue paint.
I tried to pick and exciting sounding title! These are some more of my thoughts on railroad night photography, the nuts and the bolts:
The other evening at Clontarf Road in Dublin, I was experimenting with various ISO settings in preparation for a more serious photo I was about to expose under the wires on Irish Rail.
Normally with my Lumix LX7, I limit the ISO settings to between 80 and 200, because this camera tends to get noticeably noisy/grainy at the higher settings.
Higher ISO increases the effective sensitivity of the sensor but does so at the expense of image quality, especially in regards to exposure latitude and noise. (Technically that’s not exactly correct, but for the sake of space and clarity that’s how I’m going to explain it here.)
In my night situation using a higher ISO setting will allow me a faster maximum shutter speed, which I need to stop a train in motion. Yet with each one-stop increment the image quality suffers more severely.
Keep in mind with each doubling of the ISO, the camera gains one stop: So, ISO 100 to 200 is one stop, 200 to 400 one stop, etc; and each jump allows an equivalent one stop increase in shutter speed. So in the lighting conditions at my location and using my LX7 aperture set at f1.4, ISO 100 allowed 1/15 of a second; ISO 200 1/30th; ISO 400 1/60th; ISO 800 1/125. Obviously, I needed to go higher than ISO 200 to stop the action. (Or simply pan the train, but that’s a story for another post).
Here are two views of static DART electric trains in low light that I made simply as comparison tests to see how the higher ISO setting compared visually. (Ignore the minor variations in composition).
At the small size displayed for internet viewing there’s only a slight difference. One is at the camera’s minimum ISO setting which is 80; the other is at 800, which three and a third stops faster.
ISO 80.ISO 800. Notice the increased noise, especially evident in the sky and shadows.
September 5, 1997—the still late summer air is shattered by the roar of Conrail SD50 6711 in run-8 working an eastward coal train on the ‘West Slope’ at Mineral Point, Pennsylvania.
This was Conrail’s former Pennsylvania Railroad’s busy mountain mainline that crested the Alleghenys at Gallitzin, Pennsylvania a favorite place to photograph in the 1980s and 1990s.
Exposed on Fujichrome with my first Nikon N90 and Nikkor 80-200 AF zoom.
Here’s a few black & white views exposed last week on Kodak Tri-X of Irish Rail’s branch from Islandbridge Junction to the North Wall/Connolly.
Recently, Irish Rail has expanded service on the Grand Canal Docks—Hazel Hatch/Newbridge run and now trains run at least hourly throughout the day.
Following a Grand Canal Docks bound passenger train was the daily Up IWT Liner (Ballina to North Wall, Dublin).
Since these trains were coming out of the relatively harsh midday sun, I opted to work with black & white film, which makes the most of the contrast and allows me to control shadow and highlight detail to a greater degree than with my digital cameras, while giving the images a period look.
Irish Rail 234 with Up IWT Liner (Ballina to North Wall, Dublin) at Old Cabra Road in Dublin
To maximize tonality and detail from the negatives I employed a ‘split process’ using two developers.
First I use a very weak solution of Kodak HC110 mixed 1 to 250 to water. To intensify the detail in shadows while avoiding over processing highlight areas, I keep the developer temperature comparatively high (73F) and allow it to work to exhaustion. My second developer is Ilford ID mixed 1-1 for 6 minutes 45 seconds with one minute agitation intervals. Then stop; fix 1, fix 2, rinse for 3 minutes, hypoclear, then a series of final washes. Dry and scan.
Kodachrome 25 slide exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron.
It was Conrail’s 12thbirthday! And that was many years ago.
My old pal TSH and I were exploring the former Pennsylvania Railroad Middle Division and visited Spruce Creek where we photographed this eastward freight.
The old heavy-weight sleeping car converted for Penn-Central/Conrail maintenance of way (work equipment) makes the photograph fascinating. I’d never seen cars like this in revenue service and simply having relics like it on the move connected me to an earlier era.
Seeing this Kodachrome 25 slide makes me yearn for the days when we’d be trackside on Conrail and never know what might pass. It seemed a like endless adventure and every train brought something new and unexpected.
The weather? Not great, but I’d stand there now without complaint.
As Jay Monaghan and I walked along Dublin’s Amiens Street in the fog, I heard an Irish Rail train blast its horn approaching the platforms at Connolly Station.
There wasn’t much time to react. I made fine adjustments to my Nikon F3 as I put the camera to my face and released the shutter.
This image was among photographs exposed on 27 February 2019 on Ilford HP5.
I processed this using a development technique to maximize dynamic range and tonal response.
It was a bright late-winter’s afternoon. Mike Gardner and I were on one of our many photographic explorations of Pennsylvania.
I made this view west of South Fork of an eastward Norfolk Southern freight ascending the famous ‘West Slope,’ on the former Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line.
Here I’ve used just a hint of soft glint light to accent the freight, catching the exhaust from the GE diesels as they work upgrade.
At the time I was using a Nikon F3 with MD-11 motor drive fitted with an f2.8 180mm Nikkor prime telephoto lens and loaded with Fujichrome slide film.
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A misty morning gave way to bright sun as Irish Rail 075 got the signal to depart the sidings at Dublin’s Heuston Station with an empty HOBS (high output ballast system) destined for Port Arlington.
I made this view with my Lumix LX7. Working with a slight telephoto, I aimed to bring in the Wellington Testimonial in Dublin’s Phoenix Park across the River Liffey from Heuston Station.
Although I’ve made countless images from this vantage point which is a mere five minute walk for me, its always nice to catch something relatively unusual on the move.
When I see a thick fog rolling in during the fading light, I see photo opportunities everywhere.
Fog is one my favorite photographic conditions, and the thicker, the better!
The fine thick mist has many benefits. It acts as a diffuser, which spreads the light, reducing contrast between the brightest highlights and shadows. It also tends to allow for photography in every direction, which opens up numerous angles and perspectives that I may not consider on a bright day.
Most importantly fog adds depth and mystique to a scene, making even the most mundane places intriguing, while masking unsightly elements such as garbage, graffiti and wires.
The other evening a thick fog settled over Dublin and I made my way to Connolly Station. Below are a few views from my Lumix LX7.
