I was hoping to time it right to get the eastward and westward Amtrak Pennsylvanians (trains 42 and 43) passing one another at Bird-in-Hand.
In truth this is a more aesthetic exercise during the winter months when the light is low and the air is crisp. But not all photo opportunities present themselves in the perfect light.
As it turned out the two trains passed by within 90 seconds of one another, so there was no ‘running meet’ for me on this day.
All photos exposed with my Nikon Z7-II. NEF-RAW files adjusted in post-processing using Adobe Lightroom.
In the June 2024 Trains Magazine, photographer Eric Williams has an intriguing photo essay on ‘Railroad Streets.’
Following this theme, last week, I made these photos on South Railroad Avenue in New Holland, Pennsylvania.
Road traffic is light in the early evening, which made for a good time for New Holland vignettes. Unfortunately, catching a train here has proved elusive for me. I’ve seen Norfolk Southern’s local working this end of the branch a few times, but thus far I’ve not had the opportunity to picture it on the crossing.
In March 1976, my father brought me trackside for a couple of days to witness northeastern railroading before Conrail assumed operation of most of the large railroads in the region.
Twenty-three years later, we spent two days along Conrail’s former New York Central lines in eastern New York state , documenting the railroad’s final hours.
At the time Mel Patrick and I were writing a column on photography for Trains Magazine. Magazine Editor Kevin Keefe had organized for Canon to send us a selection of cameras and lens to work with. At the time, I was primarily a Nikon user.
These were among the images that I made on May 29, 1999 using the Canon equipment loaded with Fujichrome.
Two days later Conrail concluded its independant Class 1 operations. CSX inherited the lines pictured here.
Yesterday evening after 830pm (May 24, 2024), the National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning for Lancaster, PA and vicinity.
Over a span of about 15 minutes, I made this series of photographs looking northward using my Nikon Z7-II. These images were scaled from the in-camera JPG files without adjustment or modification.
The lighting (and the lightning) was very intense.
It’s never a good thing when you see a greenish colored sky.
It’s not an easy item to represent photographically.
In light of midday, the lights are nearly lost in the inky ring.
At dusk, the lights standout, but they are are easily overexposed which has the unintended effect of desaturating the light color.
A more complicated problem is stopping a fast moving train when the light is optimal for catching the signal lights at their correct density and hue.
Focus is another issue. In this situation, I was working with an f2.8 70-200mm zoom wide open (f2.8). I set my shutter speed manually to 1/640th of a second. According to the camera meter this resulted in about 2/3s stop (-0.7) under exposure. ISO was set to 5000. My focus point was on plane with the signal. The signal and near track are sharp, but the train suffers both from motion blur and being slightly out of focus.
Not a lot of options to do better. But, I’ll keep trying.
I was looking for angles with my Nikkor f2.0 prime 135mm telephoto.
I was aiming to find subjects that suited this lens, rather than the other way around.
Kris and I crossed the tracks at Jefferson Drive near our apartment and spotted a headlight: Norfolk Southern 6342 (originally Conrail 6753) was leading the local freight returning from New Holland, PA.
We paused long enough for me to expose these views of the classic EMD on the move!
May 24, 1997: Conrail had just two years remaining of independant Class-1 operations. The tug of war between CSX and Norfolk Southern to tear apart Big Blue had already begun.
This is among my favorite photos of Conrail SD80MACs. The 30 20-cylinder beasts built by EMD were only purchased new by Conrail. Many were assigned to the Boston Line.
I made this photo of Boston-Chicago intermodal train TV-9 approaching the famous ‘Twin Ledges’—dual rock cuttings on Washington Hill near Middlefield, Massachusetts.
Fuji had only recently introduced a new 100 ISO slide film called Astia. This had a warmer color temperature than either Provia or Sensia. This was among my first photographs with the new film. If this photo look familiar it is because I’ve had it published on several occasions in books and magazines.
I like Amtrak’s Siemens Cities Sprinters—the ACS-64s.
These are powerful, sharp looking and fast!
We had a moment, and I knew an Amtrak Keystone train 651 was less than five minutes away and closing quickly. So we paused along the old Main Line at Bird-in-Hand, Pa.
I don’t where ‘Bush,’ Pennsylvania is, but I wasn’t willing to risk trying to get there to find two ACS-64s on the move when I knew one was so close. (Sorry, it’s ‘bad-pun Thursday’!)
Using my Nikon Z7-II, I exposed a burst of photos as the train raced by trying to make up time as it approached its Lancaster station stop. ACS-64 number 668 was working in ‘push’-mode at the back of the consist.
Below are two of my favorites from this effort. These are scaled from the NEF-RAW capture without alterations to exposure, contrast or color.
In my arsenal of glass, I have a few secret weapons—lenses that when used properly can execute superior images.
Although I rarely use it, I have a Nikkor f2.0 135mm Defocus lens. This has an extra setting that allows for added control to adjust the out-of-focus effect of the background.
This is also an extremely sharp and very fast lens.
The other day it was cloudy and the light was flat. Kris and I drove over to Strasburg to catch the morning excursion on its run back from Leaman Place. This is a train I can (and have) photographed ‘any day of the week’.
To make something of the dull morning, I made this series of photos with my 135mm Defocus lens. Only with the photo of the observation car did I used the Defocus ring to alter the foreground focus. The effect is subtle but makes for a stronger image.
Thirty-five years ago today, I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide of nearly new New York, Susquehanna & Western DASH8-40Bs in Buffalo, New York.
On May 21, 1989, NYS&W 4038 was leading an eastward double-stack train that had paused at William Street for a crew change. This was during the period when NYS&W was the designated operator of the Delaware & Hudson and had acquired two orders of new GE DASH8-40Bs built to Conrail specs to alleviate a motive power shortage.
Engine 4038 was just a few weeks out of the factory at Erie.
As with many of my Kodachrome 25 slides from this period, the image suffers from a cyan bias. Cyan is a blue-green color that is the opposite of red in common photographic reproduction processes.
After making a hi-res TIF scan, I imported the slide into Lightroom and made a series of minor adjustments to minimize the effects of the cyan bias and high contrast. I added majenta and yellow, while resetting the black point, lightening shadows, and reducing the highlight density. I made these corrections with aid of the Lightroom histogram.
Below are both the scaled but unmodified scan, and my adjusted version.
A recent visit to Strasburg, found engine 89 working an extra passenger train.
The setting sun had briefly illuminated the clouds of what I call a ‘cotton candy sky’.
As 89 was uncoupled to begin its run-around, I made this silhouette.
Knowing that I’d make adjustments in post-processing, I exposed the photo manually in order to capture the detail in the sky. The enormous data capture afforded by the Z-series cameras allowed for a two-stop lightening of the shadow areas and considerable adjustments to sky while affording global changes to contrast.
Below I’ve included the NEF RAW file (scaled as a Jpg, but without adjustments to exposure, contrast, color etc) and the final adjusted file.
I’ve also included two screenshots of the Adobe Lightroom work windows to demonstrate how I accomplished some of the corrections.
A cloudless bright morning; the perfect time to picture Norfolk Southern’s New Holland branch local by the old station in Leola, Pennsylvania.
I made three similar photographs using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm lens. In all three I had the lens set to 200mm at f5.6. The difference between them is in the framing with minor changes to the composition.
A month ago, Kris and I adopted at Labradoodle puppy. His name is Seamus. Over the last few weeks we’ve been gradually introducing him to railroading.
The other evening we brought him to Christiana, PA., where the old PRR freight house maintained by the Lancaster Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society offers a safe environment to watch passing trains.
Seamus sensed our anticipation of Amtrak’s westward Keystone (train 649) and watched with fascination as it raced by us.
After it had gone he kept staring at the line, hoping the stainless steel beast would come by again.
I am in the process of preparing a book about Amtrak’s rolling stock.
Over the last few weeks I’ve poured over hundreds of color slides exposed from the 1970s until the mid 2010s.
Among them was this view of Amtrak GE-built E60 number 603 leading a New York City bound long distance train on the North East Corridor at Linden, New Jersey on August 1, 1986. I exposed this on Kodachrome using a Leica 3A attached to a Visoflex with Leitz 200mm Telyt telephoto lens.
This locomotive is significant because it was preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, just a few miles from where Kris and I live. We drive by it all the time.
The other evening we paused outside the museum, and I exposed a few digital photos of the old electric using my Nikon Z6.
May 16, 1987 was brilliant sunny day and a great time to photograph Conrail in action.
I was working with a borrowed Canon A-1 with 50mm lens loaded with professional Kodachrome 25 (PKM) and I’d spent the morning photographing Conrail freight on the Southern Tier —what Conrail called the former Erie Route between Binghamton and Buffalo, New York.
At Hunt, New York, I caught up with a westward OIBU (Oak Island to Buffalo) and followed it west. Between Linden and Dixons on the east slope of Attica Hill this freight took the siding and stopped to wait for its eastward counterpart, Conrail’s BUOI.
While the train was stopped, I took the opportunity to make locomotive portraits.
General Electric B23-7 1966 caught my eye because its road number coincides with my birth year.
I scanned this slide using a Nikon LS-5000 scanner. After scanning I imported the TIF file into Lightroom and made a few small changes to exposure, color temperature, color balance and contrast. Below are both the unaltered file (scaled as a JPG) and the adjusted file.
The end of this month will mark 25 years since the end of Conrail as a Class-1 railroad, when its operations were divided between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
The reverse curves on the old Main Line at Gap, Pennsylvania offer endless photo opportunities.
Amtrak Keystone train 649 is a regular subject for me in the afternoon.
A couple of weeks back, I suspected that train 649 would be worked by ACS-64 no. 642, which specially painted for American Veterans.
I surmised this correctly, however, the locomotive was working the back of the train rather than in the lead (as I would have preferred for photography).
That said, Amtrak doesn’t operate its trains for my amusement, so I made due with the configuration as I found it.
Images exposed using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm zoom.
3:36pm, May 14, 1988; milepost 309 (as measured west from Jersey City) near Cameron Mills, N.Y., Conrail intermodal train TV-301.
I exposed this photo in the reverse curves along Conrail’s former Erie Railroad mainline in New York’s scenic Canisteo River Valley east of Cameron Mills.
In the late 1980s, this valley was a favorite place of mine for photographing trains, and I made dozens of trips along the old Erie Railroad during those years.
This image was exposed on Professional Kodachrome 25 using my Leica M2 rangefinder fitted with a Leitz Wetzlar Elmarit 135mm lens.
My exposure was f4.5 1.250th second. While this was my standard ‘full sun’ daylight setting, the resulting slide was about 1/2 stop too dark. This was in part because of the reduced reflective light within the confines of the valley combined with slight backlighting of the train.
After scanning using a Nikon LS-5000 (Supe Coolscan5000) slide scanner, I made a variety of small adjustments to TIF file in regards to color balance/color temperature, exposure and constrast using Lightroom to produce a more pleasing photograph.
One element of this image that’s always annoyed me is the automobile peaking out on the left side of the leading locomotive. It would be a better photo if the automobile was further ahead of the train or totally conceiled by it.
This is a small defect, considering that Conrail (as a class 1 railroad) has been gone nearly 25 years.
It was a misty evening when I rolled by Strasburg Rail Road No. 89 at Blackhorse Road.
Working with my Z6, I used the Japanese zoom-pan technique to capture the steam locomotive in motion.
This unusual way of making photos, involves working with a comparatively slow shutter speed and simultaneously zooming out while panning the subject and keeping a central point constant and continuing both motions while releasing the shutter. If you stop to release the shutter the effect is lost.
If you look at this image, the sliver of sharp focus centered on the crewman leaning from the engine, while everything to the sides is muted in a sea of motion blur.
What really makes this work for me is the combination of blurred drivers-rods down, the glow of the firebox and exhaust from the engine.
A few days ago I posted an evening glint photograph made with a 35mm lens of an eastward Amtrak Keystone passing Jefferson Drive, near Greenfield in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
These images were made at sunrise few days later from almost the same vantage point, but using a telephoto zoom (Nikkor Z-series 70-200mm) of eastward Keystone service train 642 (led by Amtrak ACS-64 608).
I thought it would make for an interesting comparison to show how differently a location appears at different times of day and with different focal length lenses.
It was a fine evening at Carpenters (the little cemetery situated near the Strasburg Rail Road crossing of Blackhorse Road).
Kris and our puppy Seamus waited in the car as I set up for Strasburg’s return run from Leaman Place.
Cows populated the fields on both sides of the line. My challenge was that as the laboring locomotive approached, the cows in the field to the left of the line became wary of the noise and began to migrate away from the tracks.
Working with my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm zoom, I composed this series of images as engine 475 worked its way west. Leading is engine 475, a former Norfolk & Western 4-8-0—a type sometimes described as a ‘Mastodon.’ It is among the locomotives featured in my new book ‘Steam by the Numbers’.
In honor of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, I present this photo I made of a westward SP freight ascending Donner Pass in May 1994.
The train is near the Nevada-California state line rolling approaching a narrow cleft of the Truckee River Canyon that is shared with Interstate-80.
I made the photo using Kodachrome 25 slide film with my Nikon F3T. The train was led by an unusual combination of locomotives, an SP SD45, followed by Conrail SD40-2 6354, another SP SD45, and Cotton Belt DASH8-40B 8047.
Having made dozens of trips over Donner Pass, I’d long eyed this vantage point from the eastward lanes of I-80.
On this day, once I knew the train was on its way up ‘The Hill’ from Reno, I drove west on I-80 from Verdi, then reversed direction at Floriston, California, and carefully timing my arrival at this location, so I could set up from the eastward breakdown lane and catch the train running along the river. (I seem to have neglected this level detail in my notes!)
I spied a pair of Norfolk Southern’s SD40E working west with the Steelton Local near the old Harris Tower. In the distance were the train sheds of Amtrak’s Harrisburg Station. I saw relics everywhere! And yet, the pending surprise was something new.
In this short freight’s consist were several nearly new Norfolk Southern gondolas. These days, seeing new Class-1 carload freight cars is a real rarity. I wonder . . . when was the last time I photographed a new gon?
Working with my Z6 with AF Nikkor 35mm f2.0/D attached via a Nikon FTZ adaptor, I made this imag sequence of Amtrak Keystone 618 racing eastward at Jefferson Drive in Lancaster, PA.
I timed my arrival just a minute ahead of the train.
My objective was to see how the traditional 35mm lens would handle the glinting sunset on my Z-series digital camera. I adjusted my exposure manually (aiming for overall underexposure to better capture the effects of the bright sun), then made changes to the camera’s NEF RAW files in post processing to make for overall appealing photographs.
On many occasions over the last year as I drove toward Leola, Pennsylvania, on the Horseshoe Road, I’ve looked across this field toward the New Holland Branch.
In some instances, I was pacing Norfolk Southern’s morning local on its way east on the branch.
A few weeks ago, I had a near perfect morning; clear and bright with cows in the field. On this day, I was ahead of the local freight by a minute or two. So, I pulled over with enough time to walk across the road to my preselected location and expose these telephoto views looking toward Hartman Station Road using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm lens.
My AF Nikkor 35mm f2.0/D had resided in Ireland since 2018. After years without this amazing piece of glass, it has rejoined my roster.
Using an FTZ adaptor, I am able to use this lens on my Z-series mirrorless digital cameras. Until now I had only used this lens for traditional, analog photography. This had been among my favorite lenses for black & white.
I was curious to see how it would perform in the digital realm.
Poised at the Esbenshade Road crossing, I exposed this photo of Strasburg Rail Road 475 on its return run from Leaman Place.
Below are two versions. The top is a scaled version of the NEF RAW file without modification or adjustments.
The center is my interpretation of the NEF file with local and global adjustments to contrast, exposure, color temperature and saturation.
The last photo is an extreme enlargement of the unmodified file showing the headlight to demonstrate the resolution of the lens.
Nikon Z6 with Aan F Nikkor 35mm f2.0/D attached with an FTZ adaptor. Exposure: f3.5 1/500, ISO 200. No adjustments.Adjusted NEF RAW file.
So, what worked with black & white film, also works with digital!
On May 5, 1990, I spent the morning following Southern Pacific’s timetable westward MERV-M (Medford, Oregon to Roseville-Manifest) on the sinuous and steeply graded Siskiyou Line. This was led by SP SD45E 7504, which retained its 3,600 hp 20-645E3 diesel engine.
I made this photo at Ager (railroad timetable west of Hornbrook, California) on the run toward Black Butte. At the time SP was operating 7,500 ton trains on this amazing stretch of railroad.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron about 9:25am.
I made dozens of photos on that beautiful May morning. Most remain unlabled, although I have all my notes from that day. I was delighted to have an SP unit with its oscillating lights in the lead. Since at that time SP was actively removing the oscillating lights from its locomotives.
This year will mark twenty years of LUAS tram operations in Dublin.
Construction began several years previously, and the first trams arrived in 2002 and were stored at the Red Cow tram depot prior to service.
I was away from Dublin for most of 2004, but returned briefly in April, where my friend Hassard Stacpoole invited me on a pre-service tour of the new Green Line, and then again in November that year, just a couple months after services began on the east-west Red line.
I made the photos in this selection of the Red Line extension to the Point Depot using my Lumix LX3 at the end of March this year. This route opened in 2009.
Over the coming weeks and months, I plan to present some of my many photos of the LUAS expose during its early months of operation. These are among the 1000’s of slide I brought back from Dublin on our recent trip.
The LUAS at Mayor Square as view from inside a coffee shop.
The LUAS at Mayor Square as view from inside a coffee shop.
The LUAS at Mayor Square as view from inside a coffee shop.
I barely recognized the LUAS stop at Spencer Dock. The urban landscape has been completely transformed in just a few years.
I barely recognized the LUAS stop at Spencer Dock. The urban landscape has been completely transformed in just a few years.
I barely recognized the LUAS stop at Spencer Dock. The urban landscape has been completely transformed in just a few years.
It is difficult for me to comprehend, but this space was once occupied by an Irish Rail freight yard. Although made from a different perspective, I have photos of the yard—topic for another post on another day.
It is difficult for me to comprehend, but this space was once occupied by an Irish Rail freight yard. Although made from a different perspective, I have photos of the yard—topic for another post on another day.
It is difficult for me to comprehend, but this space was once occupied by an Irish Rail freight yard. Although made from a different perspective, I have photos of the yard—topic for another post on another day.
An outbound tram approaches The Point. The old row houses to the right of the tram are all that’s left of the old urban scape.
An outbound tram approaches The Point. The old row houses to the right of the tram are all that’s left of the old urban scape.
An outbound tram approaches The Point. The old row houses to the right of the tram are all that’s left of the old urban scape.
At 22 years old, the 3001/4001-series trams may be reaching the end of their useful lives.
Kris and I made another exploratory trip along Norfolk Southern’s Harrisburg Line. We brought our new puppy, Seamus along for the ride.
We inspected the route between Richland and the interlocking at Prescott in Lebanon, PA.
We found some locations offering views of the tracks. But this section of the Harrisburg Line is scenically bereft compared with the pastoral rolling scenery around Lancaster, the riverside views along the Juniata and Susquehanna, and myriad locations with magnificent line-side scenery that we’ve found elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
So, why explore this railroad? Because its there! And, it remains one of the busiest freight routes in the neighborhood. I still have hopes that I’ll find some iconic location that I’ll make my own.
On this trip we arrived at the Prescott interlocking to find the signals lit for an westward move. We gave it a few minutes and I heard a train approach. A mean-looking GE Tier-4 was leading a double-stack train. I made this series of images using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm lens.
I doubt these will win any contests, but they captured the passing train for posterity. I like the trailing views with the signals.
To make the photos slightly more appealing, working with the NEF RAW files in Lightroom, I made a few subtle adjustments to color balance, saturation, contrast and exposure .
Looking east at South Ramona Road near Myerstown, PA.View looking west at Prescott from East Street.Norfolk Southern Tier4 3640 works west at Prescott.
By the time you read this, the pink blossoming trees along Jefferson Drive in Lancaster will have leafed out in their Spring greenery.
Toward the the end of the blossoming season, Kris & I took a morning drive with our new puppy, Seamus. We paused briefly along Jefferson east of the westward signal.
Soft lighting made for a good time to catch an eastward Amtrak Keystone as it raced toward Philadelphia along the former Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line.
I exposed a sequence of images to frame the train in the blossoms of one of the trees along the road. This was my fourth attempt in this sequence of pink tree photos.
I’ve included both a full frame and tightly cropped version of my favorite from the rapid-fire sequence of digital photos.
Exposed using a Nikon Z7-II with Nikkor Z-series 24-70mm lens set to 44mm; f4, 1/2000th second, ISO800.. Full frame without cropping.
Exposed using a Nikon Z7-II with Nikkor Z-series 24-70mm lens set to 44mm; f4, 1/2000th second, ISO800.. Full frame without cropping.
Exposed using a Nikon Z7-II with Nikkor Z-series 24-70mm lens set to 44mm; f4, 1/2000th second, ISO800.. Full frame without cropping.
This is a tightly cropped version of the above photo.
This is a tightly cropped version of the above photo.
This is a tightly cropped version of the above photo.
Part of the reason for our recent trip to Ireland was to retrieve my belongings that have been stored there since the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was our third trip across to Ireland since April 2022. This time around we filled several more suitcases with my things. This included an estimated 8,000 of my color slides, 1,000 hand made black & white prints, a tripod, a Nikon F3 camera and my prized Nikkor f2.0 35mm lens, plus some books, notes and memorabilia.
Since returning to Pennsylvania, I’ve made a project of scanning many of the slides that I brought back. Among the gems I collected is this view I’d exposed of the Ballina Branch train at Manulla Junction on 1 May 2006 with GM 071 class diesel number 075.
1 May 2006; Manualla Junction the way it used to look before the mini-CTC project of 2007 altered the track and signaling. Exposed on Fujichrome using a Nikon F3 with 105mm lens.