Monthly Archives: July 2024

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Fireworks with 100 year old Passenger Cars and a 150 year old Station

Three years ago, my wife Kris and I photographed the North Conway, New Hampshire fireworks. We stood at the Post Office crossing on Conway Scenic Railroad looking toward the railroad station where I worked (the second floor center window was near my desk in the station’s North Tower).

July 4th, 2024, Conway Scenic Railroad is operating its annual Firecracker Express trains that run from Conway to North Conway to bring visitors to the fireworks.

Exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series Nikkor zoom on a tripod.

For me the photos I made that night are significant because of their long term effect on my photography. When I had large color prints made from the Nikon RAW files exposed that night and compared those photos to similar images I’d exposed with my Fuji XT1, I discovered that the Nikon Z files were significantly better than those from the old Fuji. I’ve only occasionally used the XT1 since that night.

I’ve been using this image and similar photos to promote the railroad’s Firecracker Express trains.

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Reading & Northern freight at Pittston Junction.

We called into Pittston Junction, Pennsylvania in the early evening, just in time to catch several Reading & Northern trains on the move.

Using my Nikon Z mirrorless cameras, I made this sequence of photos of a job working the former Lehigh Valley Railroad Coxton Yard. I also finished off a roll of 35mm Kodak Ektachrome making photos of the classic wig-wag style grade crossing signal.

Although once common, the wig-wag signal is now virtually extinct.

Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm Z-series zoom lens.
Nikon Z6 mirror-less with 70-200mm Z-Series zoom lens set to 92mm.

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Conrail Local on the Franklin Branch

Following up on Saturday’s post of the MBTA at Norfolk, Massachusetts, I thought I’d post this photo that I made of a Conrail local working at Franklin, Massachusetts in November 1984.

This is looking west where the tracks run parallel with East Street, at the junction between former New Haven Railroad’s New York & New England route running west toward Willimantic, Connecticut and the New Haven Branch to Milford, Massachusetts (since upgraded for MBTA service to Forge Park/495.)

I’d exposed this photograph on black & white film using a Leica 3A rangefinder fitted with a Canon screw mount 50mm f1.8 lens. For a few months, I used the Canon lens as a replacment for my Leica 50mm f2.0 Summitar that I’d damaged.

The Canon lens was faster than the Summitar but lacked the critical sharpness of the Leica lens. As a result, this period of photography has great interest to me in regards to subject matter, but suffers from inferior technical quality than some of my earlier work.

It took a few years, but ultimately I made significant changes in the equipment that I was using that greatly improved the technical quality of my photograhy.

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CT Rail—Hartford Line Iconic View

Over the last 40 years, I’ve made many photographs along Amtrak’s former New Haven route between Springfield, Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut.

Among my favorite vantage points is this view of the Farmington River bridge in Windsor, Connecticut.

This is a tricky location for a couple reasons; the skewed angle of the bridge can make it difficult to make a level photo; trains operating on the southward track will result in cropping of the trucks/wheels owing to the relatively low position along the riverside; and without careful planning it is easy to miss the benefit of the reflection in the river water.

The CT Rail-Hartford Line began operations just over six years ago. My father and I took advantage of the ‘free rides’ offered on opening day and spent the second day of operations making photos along the line.

This view exposed was two weeks ago. It was my first photo of a CT Rail painted GENESIS 1 diesels working the line. I was delighted to get this clean push-pull set (working train 6400 from New Haven) crossing the bridge with the locomotive trailing. It makes the most of the iconic view of the bridge.

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