I caught up with Norfolk Southern’s H23 local freight at Lancaster Junction (see my earlier post), and followed it to Manheim, Pa.
I’ve visited the old Reading & Columbia station in Manheim on several occasions. This classic station is now a museum and captures the atmosphere of a typical small town railroad depot.
Knowing the train wasn’t far behind me, I set up timetable east of the station building and after a very short wait, the headlight came into view.
Although clouds resulted in dappled light, I made some satisfying images of the short freight approaching and passing Manheim.
Photos exposed digitally using a Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom.
Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of pan photos—where the camera moves along with the subject to set the background off in a see of motion-blur.
For slow moving trains, I’ve typically panned at 1/30th or 1/60th of a second, and sometimes a slow as 1/2 second.
The other day at Greenfield in Lancaster, I panned Amtrak ACS64 644 trailing on train 654 at 1/400th of a second. Since the train was accelerating to a speed of just over 100mph, even this relative short shutter speed still allowed for a successful pan.
Exposed using a Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm zoom set at 70mm, f5.0 1/400. NEF RAW file processed using DxO PureRaw to create a DNG file. This was adjusted for color, contrast and exposure in Adobe Lightroom.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been exploring the old Reading & Columbia lines that were once on the periphery of the Reading Company network.
I’ve paid several visits to Lancaster Junction, where lines to Lancaster and Columbia one diverged, but until Wednesday I’d not seen a steel wheel turn at this relatively obscure location in Lancaster county.
South of the old Junction, the line heading toward Columbia via Landisville is now a trail. While the route to Lancaster is a Norfolk Southern branch.
Shortly after I arrived on this most recent visit, I heard a whistle blast for a distant grade crossing and after a few minutes Norfolk Southern local freight H23 made an appearance. This was on its way to Manheim and Lititz, Pa. Clouds danced across the sky as I made a series of photographs
I made these images using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
On our drive last last weekend, Kris, Seamus-the-Dog and I paused at Cherryhill Road in Strasburg, to roll by an early afternoon excursion to Leaman Place, Pa.
I was traveling ‘light,’ working with my old Fuji XT1 and 16-55mm Fujinon zoom. As the train passed, Kris made a video with her iPhone from the window of our car.
I processed the Fuji RAF RAW file using DxO Pure Raw to create a DNG file for editing in Lightroom. This might seem cumbersome, but it yields excellent results.
On a morning in May 2008, I made this photo of a San Francisco Muni Breda-built light rail car taking the corner at 4th & King Streets near the Cal-Train station.
This area had only been recently redeveloped. Muni’s T-Line streetcar route to Bayshore was only a few months in service.
At the time, I found the scene fascinating and the location unrecognizable.
Since that time there have been a multitude of other changes in this area. This has included the construction and opening of the Central Subway route (that offers a continuation of the route on 4th Street) and electrification of Cal-Train’s former Southern Pacific Peninsula Line to San Jose. I can only image what this area offers now for the transit photographer!
This is another class 141. The DB electric variety.
My Irish readers are familiar with Ireland’s class 141 General Motors diesel electrics. These once common twin-cab Bo-Bos were a standard variety of motive power across the CIE/Irish Rail network for decades.
By contrast, DB’s class 141 is a mainline overhead electric locomotive are in the same family as DB’s class 110/111 and class 140 electrics. The class 141 (originally E 41) were built from the mid-1950s until 1971. More than 450 of the type once worked German rails.
I made this photo of DB’s freshly painted 141-233-7 working at the back of push-pull Regional Express train that has paused at the Mainz Hbf (main station) in August 1998. At the time these were a very common locomotive in the Frankfurt area. I photographed it only because it had come to a stop near where I was standing. I’m glad I did!
I made this image on Fujichrome Sensia 100 using my old Nikon F3T with a 24mm Nikkor lens.
Lost among my early slides was this classic image.
I’d admit that from a photographic perspective this isn’t one of my better photos. However, from an operations view point I captured a window in history.
In August of 1986, I photographed this Canadian Pacific extra freight working the yard at Brownville, Maine.
In 1986, CPR was still using the old Timetable and Train Order rules, where extra trains were required to display white flags (by day) and white class lights ( by night)—both are displayed here. Other elements of classic steam era railroading include the searchlight automatic block signals, the water tank, and track speeders (in the distance on left) for maintenance and inspection.
Spring has arrived. The grass is green and the cows are out in the fields.
The time has moved forward and the sun is up after I’m through with a day at the desk.
Friday evening, Kris, Seamus-the-dog and I went over to Gap, Pa., where we watched Amtrak roll.
In this view, Keystone 651 works west of Gap on the fill near Hoover Road.
Exposed with a Nikon Z7-II fitted with 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series zoom set at 160mm; ISO200, f5.0 1/1000th sec. NEF RAW file converted to DNG using DxO Pure Raw, adjusted with Adobe Lightroom.Cropped version to eliminate unnecessary foreground and the objectionable pole shadow at lower left. (see top view).Tight crop on Amtrak Cities Sprinter 657 that was leading Keystone Train 651. The DxO Pure Raw conversion makes the most of sharp Nikkor glass.
As an allusion to the old Monkees song, I made this series of Amtrak Keystone 657 making its evening station stop at Parkesburg, Pa.
On weekdays this is the last train of the evening to stop at the old Pennsylvania Railroad station in Parkesburg, Pa.
I made these photos with my Nikon Z6 mounted on a 3Pod tripod, the camera was set to ISO 16000. In post processing, the Nikon NEF RAW files were converted to DNG format using DxO Pure Raw and adjusted in Adobe Lightroom.
In early June 2008, I made a day trip to San Diego from Long Beach, California. This involved a drive on the infamous LA freeways and a relaxing journey on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner from Irvine to the old Santa Fe Depot.
I spent several hours exploring the San Diego Trolley system.
At the Santee Town Center, I made this view on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS-3 with 24mm lens.
I scanned the slide yesterday and processed the TIF scan using Lightroom. The top version involved some nominal contrast control to make the most of the original photo.
In the bottom image, I dramatically boosted saturation and other color controls to make the image bounce out of the screen, whack you upside the head, before quietly retreating into a mild levitation of exaggerated colors—you know just in case the red trolley wasn’t red enough on its own.
On a bright morning in June 2008, I made this view of a San Francisco MUNI Breda lightrail car working the J-Church route in-bound on its namesake street.
At the time, I was researching my book Railroads of California for Voyageur Press.
In recent days, I’ve been going through dozens of rolls of Fujichrome slides that I’d exposed during my Spring 2008 visit to California to organize and catalog them. This includes a variety of photo of San Francisco MUNI, including the light rail and cable cars.
Fujichrome slide exposed using a Canon EOS-3 with 24mm Canon lens.
Amtrak’s Valley Flyer connects Greenfield, Mass., with New Haven, Conn. by way of Springfield, Mass.
A couple of weeks ago, Kris and I rolled the train by at its Windsor, Conn., station stop.
Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I made this handheld at ISO 3200—’look ma, no 3Pod (clip)!’
This gave me enough shutterspeed to stop the arriving train.
In the lead was former Metroliner cab control car 9638.
FujiFilm RAF Raw file processed using DxO PureRaw and color corrected in Adobe Lightroom.FujiFilm RAF Raw file processed using DxO PureRaw and color corrected in Adobe Lightroom.
Yesterday on TTL, I featured Superliners and Searchlights at Sunset on the old Burlington. For today’s photo, I decided for a modern view of an ACS-64 passing a Color Position Light on the former Pennsylvania Railroad along Jefferson Drive at Greenfield in Lancaster, Pa.
More than 30 years separated the two images.
To make the most of the modern image, I processed the Nikon NEF RAW file using DxO PureRaw, converting it to a DNG format which I then edited for color, contrast and exposure in Adobe LightRoom. This digital processing allowed me to make the most of image, including the brilliant green lights in the signal.
My only regret with the modern photo is that I wish I’d released the shutter a split second sooner so that the front of the locomotive didn’t intersect with the signal post. Small complaint. I’ll go back an try again!
I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide on February 25, 1995 at Highlands, Illinois, on the famous Burlington triple-track raceway.
Amtrak No. 6, the eastward California Zephyr, was on its final lap to reach Chicago Union Station.
I was working with my old Nikon F3T fitted with an f4.0 200mm lens. The secret to this photo was my notebook, which I used as a lens shade to control flare, thus making the glint effect more dramatic.
Another key element of the image was my choice of focus, which I set on the signal bridge, which is the secondary subject and a important part of the composition.
I scanned the slide using a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner.
There are many ‘Gaps’ in Pennsylvania but only Gap, Pa.
I’ll let historians argue about the details, but what’s important to me is that Gap offers an excellent place to photograph Amtrak.
Last week, fellow photographer Dan Cupper, advised me that Amtrak P42 108 (painted in an unusual 50thAnniversary heritage livery) was expected to work Train 42, the eastward Pennsylvanian.
My first plan was to catch both westward and eastward Pennsylvanians at Christiana, where I can picture the trains passing the classic Pennsylvania Railroad station building.
This plan was partially foiled when I arrived to find that my planned photo of Train 42 wasn’t possible because of some vehicles parked near the right of way. Complicating matters was that Train 43 was close, but running a few minutes late. (See TTL post from March 14). My quandary was that if I waited too long for 43, then I might not have time to relocate to catch 42 at another location.
Thankfully, 43 rolled through Christiana in time, and I relocated posthaste to Gap. I made it with minutes to spare, and mounted my Nikon Z7-II on a tripod and frame up a view with my 70-200mm lens.
I was about to check the tracker when I saw 42 in the distance.
Soon I was on my to get a coffee and head home.
Tracking the Light discusses rail photographic process daily!
The other day at Port Clinton, Pa., I made the most of back-lit midday light. By working in the various elements of the scene, I created a composition that seems pleasing to the eye. Instead of cursing the high sun, I’m featuring it.
To make the photo work, I intentionally underexposed the RAW file with the intent of lightening shadows and controling highlights during post processing
Below I’ve included both a scaled (un-edited) image, and the post processed version of the same file.
Post processing was performed on the NEF RAW using Adobe Lightroom.
This version is prior to post processing edits. Compare this version with my adjust version below.Post processed version. Exposed using a Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera with 24-70mm zoom.
A northward CT Rail Hartford Line commuter train was due at Windsor, Connecticut.
This old New Haven Railroad station has been transformed since I first made photos here in the mid-1980s.
The old passenger and freight station buildings survive, while the old low level platforms have been replaced by he modern hi-level variety. The line had been converted from directional double track to largely single track CTC in the early 1990s, while in recent years the second track has been restored at the station.
I made this trailing view of a 1993-vintage former Amtrak Genesis P40 diesel as the CT Rail train accelerated toward Springfield, Massachusetts.
Exposed using a FujiFlim XT1 with 16-55mm Fujinon zoom. ISO 6400, 1/125th sec at f2.8. File converted using DxO PureRaw and modified for color balance and color temperature, contrast, and exposure using Adobe Lightroom.
Amtrak’s daily westward Pennsylvanian, Train 43,was running slightly behind the advertised. This was a bonus train, as I was more interested in catching its eastward counterpart, Train 42, which featured P42 108 specially dressed for Amtrak’s 50th Anniversary.
I was relieved when Train 43 came into view, and I exposed a series of photos as it passed the old PRR station at Christiana, Pa. Old 43’s tail lights were barely past me, when I headed for the car to drive against 42, which was already out of Lancaster and racing in my direction.
Last week, evening light at Canaan, Connecticut made for some colorful photos of the assorted EMD diesels at the Housatonic Railroad shops south of town.
Lurking among the GP35s, GP15-1s, and other myriad products of Electro-Motive Division’s LaGrange, Illinois plant was a lone RS-3M, a locomotive with the body of an old Alco and the heart of an EMD.
I exposed these images digitally using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
The former Erie Railroad between Hornell and Buffalo, New York, is operated at Norfolk Southern’s Southern Tier route. At West Middlebury, New York the line runs parallel to the Dale Road (named for the nearby town).
This CP Rail mixed freight carried NS train symbol 39T. It was working railroad timetable-west toward Buffalo. The timetable and compass do not correspond at West Middlebury; because the track curves to reach Attica, New York, this westward freight is running in a north-easterly direction, which allows for nice morning sun of the front of CP Rail’s GE AC4400CW 9551.
CP Rail’s operation over the former Erie was a legacy of Delaware & Hudson’s trackage rights on Conrail to Buffalo that dated to Conrail’s start-up in 1976.
CP Rail’s westward 39T rolls along the former Erie Railroad parallel to the Dale Road in West Middlebury, New York on May 11, 2007
I exposed this view on Fujichrome slide film using a Canon EOS-3 with 200mm Canon telephoto.
During our forays along the old Pennsylvania Railroad, I sometimes like to imagine what it would have been like to witness the passing of the railroad’s great electrics.
Although I never saw them pass Gap, I remember seeing the GG1s, and to a limited extent, PRR’s E44s on other portions of the electrified system.
My father made photos of PRR’s P5 boxcabs, streamlined ‘P5A modified’ electrics, among the more obscure types that worked under wire more than a half century ago.
Last week as the late winter glow colored the evening sky in Christiana, Pa., I looked to the west as headlights illuminate the rails. As the train approached, I was expecting one of Amtrak’s ACS-64 electrics to pass me in a flash, but wondered what it would have been like to see a pair of the P5/P5A electrics pass with a freight. That really would have been cool.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom. Files exposed in NEF RAW format, converted to PNG format using DxO PureRaw, and adjusted for final presentation with Adobe Lightroom.
The railroad-highway grade crossing protected by flashing crossing lights and crossbucks is a North American institution.
While photos of trains at grade crossing are commonplace, photos that depict the crossing equipment in context with the road and railroad are not.
Last week, Kris and I waited at Marian Avenue on the Reading & Northern’s former Central Railroad of New Jersey Line east of Haucks, Pa., for a passenger extra that we had seen departing the station in Tamaqua.
This was our first visit to this grade crossing, and I wanted to capture the train and the grade crossing signaling equipment.
I set up on a small embankment southeast of the crossing and made a sequence of photographs of the approaching train. In addition to the passenger special, I included the road, crossing signals, relay and battery boxes, as well as the electrical feed wires and poles. All of this equipment is key to the scene.
Exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom lens. This is probably the best photo of the sequence in terms of its ability to convey the grade crossing and the equipment protecting it.
Friday, Kris and I paid a visit to the Reading & Northern at Port Clinton, Pa.
I made this view of restored heavy weight open-end observation car 30 Glen Onoko Falls. This resides beneath the replica of a Reading train shed patterned after the shed that once stood on the Reading at Columbia, Pa.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-Series lens.
Shortly before sunset on a frosty January evening in 1999, I exposed this Fujichrome slide of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad mainline in Batavia, New York.
Most of the Lehigh Valley mainline across western New York was abandoned following the creation of Conrail on April 1, 1976.
This isolated segment survived to serve local customers, and at the time of this image it was being operated by Genesee Valley Transportation.
Conrail itself only had a few months remaining of independant operation before its class-I operations were split between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
We pulled over on Hoover Road near Gap, Pa., and I walked into position to catch the westward train in the golden light of late winter evening.
Gazing to the east, I spotted the blue-white headlights of ACS-64 632 as it took the curves at Gap (east of my location) where I’ve often exposed photos of Amtrak trains over the years.
As I exposed this sequence, the engineer gave a us a friendly ‘toot’ from the head end.
An eastward Amtrak Keystone paused briefly on the platform at Parkesburg, Pennsylvania for its scheduled station stop. I was poised in position with my Nikon Z7-II and f2.8 70-200mm lens mounted on a 3Pod tripod.
The tripod’s ball head and the camera’s built-in level made it comparatively easy to set up.
Working with the a 2-second self-timer, I was able to minimize vibration as the result of pressing the shutter release.
I exposed using the NEF RAW format, then converted the file to PNG format using DXO PureRaw, and made corrections to color, contrast and exposure in Adobe Lightroom.
Over the years, my friends and I would visit the Boston&Maine/Guilford/Pan Am Southern East Deerfield Yard to make photos and get the lay of the land.
Depending on what was on the move, we might follow a freight north or south, east or west. For me the best chases were chasing an interesting westbound.
If we found a westbound with an interesting consist, we might just take it all the way to Mechanicville, New York, where the Boston & Maine crossed the Hudson River on an impressive multiple-span double-track deck truss.
February 13, 2005 was one of those days. Pat Yough and I picked up an EDRJ (East Deerfield to Rotterdam Junction, NY) and pursued it west, making a variety of photos along the way.
This train was led by a GP40 and former Norfolk & Western high-hood GP35 215. (This was a sister engine to Conway Scenic Railroad’s 216 that has often featured on Tracking the Light).
Fujichrome slide scanned using a Nikon LS5000 scanner powered by VueScan 9.8.45 software. Color corrections and leveling performed with Adobe Lightroom.
At the Hudson River Bridge, I made this photograph on Fujichrome Velvia100F (RVP100F) slide film using a Nikon F3 with Nikkor f2.8 180mm prime telephoto.
We continued west, follow this freight on secondary roads all the way to its westward terminus.
As the days grow longer, Kris and I have resumed our evening forays to roll by Amtrak’s Keystone trains in the fading sun.
The other day we arrived at Christiana as the sun was reaching the horizon. I’d been watching the progress of Amtrak Keystone 654 and picked out a location just east of the old Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station where a wink of sunlight illuminated the tracks.
I’d calculated that the train was less than three minutes away. While I was wondering if it would arrive before the light faded the rails began to sing.
Poised with Nikon Z6 in hand, I composed my image as the blue-white headlights of ACS-64 650 came into view and this is what I caught.
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series zoom (set to 26mm). Image at exposed at 400 ISO, f4.0 1/600, and saved as an NEF RAW file. In post-processing the Image file was converted with DxO Pure Raw into a DNG file and then adjusted using Adobe Lightroom to make the most of highlight and shadows, while adjusting color balance and color temperature.
My first Railroad Photography 101 class held at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania proved to be a success.
We had limited the number of participants to a small, but manageable number.
I started with a 25 minute overview of photography, offering photo tips and discussion of locomotive portraits and other subject matter, before delving into details on lighting, composition and technique. Then the participants were given an hour to wander around the museum to make photographs of their own. I had pre-arranged for some of the safety barriers to be temporarily removed to allow for unobstructed views of key locomotives.
At the end, I told a few anecdotal stories and answered questions.
My hope is that everyone learned something helpful and useful to advance their own photography.
The old Reading truss bridge is long abandoned, while the former Lackawanna plate girder bridge is now used by the North Shore Railroad short line.
Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I exposed this view as a RAF (RAW) image. Below are four variations of the same file that aim to show steps toward achieving a final image.
First I converted the RAF file into DNG format using Iridient X-Transformer. Then I made some nominal corrections with Lightroom.
Out of curiousity, I then returned to the original RAF file and converted it DNG using DxO PureRaw, a program with which I’ve been experiementing recently.
Note: in this excercise I made two distinct conversions from the RAF (RAW) image to the DNG format using the two different conversion programs. I did not re-convert the already converted image.
Working with the PureRaw DNG in Lightroom, I found that this conversion gave me much greater latitude to improve detail and color in the sky. While the sky appears nearly white in the unadjusted files, using the highlights slider in Lightroom I was able to draw in considerable detail.
Overall, I found that the PureRaw-created DNG file was easier to adjust in Lightroom and allowed me to create a better end-result.
I plan to continue these experiments.
Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment.Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled following adjustments to shadow-areas, highlights and color balance. Note the sky.PureRaw created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment. This software corrected for a variety of lens defects among other transformations.PureRaw created DNG file, scaled following significant cosmetic adjustment, including nominal cropping. Notice the differences in the sky detail compared with the other variations.
There was a cotton candy sky hanging over Strasburg.
I thought this offered an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of exposing using RAW, then converting the file using DxO Pure Raw softwar and importing the converted file into Lightroom for adjustment.
Below are three versions of the same image exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 28-70mm lens
The first image is the in-camera Jpg (scaled without adjustment). The second is the NEF RAW file after conversion to PNG format using Pure Raw. The last is end result following adjustment in Lightroom.
In camera JPG without adjustment.NEF file converted using PureRaw to correct for lens defects, reduce pixelization etc.PNG file following adjustments in Lightroom to make better use of shadow and highlight detail, adjust contrast and color balance, etc.
