As follow-up to my posts last Monday and Thursday, I’ve posted a photo that reveals the identity of my mystery railroad. (see: https://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/second-clue/)
This photo was exposed at Belfast, Maine on a warm morning in August 1980. It was the beginning of a memorable railroad journey with my father over the length of an iconic New England short line.
Congratulations to everyone who guessed correctly!
Tracking the Light Explores Photography Daily!
Soft sunday-afternoon over-the-shoulder sun; classic railroad station and trackside village; plus gently sweeping curve; and a locomotive-hauled train of vintage Amfleet cars. Am I mistaken, but aren’t these the elements for a perfect railroad photo?
Pity the engine wasn’t clean. Unfortunately, the conditions of late winter lead to a thin film of grime and mud gently coating just about everything on the railroad that moves.
Tracking the Light Explores Railroad photography!
My ‘Guess the Railroad’ post from Monday must have been too difficult.
Here’s another photo from the same roll on the same day.
Bonus point if you can name the river.
The year was 1980. I remember it as if it were yesterday.
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I recently downloaded DxO’s FilmPack8. Over the last few weeks I’d been experimenting with the older FilmPack-7 and I wanted to sample the latest offering to see what I can do with it.
My approach is not scientific, but rather a trip into the past.
I’ve been scanning my father’s black & white negatives and I came across a roll of 35mm Kodak Plus-X that he exposed in 1963. Many of these photos were made around Bird-in-Hand and Paradise, Pennsylvania, near where Kris and I now live.
Some of the photos depicted Pennsylvania Railroad GG1s near Irishtown Road in Bird-in-Hand (I’m saving those for a later post), others show Strasburg Rail Road’s excursions in its early days.
He has some interesting photos made with a Leica M and a telephoto lens.
Saturday, Kris, Seamus-the-Dog and I were driving around, and I decided to emulate some of my father’s images of the Strasburg Rail Road using my Nikon Z7-II digital camera. Then I converted one of the images using DxO FilmPack-8 with the Kodak Tri-X plug in.
Although exposed in the same general vicinity as my father’s image from 63 years ago, it is not in precisely the same place. I was aiming to re-capture the spirit of the earlier image, but not recreate it.
I thought they make a neat comparison.
DxO is offering a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO PureRaw, FilmPack 8 or other DxO programs, the discount code “TRACKINGTHELIGHT” will work for 15% off for any new customer at shop.dxo.com.
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Let’s have some fun with photography:
It was a rainy evening at Bird-in-Hand. Amtrak Keystone 649 was approaching on the former Pennsyvlania Railroad and I made a series of digital photographs with my Nikon Z6-III.
I kept my f-stop at the widest opening, which allowed me a 1/500 shutter speed at ISO 16000. The streetlight behind the building at right supplied necessary light to better illuminate the front of the cab car.
In post processing, I used DxO PureRaw8 to transform my Nikon NEF RAW file into DNG format. This minimized noise from the high ISO setting and eliminated lens defects.
Then, I made some very nominal adjustments to the DNG file in Adobe Lightroom and imported the DNG file into DxO Filmpack 7 and converted the digital color photo to black and white images using the Fuji Neopan 400, Ilford FP-4 Plus and HP-5 Plus profiles for comparison.
For the fun of it, I’ve included an actual Kodak Plus X black & white image exposed at dusk on December 23, 1988, and scanned digitally using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner. This photo was part of a sequence that I made at Newark Penn Station in Newark, NJ. The lighting conditions were similar to those at Bird-in-Hand, but in the 1980s with I had been limited by the film’s 125 ISO.
I’m in the process of upgrading to DxO Filmpack 8, and recently upgraded from DxO PureRaw4 to PureRaw5. The DxO and Adobe software have proved very useful tools for processing my digital images.
DxO is offering a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO PureRaw, Film Pack 7 or other DxO programs, the discount code “TRACKINGTHELIGHT” will work for 15% off for any new customer at shop.dxo.com.
Tracking the Light Explores Digital Processing!
I was a teenager when I traveled on a freight over this lightly built track.
From the rear platform of the caboose, I aimed my Leica 3A back along the line to make this black & white photo on Kodak Tri-X.
Can you guess the railroad?
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Here’s another black & white photo from the lost image file.
On December 2, 1984, my friends and I visited Worcester, Massachusetts. I exposed this trailing view of Conrail’s SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester) leading its train through the crossovers from eastward to westward main trains, and taking the switch that led down the long ramp to P&W’s yard off Southbridge Street.
On this day, no less than six General Electric B23-7s had led SEPW east from West Springfield to Worcester. At Worcester, these had run around the train (with the caboose remaining at the westend).
Back in those days, my photography was very much hit and miss. I was working with a Leica 3A that was loaded with Kodak Tri-X. This wasn’t my original camera, but rather one borrowed from my father.
Exposed hundreds of rolls of film with those antque Leicas. I scanned this image last week.
Conrail’s 50th anniversary will occur this April 1st.
Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography Daily!
In the summer of 1980, my brother and I were traveling by train from Rye, New York to Hartford, Connecticut.
We were riding behind E60 957 in a Budd-built Amtrak Amfleet-1.
I made this view with my Leica 3A on Kodak Plus-X, as we came into the restrictive curve on approach to the station at Bridgeport.
The E60s are long gone, as is Kodak Plus-X. But, I have the old Leica on my shelf as a display-piece, and the Amfleet-1 cars are still rolling—yet replacements are on the way.
Tracking the Light Gazes Back Through Time . . .
On the morning of July 30, 1987, I awoke to the sounds of 20-cylinder 645-diesels roaring up the grade toward Gallitzin, Pa. at the back of Conrail freights.
The day dawned clear and bright. Amtrak train No. 40 (Chicago-New York Broadway Limited) was running a few hours behind the advertised. I set up looking upgrade toward Allegheny Summit.
Working with my father’s Rolleiflex Model T set up with a 645-sized ‘Super Slide’ rectangular insert and loaded with Kodak 120 TMY (T-Max 400), I made this image of the Broadway descending the grade at Bennington Curve (several miles from its more famous cousin).
I felt that Kodak TMY was a difficult film. This used a fine T-grain structure but was very challenging to process. I only worked with this emulsion for about two years, because I found the photos were difficult to print.
By contrast, TMY seems to scan well. I scanned the 39-year old negative using an Epson V600 scanner and then imported the TIF scan into Lightroom for nominal adjustment digitally. I wish it had been this easy back in 1987!
Tracking the Light Explores Photography Daily!
The top photo was exposed on Kodak Tri-X on the morning of April 12, 1984. I had been aware of Canadian National M420s working the northward freight from New London, and so spent the morning photographing these unusual diesels, when I was expected to be at Monson Jr-Sr High School.
The bottom photo was made last October at almost the same location with a Nikon Z-digital camera. The locomotives at right are former Canadian National GP40-2Ls.
Tracking the Light aims to activate the Time Machine.
December 9, 1984: I photographed an eastward freight on Guilford’s Boston & Maine at Cheapside in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
It had been almost 25 years since the Erie Railroad merged with the Delaware, Lackwanna & Western, and more than nine years since Erie Lackawanna’s operations were melded into Conrail.
I was astonished to see this 50ft boxcar built in 1956 rolling along, complete with catwalks, still lettered for the old Erie! This antique seemed improbable even then, and I’m sure there a story behind this car.
These photos were exposed on Ilford FP4 black & white film and processed in Kodak D-76. I scanned the negatives last week.
For an aesthetic comparion, I’m also including a photo I made last month of a Conrail hopper rolling though Peachbottom, PA., more than 26 years after Conrail’s operations were divided between CSX and Norfolk Southern. I exposed this view digitally and converted the image to black & white using DxO FilmPack7 software which gives me an Ilford FP4 profile. The purpose of this is allow the modern digital image to resemble my efforts from the mid-1980s.
DxO has offered a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO Film Pack 7 or other DxO programs, the discount code “TRACKINGTHELIGHT” will work for 15% off for any new customer at shop.dxo.com.
Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography Daily!
I made this night photo of the old Palmer Union Station in Palmer, Massachusetts in March 1985. This was twenty years before the classic H.H. Richardson designed structure was reincarnated and rebuilt as the Steaming Tender restaurant.
Back in those days the old station building served as Bruno’s Billiards. The canopies on the Boston & Albany side of the station still remained as a vestige of the days when passenger trains paused here.
With my Leica 3A mounted on my father’s Linhof tripod, I made one long time exposure on Ilford FP4. This was a prelude to the many night photos I’ve made in Palmer over the subsequent four decades.
The other day, I scanned the negative using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and made cosmetic adjustments using Adobe Lightroom.
Tracking the Light explores railroad night photography!
Persistence. Patience. Planning. (And an understanding wife!)
For more than two years, I’ve been trying to photograph an eastward train on the Port Road Secondary from the Enola Low Grade Trail at Safe Harbor.
I’ve made at least 30 visits to Safe Harbor. I’ve climbed the steps to the trail no less than a dozen times.
While I’ve caught a westward train from a perch on the old Low Grade; and I’ve made a nocturnal sequence of a coal train from below the Low Grade trestle, my vision of catching a eastward train had from the bridge had thus far remained elusive.
My friend Dan Cupper had shown me his version of a Norfolk Southern train here, and in scouring the archives at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania I found Kodachrome views of PRR electrics by the late James P. Schuman, which inspired my persistence.
My-wife-Kris, Seamus-the-Dog, and I live just 15 minutes from the bridge.
The other evening, Kris and I were on our evening drive. My thoughts of exploring Marietta were foiled by a serious automobile accident at the intersection of PA Routes 772 and 441 that detoured us eastward. So instead we drove to Columbia, and continued on toward Washington Boro, as we have done countless times in darkness.
At Washington Boro the signals displayed ‘clear’ for an eastward movement. There was still an hour’s daylight in the sky.
“This is my best shot at Safe Harbor.”
Patience paid off.
Tracking the Light makes its own Luck!
My post on February 9th, featuring a Reading & Northern Budd RDC, inspired me to located similar views that I made on black & film of Amtrak RDCs on the Springfield-Hartford-New Haven route.
Among the photos I found among my old negative were these views at Springfield Union Station (Massachusetts) of Amtrak’s RDC-2s 34 and 36 idling between runs on February 15, 1985.
Working with a Leica 3A rangefinder, I’d made these photos on Ilford FP4. I processsed the film in Kodak D-76, and then filed the negatives away.
At the time, there was nothing remarkble about this scene. Today, the photos make for a trip down memory lane. Years after I made this photo, a former boss advised me; “When you look around you can see the flowers or the garbage, it is your choice.” In these photos, I see RDCs in what had been a favorite place to make railroad photographs.
Tracking the Light Explores Photograph Daily!
The cold evening air was thick with particulates which made for a rosy red sunset.
Kris, Seamus & I drove west toward Safe Harbor, since I thought there might be some opporunties to silhouette the former Pennsylvania Railroad trestles against the raspberry sky. On the way we passed some deer by the side of the road.
I was in luck and the sky was lit with shades of magenta and violet when we arrived. To make the most of the light, I set my white balance to ‘daylight’ rather than ‘auto’, since the latter has the tendency to neutralize the reddish tones of sunset, which would have countered the effect I was trying to capture.
In addition to a selection of digital photos, I also exposed a few Ektachrome slides.
I kept wondering what it would have been like to catch a pair of PRR P5 electrics grinding across the bridge in silhouette with a heavy freight. Perhaps, someone, somewhere had the same idea as me, but back in the day when P5s ruled the line!
Tracking the Light chases Sunsets!
Summer of 1983: I made this trailing view of Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited on the old Boston & Albany at West Warren, Mass.
I had an eye, but hadn’t yet refined technical skills to make my vision work.
My exposure was off; I failed to control flare from the evening sun; and my film processing was imperfect, which resulted in comparatively dense, yet oddly flat negatives that were difficult to print.
For 43 years this photo languished in darkness. The other day I found it in an envelope and scanned it. Working with Lightroom, I was finally able to present digitally what I was incapable of doing with traditional chemical materials. Below are both the straight (unmodified) scan and my digitally processed interpretation of the same.
The end result places me in a dream trackside again, when Amtrak ran with a lone F40PH and classic Budd-built streamlined cars, and I wasn’t yet 17. I can hear the clack of steel wheels on jointed rail and fading roar of the locomotive as the train raced down the Quaboag Valley toward Palmer and beyond.
Tracking the Light Looks Back in Time . . .
Kris and I had been following the Susquehanna down river. By the time we reached Port Deposit, Maryland the blue glow of an icy dusk had settled on the river valley.
No luck catching a freight on the move on the Port Road Secondary this evening, but the rich light led to a few choice photographs.
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For my 11th birthday in October 1977, my father presented me with a Leica 3A rangefinder. Two months later, we were visiting my grand parents in New York City, and we took a trip over to Queens to photograph trains.
Among the places that we stopped was at Woodside Avenue, where I made a sequence of 35mm photos with the Leica of passing Long Island Railroad third-rail multiple units on the six-track line running toward Penn Station. We are looking toward the New York City Transit Authority’s Flushing Line.
I processed this roll of Kodak Tri-X in our kitchen sink using a mix of Kodak Microdol-X developer.
In 1980, I used a version of this photo to help illustrate my Junior High Science Fair project titled Electrified Railroads in the United States, which earned me second place in the competition. Since that time, this strip of negatives had sat in the dark in a group of my early negatives. I scanned it last week and imported the hi-res scan into Adobe Lightroom for cropping and contrast adjustment.
Considering, I was only 11 years old, I think I made a pretty effective composition.
Tracking the Light looks back!
Kris and I paused at Tamaqua, Pa., where I made a few photo of Reading & Northern’s locomotive parked in the snow covered yard.
Bright sun made for some extreme contrast between light and dark.
All photos displayed here were exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series zoom lens. In addition, I made a few Ektachrome slides for future consideration.
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DxO Film Pack7 is a program that enables the import and conversion of digital files to simulate the appearance of images made with traditional film emulsions.
I began dabbling with this tool the other day, which led me to look back over one of my 40 year-old photo albums, examining the aesthetics of my traditional images.
In the mid-1980s, I routinely worked with Kodak and Ilford B&W films and made 3.5 x 5 inch ‘proof-prints’ from my negatives by cutting 5×7 inch paper stock in half.
Here, I’ve scanned one of my original 3.5 x 5 inch prints, and for comparision also converted a digital file exposed last week (February 1, 2026), using DxO Film Pack7 software to simulate Kodak Tri-X and Ilford HP5.
The purpose of this exercise is purely about appearance and nostalgia. Although I’ve selected a retro subject (an old Budd RDC), the intent is to compare the aesthetic qualities of the the simulated black & white with my actual vintage black & white.
I wonder if the Nikon Z6 digital camera had been available to me in 1985, would I have chosen this camera over my stalwart Leica 3A loaded with hand-rolled Kodak Tri-X?
DxO has offered a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO Film Pack 7 or other DxO programs, the discount code “TRACKINGTHELIGHT” will work for 15% off for any new customer at shop.dxo.com.
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I conducted my first evening class at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania on Wednesday February 4th. My goal was to impart low-light photography techniques that would enable students to make better nocturnal railway images.
After my presentation, the museum’s main hall was open to students to make photographs. Museum Director Pat Morrison and I had set up some portable lights on several locomotives to provide a change of scene.
In an effort to capture the spirit of the event, I made these images using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens positioned on a 3Pod tripod.
My next class at the museum is scheduled for the morning of March 10, 2026.
Tracking the Light posts every day!
The thrill of the unknown is part of of the experience.
I spotted the signal at Washington Boro, Pa., displaying ‘Approach Medium’ (Yellow over Green), so I knew an eastward train was lined up.
At 7:20pm, I began to hear a distant rumble of a loaded train rolling down the Susquehanna Valley. The sound ebbed and flowed and thirty-five minutes later the headlights came into view.
A single GE Evolution-series diesel-electric was leading symbol freight 38V consisting of a trainload of new tractors.
I made this series of photos using my Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens.
The files were converted to DNG format with PureRaw, which also minimized noise, improved contrast and eliminated some lens imperfections. For final presentation, I cleaned up color casts and adjusted contrast in Lightroom.
Tracking the Light explores rail night photography!
Sixteen years ago, photographers Pat Yough, Chris Guss and I spent the afternoon following Western New York & Pennsyvania’s Driftwood Turn on the former Pennsylvania Railroad line over Keating Summit.
On the return run from North Driftwood, Pa., I made this long telephoto view of the Alco-MLW powered freight passing PRR position light signals.
At the time I was working with a Canon EOS-3 fitted with a 100-400mm Canon zoom and loaded with Fujichrome Provia 100F.
Tracking the Light Looks Back!
I had a few minutes on Tuesday night. Amtrak Keystone 649 was running behind the advertised, while eastward Keystone 656 was less that 20 minutes away.
Icy snow covered the ground, limiting where I could safely park, so I pulled into Bird-in-Hand, Pa. Here, I set up my 3Pod Tripod with Nikon Z6-III, and thenas the two trains passed just a couple of minutes apart, I exposed this series of high ISO photos.
These photos made for an ideal addition to my class on Railroad Night Photography, held last night at the Railroad Museum of PA.
In addition to my short slide show, the museum was open to students who were free to wander the exhibits and make images in comparative darkness.
Tracking the Light Explores Nocturnal Rail Photography!
My post ‘I’m Uncertain about this One . . .‘ (from Sunday, February 1), resulted in considerable feedback! Several readers wrote to me with cropping suggestions that improved the overall appearance of the image. (Thank you!).
Below is another view from Rattenburg, exposed a few minutes earlier on the same evening (12 January 2007). This is a long time exposure looking back toward my vantage point (by the lamp to the left of the tracks) from Sunday’s post. In this photo, I like the effect of the train streaking into the tunnel at Rattenberg, Austria.
My shutter was opened for about 30 seconds to allow the train lights to streak. The headlight streak was the result of a locomotive at the rear of the train. The unusually long exposure allow the sky to fill in a bit, despite the winter darkness.
Just a reminder:
This evening (Wednesday, Feb 4, 2026) is my next class at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and details night photography techniques. This will be held at the museum in Strasburg, Pa., from 5 pm to 7 pm EST). See: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/night-photography-at-the-museum-with-brian-solomon-tickets-1980583252825?aff=erelexpmlt
Tracking the Light Examines Night Photography!
In early February 1979, my father drove my brother and me to Palmer, Massachusetts. A visit to the old Palmer Union Station alerted us to a train working in the old Boston & Albany yard to the east.
I encouraged Pop to drive us over to the old B&A freight house, which was adjacent to Haley’s Grain Store. Here we found a former Penn Central SW1500 and a freshly painted Conrail caboose. This was the local which had just finished up its switching and would soon head west to the yard at West Springfield.
My pre-war Leica 3A was loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 200, and during the course of our adventure, I exposed several slides.
I was in 7th grade at the time, and my photography skills were marginal. What I find remarkable is that my slides survived all these years. I recently found them mixed in a collection of my father’s slides and recognized them as my own.
Working with Adobe Lightroom, I made a variety of adjustments to the photos to improve their mediocre qualities and make them more interesting to look at.
Conrail was then in its infancy and would survive for another 20 years as a class I carrier serving Palmer.
Tracking the Light Looks Back!
Urban artificial light offers endless opportunities for railroad night photos, but working successfully with man-made light sources comes with challenges.
I admit, I’m drawn to artificial light like a wayward moth.
I see the ghastly glow of street lights as a way to make interesting rail-images.
Digital photography makes working with artificial light much easier than it was with slide film. Automatic white balance settings enable accurate color control without requiring a color temperature meter and filter packs. In-camera exposure histograms and instantaneous results allows us to set and check exposures on-site. Digital processing allow for noise reduction, contrast control, and the ability to adjust highlights and shadows to maximize detail and manipulate ‘mood’.
In January 2014, I made this photograph looking down on Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station locomotive storage tracks. To keep my Lumix LX3 steady, I positioned the camera on small pocket tripod that I carried in my camera bag just for such occasions. I used the camera’s self-timer to minimize vibration.
The other day, I located the original RW2 RAW file on a backup hard drive and converted the image to an DNG file using PureRaw, a program that I’ve been using to improve my night photos. The details of this improved interpretation are subtle, some of which is lost in presentation here owing to image compression imposed by the Word Press hosting site.
In addition to PureRaw contrast improvement and lens defect reduction, I made a some changes to contrast, exposure, and level using Adobe Lightroom.
My next class at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania covers night photography techniques. This will be held at the museum in Strasburg, Pa., on Wednesday, Feb 4 from 5 pm to 7 pm EST. See: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/night-photography-at-the-museum-with-brian-solomon-tickets-1980583252825?aff=erelexpmlt
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Here’s a nocturnal view from January 12, 2007, that I exposed in Rattenberg, Austria on Fujichrome slide film .
At the time, I was aiming to portray the ÖBB local passenger train in its environment and made several very similar color slides.
My feeling today is that I included too much ‘environment,’ and that the train is too small in the frame.
While I won’t throw this slide in the bin, the composition vexes me.
Sometimes the best lesson is a careful impartial examination of an imperfect photograph.
My next class at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania covers night photography techniques. This will be held at the museum in Strasburg, Pa., on Wednesday, Feb 4 from 5 pm to 7 pm EST. See: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/night-photography-at-the-museum-with-brian-solomon-tickets-1980583252825?aff=erelexpmlt
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
