Author of more than 50 books on railways, photography, and Ireland. Brian divides his time between the United States and Ireland, and frequently travels across Europe and North America.
Among the many railroad themed attractions in Strasburg Pa., is the National Toy Train Museum. (https://www.tcatrains.org/museum/)
I love antique toy trains, so on a cloudy Saturday a few weeks ago, Kris and I paid a visit. This is a neat place and if I’d been fifty years younger, I wouldn’t have willing left!
What I find fascinating is the wide selection of railroad equipment that toy train manufacturers have focused on over the years.
On display is everything from early electric locomotives, and Union Pacific’s Pullman-built diesel streamliners of the 1930s, right up to relatively modern machines including Amtrak’s Genesis diesels.
The sun clung to the western horizon as Strasburg Rail Road 475 worked the short grade at Carpenters.
Rich red-orange light glinted off the passing train as skeletal trees stood by as stark reminders of summer seasons past.
Today, it’s hard to go wrong when making photographs at sunset, a task made is easier with digital cameras that allow you to adjust sensor sensitivity with the spin of a dial.
Low light photography posed greater challenges in my Kodachrome days.
A dull winter sky prevailed at Limerick Junction, Co. Tipperary on 13 January 2006. Paused at platform 1 was Irish Rail 210 on a Cork-bound set of MarkIII carriages. A sister 201-class sat with a new MarkIV set in the sidings. The Mark IV was the vision of the future.
As far as I was concerned all of this action was a sideshow to what turned out to be Irish Rail’s final sugarbeet campaign. In truth, I was waiting for NIR 112 to run around its train to complete the laden beet run from Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford to Mallow, Co. Cork.
The end of the sugarbeet was just weeks away, but that is a slide for another day . . .
Fujichrome exposed using a Nikon F3 with 180mm Nikon lens. My shutter speed was 1/60th of a second. It really was pretty dull.
Rich evening sunlight made for extraordinary conditions to photograph Strasburg Rail Road’s steam locomotives at work on its popular Santa’s Paradise Express trains.
Kris and I timed our arrival at Cherry Hill Road to neatly coincide the scheduled meet between trains on the siding at Groffs.
Although there was no snow, the show of steam and smoke was a testimony to classic seasonal railroading at its finest.
Working with digital cameras allowed me to adjust the ISO setting as required to make the most of the passing trains.
The next schedule sequence was even more rewarding, with an even more impressive show as the sun scraped the horizon. . . stay tuned!
New England Central 4067 idled under sodium lights at Palmer, Massachusetts. This was my first opportunity to capture images of this relative newcomer to Genesee & Wyoming’s New England Central operations.
I made these photos handheld at 4000 ISO and 12,800 ISO, respectively.
The former is adequately sharp with nominal pixelization. The later is excessively pixelated, but is better than no photo at all.
NECR GE Dash8-40CW at Palmer, Massachusetts; Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens at 4000 ISO.NECR GE Dash8-40CW at Palmer, Massachusetts; Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens at 12,800 ISO.
Autumn leaves cover the tracks, reminding me of the season past. Before me rests a mass of steel supported by two dozen wheels where is placed to greet visitors to Scranton’s Steamtown.
This machine is an example of the famous Big Boy; an enormous locomotive built by Alco for Union Pacific to singly ascend Utah’s Wasatch range with a solid train of perishable traffic in tow.
Between 2013 and 2019, sister locomotive 4014 was famously restored to service by Union Pacific. Meanwhile, old 4012’s boiler has sat silent for more than 65 years.
How can I capture the majesty of this silent giant without feeling pang of sadness; nostalgia for a time I never knew?
The maze of trackage in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area has always fascinated me.
No less than eight railroads once built into this anthracite rich region. While coal ceased to be a primary source of revenue decades ago, numerous lines remain as a legacy of this once intensive railroad traffic.
Kris and I followed Reading & Northern’s Pittston-Jim Thorpe excursion. Not far from Pittston, I pulled over at the location known as ‘Bloom’ where tracks remain on two levels, and here I exposed this series of photographs.
I can only wonder what this place may have looked like in decades gone by. I was delighted that only minutes passed from the moment of my ‘discovery’ until the passage of this train. ‘King Coal’ is Reading & Northern’s round-end observation car on the tail end of the excursion.
On the evening of October 28, 2024, I paused in the car park at the Strasburg Rail Road to make a few test photos with my Nikon.
J-Tower was lit for Halloween.
Earlier in the evening while attempting some long time exposures, I’d accidentally set my Nikon Z7-II in a ‘mode’ and my results were something other than what I’d expected.
A bit of systematic fiddling with the camera restored the settings to where I’d needed them to be for a nocturnal time exposure on a tripod.
This image was exposed at f4.0 for 30 seconds (at ISO 100), the lens focal length was set to 52mm. I adjusted the NEF RAW file in post processing to make the most of the sky and tower.
For 15 years, Islandbridge was my Irish home. On my daily walks around Dublin on my visits during that period, I’d often pause at the location known as ‘the Box,’ which overlooks Islandbridge Junction near Heuston Station .
This selection of photos spans from 2005 to 2019, and portrays each of the four ‘Enterprise’ General Motor 201 diesels. While all of the 34 201 class were named for Irish Rivers, these original four Enterpise diesels carried Irish River names that had been previously applied to Great Northern Railway (of Ireland)’s respective VS-class 200-class steam locomotives— engines that had also worked Belfast-Dublin Enterprise trains.
General Motors locomotives 206 (River Liffey) and 207 (River Boyne) are owned by Irish Rail, while 208 (later 8208, River Lagan) and 209 (8209, River Foyle) are NIR locomotives. Regardless of ownership and paint, these 201 class would work various Irish Rail trains as well as Enterprise services.
Although an esoteric theme, I felt this would be neat way to portray these locomotives from this once-favorite location.
17May2005-River Liffey (having just crossed its namesake)10Feb2019—River Boyne7 March 2018 River Lagan running light.River Foyle leading a liner on 7 November 2011.
A Sunday morning in early November found us at Pittston Junction, Pa., to watch the departure of Reading & Northern’s diesel-hauled Pittston-Jim Thorpe excursion.
It was a lovely clear day and as a C5M transport plane circled overhead, I took a few moments to photograph both the passenger excursion and a pair of EMD switchers idling in the yard.
In addition to the flurry of pixels allocated to railroad photography, I also made a lone color slide, which at this moment in time remains latent (unprocessed) on my desk.
It was the afternoon on 7 April 2007. Up and down trains on the Dublin-Cork mainline were converging on Irish Rail’s rural station at Ballybrophy. I stood poised on the old iron foot-bridge with a Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichome and fitted with my Nikkor f2.8 180mm lens.
The up-train passed first with Irish Rail 205 leading a set of Mark III carriages. Notice that 205’s driver had switched off the headlight to avoid blinding his counterpart on 204. Seconds later 204 raced by in the down direction.
I referenced the photo of 204 on Monday’s TTL and I thought I’d run it again here, although it was previously featured. http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/last-light-of-an-april-day/. You can see the back of the up-train in the distance. Both trains were hurtling along at 90 (+/-) mph.
I’ve always admired the contours of Alco’s Century-Series diesels.
We arrived at Steamtown in Scranton, Pa., as the sun was on the western horizon—late sun on November day. A set of Delaware-Lackawanna’s antique Big Alcos were catching the rays near Bridge 60.
In the mid-2000s, I traveled on some of these iconic diesels as part my research for various book projects. Those photos were all exposed on color slide film. By contrast the images presented here were all made digitally using my Nikon Z7-II. (However, for the sake of continuity I also exposed a few Ektachrome slides here.)
D-L C-636 No. 3642 was originally a Penn-Central unit, and later served as Conrail 6792. In the mid-1980s, I recall seeing Conrail C-636s among hundreds locomotives stored in the Selkirk, New York deadlines. I’ll need to go back to my black & white negatives and see if 3642 (nee 6792) was among the locomotives I photographed there.
I was looking for a suitable photo of Irish Rail class 201 number 204.
Initially, I selected a view of the locomotive racing downroad at Ballybrophy. However, as I was preparing the image in Lightroom, I though that it looked a bit too familiar. I wondered if I’d presented it on Tracking the Light previously.
Tracking the Light is approaching its 5000th post. While I have a pretty good memory, I’ll admit that I cannot recall the details of each and every post. Much in the same way that I don’t recall the details of each cup of tea that I’ve had on every morning for the last 12 years.
When I began searching the archives, I found the photo of 204 in question. ‘I thought so!’. I’d published it back in 2018!
Instead, I’m presenting a view of Irish Rail 204 racing downroad at Kildare in the last rays of sun on 6 April 2002. I’d spent the day photographing Irish Rail. And of the photos that I made, this one seemed among the least remarkable.
An Irish Rail 201 class diesel leading a set of Mark II carriages was hardly noteworthy in 2002, but the light was nice, and I always try to make the most of a passing train. Today, I’m happy that I took the time to preserve the scene for posterity.
Summer 1998—my first of that season in Ireland. My impressions of the country were cemented during a brief impressionable few months that began in February and ended in August.
During that time, someone said to me ‘In Ireland we don’t do seasons, but the days are longer in summer.’
This August day was memorable. The sun remained out most of the day. Denis McCabe and I followed the Waterford Line, stopping to visit signal cabins along the way. At Bagenalstown, County Carlow (a town officially known in Irish as Muine Bheag) we paused to photograph the ‘afternoon down Waterford.’
This arrived with a fair tatty looking class 201 diesel, number 203. That summer the locomotives were not regularly washed and most of them were looking rather rough. Irish Rail 203 was only four years old at the time and wearing its as-built General Motors livery.
Working with my Nikon F3T with 24mm lens, I exposed several Fujichrome Sensia color slides of this classic diesel from my perch on the up platform.
For many years I’ve been using this photo as my screen saver on the laptop that I use to write all of my Tracking the Light posts. I thought it appropriate that I share the image.
A few weeks back, I was conducting my research at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
Before my appointment to review literature from railroads of the past, I wandered across the street where Strasburg Rail Road’s former New York Central SW8 8618 was switching out a passenger consist.
I have a fondness for black EMD switchers. When I was about five, my father bought me a Lionel NW-2 painted for Santa Fe—black with the railroad’s classic logo. That small engine, no 623, is presently beneath our Christmas Tree, where on command it leads a short consist on a figure 8.
On several occasions I have discussed Irish Rail’s most elusive 201 class diesel. Of the 34 201s built by General Motors, I found that old number 202 was the most difficult to find.
By contrast, in my years photographing trains in Ireland, some of the other 201 class seemed to present themselves at every opportunity. Of these, 215 and 234 come to mind.
In summer 1998, I made this rare trailing view of Irish Rail 202 running light under wire at Killiney. This photo features the locomotive’s non-standard number font which existed at one-end of the double cab diesel.
Exposed on Fuji Sensia (ISO 100) with a Nikon F3T.
On a brief visit to Hollidaysburg in late October, Kris and I stopped by the Everett Railroad yard where we found Everett’s former Lehigh Valley EMD switcher number 126 catch the midday sun.
This was among the prewar EMC switchers that Lehigh Valley sent back to EMD in the 1950s to be remanufactured into ‘new’ locomotives.
According to the Everett’s website, this locomotive was built as a NW1 in May 1938 and returned to EMD for remanufacture in 1956. Afterwards it was described as an SW9M. It served Conrail, and later a variety of owners. The Kiski Junction Railroad of Pittsburgh repainted the locomotive into Lehigh Valley colors prior to Everett acquiring it a few years ago.
During my researching an article on Philadelphia’s Silveliners for Classic Trains Magazine, I found an EMD ad from June 1958 that features Lehigh Valley’s 123 and 125, locomotives similarly remanufactured about the same time.
This was a coincidental find, as the ad appeared on the backside of the same page as the Silverliner article. I scanned the ad in two sections and then rejoined them to the best of my ability using EazyDraw and Lightroom.
The challenge of this exercise is that I was working from an old bound volume of Railway Age and this wasn’t conducive to scanning on a traditional flatbed scanner. Portions of the ad were hidden by the gatefold.
Incidentally, Lehigh Valley 124 that was rebuilt as part of the same program also survives and this works for the Landisville Railroad near Lancaster, Pa.
Irish Rail’s EMD-built class 201 diesels made their debut in 1994—30 years ago.
On the evening of 27 April 2006, a few miles from the top of Ballybrophy bank, I made this Fujichrome color slide of the class leader wearing a fresh coat of paint as it raced download from Dublin to Cork.
Exposed on Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO) using a Contax G2 rangefinder with 45mm Zeiss lens.
Late autumn foliage and clear bright sun offered near-perfect photographic conditions.
It was a few days after my birthday in October. We arrived at Underpass Road near Mexico, Pa., as a NS freight was rolling through.
Using the ASMtransit.docs ap on my phone (https://asm.transitdocs.com), I calculated that Amtrak number 43 wasn’t far away. And we only waited about 10 minutes before the Pittsburgh-bound train came into view.
I made this photo using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mmm lens.
Not every photo comes easy. Since moving to Lancaster, Pa., Kris and I have crossed the New Holland Branch on Greenfield Road countless times.
It was here that we first saw an NS train on the branch and on several occasions have photographed eastward trains.
I’d often eyed this as a location for a returning westward move, but never had the planets align perfectly. On a previous trip, I did managed to catch a westward train, but we were late arriving and my angle was not what I’d hoped to get.
So, on that Friday in early November when we followed the freight west from Leola, I was keen on trying to intercept it crossing Greenfield Road from the classic angle.
FujiFilm XT-1 with 16-55mm lens, ISO 200.
Score this one to persistence (with a wee bit of good luck).
Sometimes when the future presents itself the sensation seems surreal.
We spent the daylight decorating for the holidays. This was something that Kris and her mom always enjoyed.
As evening encroached, we decided to go for drive. There’s comfort in the familiar. So, I navigated our way to Blackhorse Road where we have often watched the Strasburg Rail Road.
The sun had set, but the blue glow of dusk hung in the western sky, reminding us of days gone by.
Last night we received the sad news that my mother-in-law, Sharon A. Sabbatino had taken her final train ride.
I met Sharon at the North Conway Station, where she worked in the gift shop and I in marketing. Years earlier, Sharon had shared her love for photography with Kris. And because of this shared passion, I had the good fortune to meet Kris at a Mass-Bay ‘Steam in the Snow’ event at the Conway Scenic Railroad.
Over the last few weeks, Kris and I had several opportunities to spend time with Sharon, including a visit on Cape Cod earlier this month.
I’ve included a couple of photos from visits with Sharon in 2023, including a favorite image exposed on film, ‘for posterity’, at the Norfolk, Massachusetts railroad station.
Sharon loved to read Tracking the Light and followed it daily on the Facebook feed.
Sharon and Kris on Cape Cod in 2023.Kris and Sharon at the MBTA station in Norfolk, Massachusetts in December 2023.
Since relocating to Lancaster, Pa., I’ve made at least 30 photographic forays along Norfolk Southern’s New Holland Branch. However, owing to the timing of my trips, most of these adventures have coincided with eastward trains. As a result, I have fewer photos of Norfolk Southern’s local on its westward run.
As a result, when Kris and I saw the westward local freight departing Leola, I opted to take advantage of it, and I had a few choice locations in mind.
Our first stop was at Willow Road, where in recent months I’ve made many photos of the eastward run. A year ago, I’d eyed up an ideal place to catch a westward train and I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to work this angle on the line.
Once in postion, with my Fuji XT1 in hand, I didn’t have long to wait before the train ambled into view. I made these photos using a 18-55mm Fujinon zoom. After the train passed we zipped ahead to my next pre-selected spot. Stay tuned!
Some weeks back, Kris and I had enjoyed lunch at the Fox Meadows Creamery in Leola, Pa., and were on our way to our next errand. As we drove west on Horseshoe Road, I spied Norfolk Southern’s New Holland Branch local near the Leola station. We pulled in just as the engineer released the brakes. The train was all put together and on its way west back toward the junction with Amtrak’s Harrisburg Line on its return run to Dillerville Yard.
Instead of my Nikons, I’d brought with me my FujiFilm XT1 fitted with a 16-55mm Fujinon zoom lens. This camera had been my primary digital picture making machine until autumn 2020, but in recent years has only seen occasional use. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Fuji!
Ten years ago, I adopted the Fuji X-series because of its excellent color and ability to present a deep black right out of the camera.
With only a few moment to spare, I fired up the old XT1 and exposed this sequence of photos. The freight was on the move, so without delay the chase was on!
Yesterday, I learned the sad news that my friend and fellow photographer George C. Corey passed away a few weeks shy of his centenery.
George was a life-long railroad photographer with more than eight decades of work under his belt. Among his memorable images was a photo of a Boston & Maine freight led by a modern Mountain type exposed on December 7th, 1941.
He learned of the events of that day after his photograph, but they would change his life as well as that of many nations. In 1944, George was involved in the Allied landing at Normandy where he was shot by a sniper. He spent many months recovering from his adventure. He told me about this once when I’d mention one my recent trips to Europe.
“Europe. I was there once. No sooner than I arrived and some bastard shot me through the lung.”
George was an avid follower of the American steam locomotive with encyclopedic knowledge of different locomotive types. Over the years, he and I would engage in detailed discussions about locomotive valve gear, locomotive performance, and railroad photography.
I’d met George in the early 1980s and maintained correspondence over the years. Although he took an old-school approach in his photographs, he embraced technological change. He was among the first in my circle to digitize his photographs and make complex changes to his images using computer software.
The last time I met him in person, he was delighted to show me his latest digital camera. Our meeting was cut short when a Pan-Am freight rolled by and he said to me, ‘Sorry about this, but I’m going after that!’. He was in his mid-90s at the time.
He often contributed to my books, sending me magnificent images of steam and diesel locomotives from around the continent. In 2022, when I was working on my latest book on Union Pacific, I asked if he had any images to contribute, and he replied with an apology, ‘I do, but I haven’t photographed UP since 1951.’ He sent me a selection of stunning images, many of which I included in the final selection.
The photograph is an image that he sent me for Steam by the Numbers of a Delaware & Hudson 4-6-6-4 Challenger at work south of Schenectady, New York in November 1949.
In December 1990, I made this Kodachrome 25 photograph looking west on Taraval Street in San Francisco.
A pair of Boeing-Vertol LRVs working the L-Taraval route had stopped for passengers, which allowed for me to make a slow speed exposure with the camera on a Bogen 3021 trip.
December offers good weather to get clear evening views looking out over the Pacific ocean. By using a 200mm telephoto lens, I compressed the effect of all the telephone and electrical wires crossing the street. I’ve always found that the proliferation of above-ground wires and cables in San Francisco was one of the fascinating visual characteristics of the city, and that these offered great compositional elements.
Notice I how I’ve framed the photo using the poles and wires.
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Nikon F3T with Nikkor f4.0 200mm lens, mounted on Bogen 3021 tripod with ball head. Kodachrome 25 slide film. December 1990.
We had heard this freight climbing the grade on ascent of Horseshoe Curve as we were walking the steps up from the visitors center.
This Norfolk Southern carload train crawled into view just a few minutes after we reached the plateau where the park is perched.
Two modern GE diesels labored in full-throttle as the heavy train squealed through the curves offering pure entertainment to the host of visitors.
Immediately behind the locomotives was an unusual load riding on a rare 12-axle flatcar. This extremely heavy cylindrical body was described to me as powerplant generator rotor. I photographed a myriad selection of other cars on the train, including a selection of lime green Amtrak balast hoppers. At the back of the train were more multi-axle flats and an very unusual large blue caboose.
In the world of railways there are many horseshoe curves. I’ve visited many of these over the years: Utah’s Gilluly Loops; California’s Caliente Horseshoe in the Tehachapis; the famous Stanford Curve on Donner; and Oregon’s Leonard horseshoe among others.
While impressive, none compare to the World Famous Curve on the former Pennsylvania Railroad near Altoona, Pa.
This is more than just a horseshoe curve. It is among the great cosmic settings for American railroading and icon of 19th century railroad building. I don’t know if there’s much I can write about the Curve that hasn’t been written before. My friend Dan Cupper wrote a book on the subject (years ago my copy fell apart from over use).
I paid my first visit to Horseshoe Curve with my family back in August 1981. In the mid 1980s, my pal TSH and I made myriad trips to this Mecca of Pennsylvania railroading. Kris and I traveled here together for the first time three years ago.
In October, Kris treated me to a 58th Birthday visit to Altoona, including a pilgrimage to the Curve.
My curve ears started ringing about 1/3 the way up the stairs from the visitor’s center to the park at center of the great curve. ‘Westbound. GE’s in the lead. . . . No helper.’
As we climbed the steps, I recalled the first time I ascended these steps: We had just arrived at the parking lot in our 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. In the distance I heard the rhythmic drumming of a 20-cylinder SD45. My brother Sean and I ran as fast as we could to reach trackside (near the old K4s Pacific on display) before the train passed. It was one of the few times that I witnessed a Conrail SD45 in full run-8.
More than 43 years later, Kris and I reached trackside in time to a position trackside to take in the action. (A PRR GP9 had replaced the K4s in the mid-1980s.) Before the westward freight passed, a light helper consiting of a pair of Norfolk Southern SD70ACU’s worked west.
In August 1991, I lived on Haight Street in San Francisco. For a few days that month, the SF Muni was performing work on the Muni Metro subway beneath Market Street between Castro and Church Streets. As a result, cars that would normally use the subway were detoured via 17th and Church Streets and rejoined the subway at Duboce.
I made this view one evening as Pacific fog climbed the hills to the west. Evening sun, tinted by the fog, glinted off a detouring Boeing-Vertol LRV as it navigated the trackage on 17th Street. In the distance, another set of Boeing cars can be seen entering the subway from rarely used portals at Castro and Market.
I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide using my Nikon F3T and f1.8 105mm Nikkor lens. It is one of hundreds of photographs I made of the San Francisco Muni in the 1990s.
Sometimes I dream of the fog coming over the hills, changing the quality of light as it envelopes the city.
On our way north on Highway 309, we made short detour on West Spruce Street in Tamaqua, Pa.
A pause at the yard office at the north end of the old Reading Company yard, found us a selection of Reading & Northern’s EMD diesels idling in lovely late-afternoon light.
Soft sun was streaming through autumn leaves in a dream-like setting.
I made these photos with my Nikon Z7-II, but I also exposed a couple of Ektachrome slides. I’ll be curious to see those images, since this type of light is difficult to capture effectively on slide film.
We were navigating the streets of Lilly on our way toward Cresson, Pa., when we spotted the headlight of a train on Track 2,
I pulled in near the tracks at SIP 254.3 with just enough time to jump out and grab some cameras to expose photos of what turned out to be westward loaded trash train.
I know some of my readers will be quick to say; ‘that’s a load of garbage.’
In mid-October, Kris and I intercepted the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society’s excursion on the Nittany & Bald Eagle. This paused at Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where I made photos of Lycoming Valley 2011 (a former Southern Pacific GP35) surrounded by backlit brightly colored leaves of trees along the line.
In an earlier time I might have refrained from making these images because of the chain link fence between me and the tracks. In this instance, I accepted the fence as a feature of the location. The leaves more than made up for it.
A week later we returned to Tyrone. It was late in the day and the sunlight was low and foliage was brilliant. But during that brief visit, not a wheel turned, neither on the Main Line nor the Bald Eagle Branch, so I photographed the tracks with trees.
Using the ASM.transit.com web page, I watched Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian make eastward progress on the Main Line. The sun crept over the hills to the east of where Kris and I were waiting. When the train was 25 minutes east of Johnstown, I said, “We should be seeing a headlight soon.”
My composition was based on the late-season foliage on the far side of the three-track mainline.
I didn’t know that PRR-Tuscan red Pullman Colonial Crafts was tied to the back of the consist, but I was delighted to catch this vision of the earlier era on the roll.
It’s always a pleasant surprise to see something like this without anticipation.
The next move was just trash—literally. Stay tuned!
Amtrak Train 42, the eastward Pennsylvanian, works upgrade at Lilly, Pennsylvania. PRR-Tuscan red Pullman Colonial Crafts at the back of Train 42.
