Thirty years ago fresh snow covered the ground at Dublin Street in Palmer, Massachusetts.
At that time the Grand Trunk influence on Central Vermont Railway was very much evident.
I made this photo on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T to preserve the scene for posterity. I scanned the slide last night for presentation here using a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan software.
I wonder how I’d handle this scene to day using my Nikon Z6?
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In recent months I’ve been undertaking a herculean effort. I’m beginning to organize my slide files.
Over the last 40+ years, I have made tens of thousands of slides, while embracing conflicting theories of photographic organization.
Now, I am attempting to consolidate and organize my slide files. In one tub of original boxes, I found a box (one of several) mis-labeled ‘Conrail, Rochester, April 1987, Ektachrome’.
This was a ‘free’ roll of film, given to me as part of photo package from Kodak to students at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Free. No cost to me. At a time when I could barely afford two rolls of Kodachrome a week!
And there was a problem. Giving Ektachrome to a Kodachrome shooter!
I took the film, and I made photos with it. Nothing urgent. Nothing serious. Nothing so important that I’d commit it to Kodachrome.
A more serious problem manifested when I searched for the note sheet that goes with the roll of film. The box said ‘April 1987’, but in fact the photos were exposed on March 11, 1987. I should have known.
Take me back to 1987!
I wish I’d had more free Ektachrome!
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Yesterday was clear morning in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Conway Scenic had a Work Extra heading toward Crawford, which represented a rare December move on the old Mountain Division
I followed the train west by road to make these photos with my Nikon Z6.
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Over the years, I’ve photographed hundreds of locomotives, on scores of railways, in dozens of countries.
Occasionally I’ve opted for the classic ‘three-quarter’ roster angle. More often I’ve opted for various more dramatic, interpretive, or dynamic views.
A long time ago I learned that when I find some equipment resting in a accessible location, to photograph it from a great variety of different angles, because you never know what might suit a book or magazine article later on.
Two weeks ago on our visit to Cape Cod, I had the opportunity to make a sequence of photos of this former New Haven Railroad FL9 that now works for Cape Cod Central and was assigned to the west end of the Polar Express at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.
I have countless photographs of FL9s in various schemes when they worked for Amtrak, MTA, CDOT and Metro North, so this was an opportunity to do something a little different.
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In August 2007 while working on my book Railroads of Pennsylvania, I made this late afternoon image of a Norfolk Southern RoadRailer intermodal train on former Reading Company tracks near the old railroad’s historic namesake.
A pair of NS DASH9-40CWs lead the train.
A few years after I made this Fujichrome color slide, Norfolk Southern discontinued most of its RoadRailer operations, including those in eastern Pennsylvania. It is one of only a few photos I have of NS operations near Reading, PA.
Exposed using a Canon EOS3 with 50mm lens.
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Monday, RDC 23 ‘Millie’ made a trip to Conway with a holiday charter.
I was rostered as the ‘motorman’ and so ran the car as per train order.
At Conway, I switched to Marketing-mode and made a series of Millie with Santa and her passengers using a Lumix LX7..
As an excercise in compositional comparison, I’ve posted most of Millie’s Santa sequence, and in order of exposure..
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While on the theme of tourist railroads on the old New Haven Railroad at Christmas, I thought I’d present this ten year old color slide.
In December 2012, Tim Doherty and I had visited Connecticut’s Valley Railroad that was featuring its Chinese-built 2-8-2 Mikado dressed in New Haven paint on its Christmas trains.
In the late afternoon light, I made this Fujichrome Provia100F slide at Deep River using my Canon EOS-3 with 40mm pancake lens.
I scanned the slide last night and processed the 4000 dpi TIF file using Lightroom. Below are two versions. The top is a scaled, but unadjusted, version of the original scan. The bottom one has been altered to more closely resemble the effect of 1950s Kodachrome film
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On our Cape visit, the Cape Cod Central’s Kaylene asked if we would like to travel on their Polar Express.
Silly question.
She asked Kris and me, if we would take a few photos of the experience.
Of course we did.
And these are just a few of Nikon Z6 digital images I made that night.
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Green Moutain Railroad GP9 1850 leads the railroads freight XR1 through a rock cut on the former Rutland Railroad near Gassetts, Vermont on November 19, 1992.
I was interested in featuring the use of old rails to support stones in the cut and had followed this freight since its engines left the railroad’s round house at North Walpole, NH, earlier that morning. The recent installation of an oscillating headlight on th GP9 also caught my attention
Working with my old Nikon F3T and Nikkor f1.8 105mm, I exposed this slide on Kodachrome 25 at f5.6 at 1/125 second.
Slide scanned with a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner at 4000 dp, adjusted and scaled using Lightroom.
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Last Saturday evening, on our visit to Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, Kris and I photographed the arrival of Cape Cod Central’s Polar Express Christmas train behind a New Haven Railroad painted FL9 diesel-electric/electric.
Historically, the railway lines serving Cape Cod were part of New Haven Railroad’s Old Colony Division and so NHRR’s famous dual mode FL9 locomotives seem right at home at Buzzards Bay.
Kris has many friends at Cape Cod Central and we were welcomed at Buzzards Bay by the railroad’s Kaylene Andrews Jableki who faciliated our photography.
Working with my Nikon Z6, I made this sequence of photos of the FL9 leading the Polar Express into the station using existing light. My camera was set to ISO 8000, which allowed for a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second at f4.0.
Stay tuned for more Cape Cod Central photos!
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On the evening of Easter Sunday 1988, I visited the old Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh station and yard at East Salamanca, New York.
CSXT was still a relatively new railroad, and this southward freight from Buffalo featured former Baltimore & Ohio GP40/GP40-2s painted for CSXT component Chessie System but with CSXT sublettering.
CSXT was in the process of spinning off it’s former BR&P trunk to Genesee & Wyoming start up Buffalo & Pittsburgh. I was anticipating the change, but the sale was still several months away.
I made a series of Kodachrome 25 slides of the train changing crews at dusk using my Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron firmly mounted on a tripod. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the exposure and my slides are about one stop too dark. This one was made at f4 at ¼ second.
Part of my problem was that my Sekonic Studio Deluxe lightmeter wasn’t accurate in low light. Another issue was that I didn’t compensate for reprocity failure, which was a characteristic of Kodachrome films in low light.
I scanned this K25 slide with a Nikon LS-5000 scanner using VueScan software which enabled a multiple pass scan to maximize data capture of highlights and shadows. I imported the high-res (4000 dpi) scan into Lightroom and adjusted the file to compensate for underexposure.
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Kris and I went to see the Cape Cod Central on Satuday evening. The railroad had decked out the former New Haven Railroad station and signal tower with an elaborate display of Christmas lights for their Polar Express excursions.
Working with my Nikon Z6 set at high ISO, I exposed this series of handheld night photos.
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I made photographs of Amtrak at Meriden, Connecticut on two occasions.
The first was in February 1979. My father brought my brother and me out for the afternoon and we stopped at Meriden’s Amtrak station to watch the arrival of a New Haven-Springfield shuttle operating with a pair of Budd RDC’s. I exposed these coming and going Kodachrome photos with my old Leica 3A. (previously featured on Tracking the Light in 2015. See: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2015/05/14/amtrak-rdcs-at-meriden-connecticut-february-1979/)
My second visit was on January 2, 1988, when I stopped at a grade crossing just north of the station to catch a southward holiday extra that was running with F40PH 205 and borrowed MARC passenger cars.
Last night, I was able to place the location 1988 photo by carefully scrutinizing the older slides. The distinctive profiles of the buildings to the left of F40PH 205 also appear in the distance of the trailing view of the RDCs, which is how I know that the 1988 photo shows the train approaching Amtrak’s Meriden station stop.
If you look carefully at the 1988 photo, you can see the conductor standing in a vestibule door. The platforms were at the east side of the tracks for trains in both directions, as evident in the first view of the RDC at the station.
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During a visit to Cape Cod the other day, Kris and I made photographs at Corn Hill Beach in Truro, Massachusetts.
Using my Nikon Z6 with f2.8 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series zoom, I made a series of the surf. To ‘freeze’ the water I used a very fast shutter speed (typically 1/8000th of a second) while back lighting the bay and using shalow focus for a diorama effect.
Below are six examples of the water frozen in time.
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Five years ago, I made this photo of the northward Housatonic Railroad freight crossing a side road near Stockbridge, Massachusetts using my Lumix LX7.
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Before Thanksgiving, Conway Scenic operated a Work Extra to Conway and back to help decorate for Christmas.
This included placing Christmas decorations along the line for the treasure hunt in Santa’s Holiday Express.
In addition to helping select locations for the decorations, and assisting with placement, I also photographed the Work Extra along the course of its season journey.
All photos were exposed using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
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In summer 2018, I paid a visit to West Barnstable, Massachusetts where there were several antique railcars on display. The photos I made of a decayed former Delaware & Hudson caboose garnered interest.
See: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2018/07/23/nature-and-the-old-caboose/
Yesterday, Kris and I revisited West Barnstable. It was raining and dark. I made a few photos of the station, Mass-Coastal track and the old D&H caboose. It’s condition hasn’t improved over the last four and half years.
This wooden bodied relic of former times makes for a fascinating study in decay that seems symbolic of the fading status of the D&H itself.
I featured this style of D&H caboose in a book on cabooses that I authored with John Gruber in 2000.
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Some of my earliest digital photographs were exposed in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
In Novemeber 2008, I’d traveled to Chicago to visit with photographer Chris Guss and attend the annual Beecherfest railroad slide program.
At the time I was exclusively using film to make photos. Chris lent me his Canon EOS 50D and we spent several days in northern Illinois and Wisconsin making photos.
We stopped in to Kenosha, where we traveled on the streetcar loop and made photos of the vintage PCCs.
I exposed this view using my 100-400mm Canon zoom fixed to Chris Guss’s Canon 50D.
It was almost a year before I bought my own digital camera, and 18 months before I invested in a Canon EOS-7D.
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The other day I was going through a carton of slide boxes from the mid-1990s. I found a roll from a day out with photographer Mike Gardner to capture New England Central in Connecticut.
On Halloween day 1997, we followed southward freight 608 to New London, photographed a few Amtrak trains on the Shore Line, then followed 608 on its northward return trip to Palmer, Massachusetts.
At South Windham, Connecticut, I made a view on the old Fuji Provia 100 (RDP) using my first Nikon N90S with f2.8 80-200mm Nikon zoom lens.
The soft afternoon sun resulted in a somewhat under exposed slide that never made my final cut, and so remained in the green Fuji box for more than 25 years.
I scanned it with a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan 9.7.95 (recently updated from the earlier version of VueScan that I’d been using for a few years), and then imported the high-res TIF file (scanned at 4000 dpi in ‘Fine’ mode) into Adobe Lightroom for adjustment and scaling.
Below are JPGs from the unaltered scan and from my adjusted scan to improve the overall visual appeal of the time. Adjustments included warming the color temperature, adjusting sky denisty, lightening the overall exposure, and contrast control.
I’ve also included a photo of Mike, who is a regular Tracking the Light reader.
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On the morning of 23 November 2004 a thin mist covered the ground near Ballycullane, County Wexford. A laden Irish Rail sugarbeet freight had just passed and I could still hear the drumming of the Class 071 diesel at it worked Taylorstown Bank.
I made this trailing view of Irish Rail’s per way gang using a Nikon F3 with Nikkor f2.8 180mm lens. The camera was loaded with Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO slide film). Note the lamps at the back of the freight.
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On Friday, November 18, 2022, I traveled on Conway Scenic’s work extra to Conway to assist with decorating for the holidays.
Our train had to clear to allow for the arrival of the regularly scheduled morning Conway run, which was handled by Budd RDC Millie.
I opted to make a sequence of photos of Millie arriving in Conway where it passes the company billboard, which I recently arranged to display the railroad’s Winter ad. This ad features a photo that I made a couple of years ago of locomotive 573 in morning light paused in front of the North Conway Station.
Below is a selection of the photos that made with my Nikon Z6, including the image that I ultimately selected for display on the railroad’s Facebook page. I modified this image by cropping it and adjusting the color temperature, color saturation, exposure and contrast to make it more appealing in the social media venue.
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I exposed a variety of slides during our visit to Maam Cross in October.
Jim Deegan and company were hard at work on the on their Midland Great Western restoration project when Kris and I arrived by coach.
Working with a 30-year old Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichrome Provia 100F, I made these slides of the lads.
The film was processed and mounted by AgX Imaging in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan. I scanned the slides with a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan 9.7.08 software and processed the TIF files in Adobe Lightroom for presentation here.
For my digital photos at Maam Cross see: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2022/10/28/adventure-to-maam-cross/
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On November 20, 2018, I visited Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry with Dave & Rhonda Swirk. Among the exhibits we viewed was the famous Burlington Zephyr of 1934.
This was significant for me because we were in the process of bringing former Burlington Budd Vista Dome Silver Splendor (originally Silver Buckle) from Los Angeles to North Conway, NH. We had traveled on the car from Los Angeles on Amtrak No.4, the Southwest Chief, and were laying over while the car was switched onto train 48 the Lake Shore Limited .
The 1934 Zephyr was the direct ancestor of this car.
Today, the Budd Vista dome works for the Conway Scenic in New Hampshire and is named Rhonda Lee after Rhonda Swirk—following in the railroad’s car naming tradition.
http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2018/12/08/burlingtons-zephyr-on-display/
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A month ago—LUAS on Provia—18 Oct 2022—I made these photos of LUAS trams working the Green Line in the Dublin City Centre using a Nikon F3 with Provia 100F (RDPIII) color slide film.
During our trip to Ireland I exposed 7 rolls of film along with hundreds of digital photos. This is just a sampling of a few photos from our last day in Dublin.
Last night, I scanned the slides using a Nikon LS 5000 (Super Coolscan5000) slide scanner powered by VueScan software and then imported the scanner’s hi-res TIF files into Adobe Lightroom for minor color and exposure corrections.
I find that film offers a different quality of image, which is part of the attraction. But, I also find that working with my old Nikon F3s produces different compositions than I get when making photos digitally. So despite the inconvenience of carrying both film and digital cameras and the comparatively high cost of exposing color film, I continue to work with both film and digital media.
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Yesterday, I received back 14 rolls of color slides spanning six months of photography.
Among these were photos I made of our Wedding Special, operated on September 17, 2022 courtesy of Conway Scenic Railroad on the Conway Branch using RDC Millie. I was the engineer that day and at several locations I spotted the train for photos.
It was a perfect day. I made several Fujichrome Provia 100F slides to preserve the event.
Both of these slides were exposed using a Nikon F3 with 50mm Nikkor lens and scanned with a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan software. The film was processed by AgX Lab in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
Of the thousands of trains I’ve photographed over the years, none could compare to this one. Many of our friends and family joined us on the run to Conway. Kris and I were married the next day—September 18th (two months ago).
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It was unseasonably warm in the White Mountains last week, so Conway Scenic’s crew took the opportunity to wash the trains.
I made these photos for the company’s Facebook page using my Nikon Z6.
To get the sunburst effect, I set the aperture to f22 on my 24-70mm zoom.
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Reviewing my slides from the mid-2000s, I find that 2006 was an unusually productive year for me. My techniques and equipment had reached a peak, while my varied subjects resulted a wealth of interesting images.
Consider this Fujichrome slide exposed near Branford, Connecticut in February 2006.
A westward Shore Line East commuter train caught the glint of the sun a few minutes before sunset. The low winter evening sun tinted with particulates from pollution along I-95 combined with crisp winter air to create a rich quality of light.
I scanned the slide last night at high resolution and made a few minor adjustment using Adobe Lightroom to improve the dynamic range of the scan.
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In mid-October, I traveled the length of the old Dublin and Kingstown route to meet with my friends in Dun Laoghaire.
The Dublin and Kingstown Railway was opened in 1834 between Westland Row (today Pearse Station) and the harbour in Kingstown (now called Dun Laoghaire).
It was the first railway in Ireland and often claimed as the world’s first suburban railway.
Today, this route is operated as a portion of Irish Rail’s Dublin Area Rapid Transit electric service and hosts InterCity services to/from Rosslare Europort.
I had excellent autumn sun for my spin to Dun Laoghaire and stopped off at a couple of stations to make photos using my Nikon Z6 digital camera.
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Seven years ago—November 14, 2015—I made these photos of a colorfully decorated SD60 spotted at the New England Central yard at Palmer, Massachusetts.
Back in Central Vermont days, six-motor diesels were a very rarely operated to the Palmer yard. These days they are common.
Photos exposed using my first Fuji XT1 with an 18-135mm kit lens set to 18.5mm.
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It was a glorious clear September day when Denis Mc Cabe and I paid a brief visit to Ceske Budejovice on a rail trip around the Czech Republic in 2008.
We changed trains at the main railway station. I spent a couple of hours photographing the historic city, which is famous for its architecture and beer.
At the time I was entertaining a publisher with the idea of writing a book on the cities of the Hapsburg Empire. Although the book never came to pass, I accumulated hundreds of photos of cities from Innsbruck, Austria to Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
I made these photos on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS 3.
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Among the myriad aspects of Conway Scenic Railroad that I photograph as part of my job are various maintenance and repair projects.
On Thursday, Novemeber 10, 2022, I traveled in HyRail TC207 to the site of crossing repair at Intervale Lane (east of milepost 63).
This cooperative effort between the town of Bartlett, NH DOT and the railroad were aimed to repair and improve the grade crossing and to allow a smoother ride for highway traffic, improve running time for Conway Scenic and ease future repair to the track.
It was necessary to coordinate the repair effort to allow trains to safely pass over the crossing between elements of the repair and repaving activity.
I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
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In mid-October, I was on my way over to Connolly Station, when I noticed the Ad-wrapped Sky LUAS tram gliding west on the Red Line near the Loop Line Bridge.
Working with my Lumix LX7, I made this view as the tram passed below the bridge.
The unusually decorated tram looked good in the rich morning sun.
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On November 10, 2017, my brother Sean and I traveled on SEPTA to Norristown, Pennsylvania.
At Elm Street Station, I made these photos of SEPTA Silverliner 4 electric multiple units in the blue light of dusk using my Lumix LX7.
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A few days ago, I exposed this high contrast view of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Budd RDC ‘Millie’ at Conway, New Hampshire using my Lumix LX7 digital camera.
The camera simultaneously saves each exposure as a RAW and JPG file. I’ve set the camera to profile the JPG with the in-camera ‘Vivid’ color setting.
In this sequence, I compare the un-altered camera RAW (RW2) file with the un-altered in-camera JPG file and my altered (adjusted) Jpg image that I manipulated in Adobe Lightroom to make the most of the camera RAW data. Notice the differences to shadow and highlight detail.
I’ve also included a screen shot of the Lightroom work window to reveal the changes that I made.
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It was Irish Rail’s final sugarbeet season, although no one knew it at the time.
We set up at Charleville Junction on the Dublin-Cork line on the Cork-side of Limerick Junction to catch V250, a laden train led by locomotive 081.
I made this view on Fujichrome. It sat in a closet in Dublin for nearly 15 years and I only recently retrieved it from storage.
Last night I scanned the slide using a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner and then adjusted the hi-res TIF file using Adobe Lightroom to correct color temperature and color balance while making minor contrast and exposure corrections.
Below is the file before adjustment and after. In both images presented here, I scaled the files as JPGs.
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To help promote Conway Scenic Railroad’s culinary services, I arranged to have the company culinary van wrapped with photos of the railroad.
For the sides of the van, I opted for a photo of the Mountaineer at Frankenstein Bridge that I exposed in September 2020. This image appears in many of the railroad’s billboard, print and digital ads and has become a marketing icon.
The back of the van is decorated with a classic view of the North Conway, New Hampshire railroad station that also appears in print ads.
Silverline Graphics assisted with the basic design concept, and SignSmith LLC of Gorham, Maine performed final design and applied the wrap to the van.
I made these photos of the van in the railroad’s North Conway yard.
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