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!
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