Earlier this month I exposed this view of Amtrak train 57 on the move crossing a fill on the Connecticut River Backwater just south of Brattleboro, Vermont.
There was soft directional lighting with a textured sky. To better balance the exposure I worked with an external graduated neutral density filter positioned over the front element of the lens with the darkest portion of the filter ever the sky.
I’m not entirely satisfied with the results, but the filter helped.
Luckily, I also exposed a black & white photo that I hope to process with my next batch of film!
For my second installment of my 100-city transit marathon, I thought it would be neat to display these three photos I made in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
This was during a visit with Denis McCabe and the late Norman McAdams on April 24, 2005—the my first of two trips to this industrial city in the eastern Czech Republic near the Polish frontier.
The morning air had a brown gauzy tint, while the streets were nearly devoid of traffic.
I exposed these images on Fuji Sensia II (100 ISO) using a Nikon fitted with a 180mm Nikkor telephoto lens.
We were fascinated by the antique streamlined electrics.
Remarkably, in 1979 many of the steam-era former Pennsylvania Railroad behemoths were still in traffic.
Amtrak and New Jersey Department of Transportation both had GG1s on their active roster.
Sunnyside Yard was a great place to see these once magnificent machines.
Sunnyside Yard, Queens, NY April 1979.
Amtrak GG1 927 was dressed in platinum mist with a red stripe. Very 1970s.
Most fascinating was motor 4876, which on January 15, 1953 had led the Federal Express into Washington Union Station—a famously spectacular runaway that sent the GG1 crashing through the station; sinking through the concourse floor and into the basement of the station. The accident was pictured in newspapers across the nation. And in 1979, the old beast was awaiting assignment.
Here’s an adjusted scan from my original 35mm black & white negatives. Old 4876 was in a prominent position for photography. I enlarged this scan to bring in the famous Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
Working with my Leica, I exposed a variety of photos around Sunnyside yard on a visit with my family. Never mind Disney, I though Sunnyside Yard was the coolest place to be.
While I’ve run one or two of these photos previously, those images were taken from prints. I’ve recently located more the negatives from that day, nearly 41 years ago, and scanned them.
Notice the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers to the left of 4876. Kind of a cool juxtaposition.
Here’s another enlarged view that shows a Long Island Rail Road local switching. There’s a lot to digest in this view. Exciting stuff for a 13 year old obsessed by locomotives, epic urban city scapes, and post industrial settings.
The other day I posted a photo of the Los Angeles Metro Rail Blue Line and noted that I’d photographed many rail transit systems but ‘lost track’ after 50.
A regular Tracking the Light reader wrote in that he was close to 90 light- rail/streetcar systems, which made me wonder how many systems I’ve photographed over the years. So the other day, while the rain fell outside the window in North Conway, I made a list of every city/rail transit system that I’d photographed.
One two occasions, I’ve photographed streetcars at Mainz, Germany. This view was made of a route 52 car in September 2019.
For this exercise I included both light-rail/streetcar and heavy-rail metro rail transit systems. I excluded purely interurban lines where the frequency and service pattern doesn’t fit ‘rail transit’.
All of the systems are electric, rail-based transit, although I included rubber-tire/tyre metros such as Montreal, since rails and electricity are involved.
Fine print: I’ve excluded trolley bus operations (in most cases cities that I’ve photographed trolley buses also have some form of rail transit. However, this qualification excluded Chernivtsi, Ukraine—and yes I have a photo of an electric bus there). I’ve also excluded cities where I may have seen rail-transit but not photographed it. As may be inferred, cities with more than one mode (light rail and heavy rail metro for example) get counted only once. However, in situations where disconnected systems serve adjacent cities get counted individually. So I’ve counted the Newark City Subway and Jersey City-Hoboken light rail as two systems. Non-electric systems are not on my list. German cities with interurban interconnections, such as Bonn and Köln get counted twice. Systems with long extensions into adjacent communities such as Charleroi in Belgium and the Belgium coastal tram get counted once. (I realize that some viewers my take exception to my counting the Belgian coastal tram, and not including some Swiss interurban electric lines.) Systems that I photographed under construction or out of service without vehicles, will not be included (that leaves out Florence, Italy, and San Juan, Puerto Rico from my total).
Trolley bus systems are not included in my final count. SF Muni Potrero garage October 1990.
Chicago’s CTA ‘L’ lines are cool—systems like this make the list! Howard Street Line July 5, 1995.I’ve photographed in numerous cities across Eastern Europe. In 2003, I made this color slide in Zagreb, Croatia. I’ve been photograph Boston’s rail transit for more than 47 years! (Eeek!) So I have more coverage of the MBTA than many other systems. Park Street Station on the Green Line back in the day. (December 1980).
So as of January 2020, my list of photographed subway, metros, light-rail, streetcars, monorail, and rail-based cable car (aka San Francisco) systems total 100.
My challenge now will be locating original images from each and every of these systems. Mexico City was recently covered, so we’ll leave that one out.
Also, I may remember another system, presently off my list, and if so I’ll make note of that later.
Since North Conway doesn’t have electric rail transit, I can only wistfully look back on my photos.
Incidentally, while I have extensive photographic coverage of some cities such as Dublin, Boston and San Francisco, in others I may only have a handful of images. Kansas City, being one recent example, which I photographed from the dutch-door window of Budd dome Silver Splendor (now Rhonda Lee) while traveling East on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief in 2018.
This might take a while! (And no, I won’t be limiting my daily posts to rail transit, but will be including archive photos in the mix of other subjects).
I made this image while hiking the line toward Middlefield, Massachusetts from Chester. The freight was descending the grade near where the 1912-line relocation joined the original Western Rail Road alignment (seen to the left of Conrail 6619) at milepost 129 (as measured from Boston’s South Station).
Conrail’s ten General Electric C32-8s were delivered in September 1984 and in their early years largely work out of Selkirk Yard on the old Boston & Albany route.
GE assigned these unique pre-production DASH8 prototypes to Conrail for evaluation in preparation for wide-scale DASH-8 production that began a few years later.
I had countless encounters with the C32-8s on the Boston & Albany during the mid-1980s, but never had the opportunity to travel on one.
Later this year Kalmbach Media will release my new book titled Conrail and its Predecessors.
In decades-old railroad tradition, Conway Scenic’s steam locomotive 7470 is largely painted black. While in winter, the environment around the railroad is largely snow covered (at least we hope it is) .
Why steam in the snow?
Drama!
The cold air contributes to spectacular effects from condensation tinted with smoke from the firebox.
Here are a few of my Lumix LX7 color digital photos from Saturday’s (January 4, 2020) Steam in the Snow excursion sponsored by the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts on Conway Scenic’s operation over the former Maine Central Mountain Division.
Dave Swirk at the throttle of 7470.
(And yes, maybe I made a few classic black & white images of this trip on film!)
I arrived at the old Maine Central station at Crawfords (New Hampshire) in the ‘blue hour’—that last hint of daylight before night.
It was snowing lightly.
The railroad was quiet. No trains are expected for months to come!
The scene was serene.
To make this photo, I had my FujiFilm XT1 with 28mm pancake lens mounted on a Bogen tripod. I set the meter for 2/3s of stop over exposure in ‘A’ mode at the widest aperture. The camera selected the shutter speed at 25 seconds.
Over the course of several minutes, I made several exposures ranging from 20 to 30 seconds each.
Here’s a portrait view of Conrail B23-7 2020 that I made back in 1988 east of Chester, Massachusetts. (Not seeing portrait orientation? Click on Tracking the Light!).
Although I previously posted this image on Tracking the Light, I thought it was a cool way to welcome the New Year!
I wonder what happened to this old GE diesel?
The year 2020 will see my new book on Conrail and its predecessors which is expected in the Spring from Kalmbach Media.
Another view from 40 years ago: I’d just returned from Mexico City via JFK. My family and I were driving home from New York City and we stopped at New Haven, Connecticut.
I made several Kodachrome slides with my Leica 3A, including this view of former New Haven Railroad electric multiple units that were stored near the station.
I processed two rolls of Ilford HP5 last week. The final frame appeared as a blank lightly tinted gray rectangle. I nearly cut if off the end of roll when putting the negatives into the sleeve.
It was only when I scanned the photos that I saw the ghostly locomotive fading into its own misty effluence.
Conway Scenic Railroad’s 7470 in December 2019.
This wouldn’t have been the first time I accidently threw away my own work!
Forty years ago I had a fleeting glimpse of Mexico City’s streetcar system.
By the time of my December 1979 visit, all of the traditional streetcar lines in the downtown area were out of service. However, PCC cars remained in service on a pair of peripheral lines on the south-side of the city that connected at the end of a Metro Line.
I regret not having the opportunity to travel on the trolleys, but at least I got to see and photograph them.
This is one of my only color photos of Mexico City streetcars. I’d mounted the slide in glass, which didn’t do the emulsion any favors and resulted in unsightly moiré patterns (rainbow-like interferences). First I scanned the slide through the glass as seen here, then I very carefully removed the film from the glass and rescanned it. See below. This is the same Kodachrome slide after removal from the glass mount. I cleaned the emulsion and rescanned the image. This scan is cleaner, sharper and largely free from the distracting artifacts caused by the glass, yet a few defects and stains remain. I’d go back and make the photo again, but I think the setting has likely changed in the last 40 years!
For me this sunset view of Mexico City street trackage is a symbolic photograph, and yet one that has haunted my imagination for decades. Technically speaking it is a poor photo; under exposed and the last frame on a roll of Kodachrome with the right side effectively cropped by the tape used during processing. I’ve cleaned up the slide a little for better presentation here.
Sometimes those scenes we only glimpse stick in our imagination more than those that we were immersed in. Do you remember that 1960s song recorded by Vashti Bunyan ‘Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind’?
One photo inspires another. A few days ago my friend Wally Hill posted a view from the back of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Gertrude Emma—1898-built Pullman open observation—featuring steam locomotive 7470 passing former Maine Central 501 on its march toward the North Conway, New Hampshire station from the coal dock.
His photo inspired me to make similar images, and so working with my FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm lens, I stood in Wally’s footprints and made these photographs.
On August 5, 1984, my late friend Robert A. Buck gave me an unforgettable tour of the Bangor & Aroostook in central Maine.
Among the stops on our trip was a brief visit to the disused tower at Lagrange. If you look to the right you can see Bob and his famous green van through the weeds.
I exposed this photo on Kodak Plus-X using an old Leica 3A with a Canon f1.8 50mm screw-mount lens. I processed the film in Kodak Microdol-X and stored the negatives for 35 years in an envelope. Last month I scanned the negatives using an Epson V750 scanner.
In January 1994, my father and I paid a visit to Perris, California, where I made some photos of this pair of rebuilt Santa Fe EMD diesels, along with the railroad station before proceeding to the Orange Empire Railway Museum.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Nikkormat FTN with Nikon 28mm AF wide-angle lens.
Santa Fe 2725 was a GP30u, which lost the characteristic semi-streamlined cab roof when rebuilt from a GP30 in the early 1980s.
On September 17, 2019, I exposed this photograph of southward DB IC train 1919 rolling along the left bank of the Rhein near Boppard using a Nikon F3 with 50mm lens and loaded with Fuji Provia 100F.
I scanned the slide with an Epson V750 scanner and made final adjustments using Lightroom.
Pure GP35s are rare in 2019. Pure high hood GP35s are rarer still.
Conway Scenic’s high-hood GP35 216, originally a Norfolk & Western locomotive, basks in the cold morning sun at North Conway, New Hampshire on Saturday, December 7, 2019.
Just imagine the roar! Conrail C30-7 6600 leads three former Erie-Lackawanna 20-cylinder EMDs!
So far as I can remember, this was the only time I caught an SDP45 (second unit) hard at work on the Boston Line.
I made these views of an uphill BAL (Ballast train) at Middlefield, Massachusetts on a day’s photography with my old pal TSH on a beautiful spring evening in June 1984. I was a week away from my high-school graduation.
My only regret is that I didn’t have better photography skills and better equipment.
Yesterday I scanned this 20-year old slide of an eastward CSX freight passing the signals at CPRJ—Rotterdam Junction, New York.
I’d exposed the slide using my first Nikon N90S on Fujichrome Sensia RA slide film.
I made great use of the Nikon N90S, and when I wore out the first one, I bought another.
Oddly, when reviewing my slides, I find that my work with the N90S wasn’t as refined as the photographs that I made with either my Nikon F3 (with which I used the same lens pool as the N90S) nor my Contax G2 rangefinder that had its own lenses.
I can’t really explain this phenomena, but I wish I’d recognized it sooner.
Notice the article ‘a’ rather than ‘the’. For today’s Tracking the Light, I am posting a view literally made from across a pond, rather than taking a metaphorical view from ‘across the pond’ (used as an ironic understated allusion for the North Atlantic Ocean).
You know, just in case there was any confusion!
This photograph was exposed last Tuesday afternoon, on Providence & Worcester’s former Boston & Maine Worcester to Gardner, Mass., route, and features the daily northward freight heading for interchange with Pan Am Railways/Pan Am Southern at Gardner.
Interestingly, I was traveling with Mike Gardner (no relation to the town), and this represented the fourth railroad I’d photographed on that Tuesday, November 26, 2019. Pretty neat! And with a cool pond too!
Yesterday morning (November 26, 2019) was misty with a hint of orange in the sky.
New England November mornings can make for cosmic settings for railroad photos.
I made my way to downtown Stafford Springs to catch New England Central’s 608 winding its way through town.
Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I exposed this 90mm view of the northward freight as it crossed Route 32 in the center of town at 717am. (A little earlier than I expected).
Three GP38s in the classic New England Central blue and yellow (or navy and gold, if you prefer) paint scheme were in the lead.
It was the start of an auspicious and productive day of railroad photography!
Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
November sun and a little elevation is a good start.
I’d spotted CSX’s Q022 rolling across the Palmer diamond as I departed the old union station, where I’d pulled in to see if anything was happening!
(No scanner and poor timing on my part!)
Not a bother. I drove post haste west on Route 20 and Route 67 to West Warren.
CSX’s Q022 had a decent size train, but with nearly 9,000 hp leading in the form of a pair of GE Evolutions, the train made good progress climbing eastward through the Quaboag River Valley.
I had time to park at West Warren, Massachusetts and walk briskly to the South Street Bridge, an old standby vantage point where I’ve made countless railroad photos in the last 35 years.
Two weeks ago when in Dublin, I went to see the motion picture Joker, a dark film in a fictional New York City setting of the early 1980s, portrayed in classic DC Comics fashion as ‘Gotham’.
Story-line and characters aside, the film’s scenes, setting and lighting recreated New York City, especially the Bronx, as I remember it from visits with my grandparents in the 1970s and 1980s. Portions of the Joker were filmed in my father’s old neighborhood. My memories were of that stark gritty dark time when graffiti covered subway cars were the norm.
Since arriving back in the USA, I’ve delved into my collection of early photos from New York City, some of which embody that fascinating apocalyptic darkness conveyed in the film, yet were merely the products of exploration of New York with my family.
However, where the film portrayed misery, mental illness, anger and extreme violence in brilliantly crafted cinema-graphic excellence, my photos were the product of child’s view to capture an exciting, albeit dark place, filled with urban wonders, railways, and visually captivating scenes.
Like a muddy river, the chain link fence was both a feature and a barrier.
Some of my early NYC photos were exposed on color slide film, others were on black & white. Almost all were made with my vintage 1930s Leica 3A.
These views were exposed on a very gray day in 1981, when exploring the former New Haven Railroad lines in the Bronx, my dad drove my brother and me to the NYCTA’s Westchester Yards off the Pelham Bay Line.
This was on the flight path to Laguardia Airport, and as I photographed the subway trains, my brother spotted the planes landing.
I was sifting through some old 120 black & white negatives yesterday and found these photographs from a morning’s photography along the old New Haven Railroad in Connecticut from June 1986.
I started the morning in South Norwalk, then moved down to Westport.
Most of the photos from the morning were exposed on Kodachrome slide film, but I made a few select images on Kodak Tri-X using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T using a 645-size ‘superslide’ insert to obtain a rectangular crop.
Amtrak 904 leads the eastward mail train at Westport at 9:18am on June 25, 1986. Kodak Tri-X with Rollei Model T exposed at f8/11 1/500 sec and processed in Kodak D76 at 68 degrees.
Most interesting to me now are the views of Amtrak’s eastward mail train behind AEM-7 904. This carried a group of baggage cars at the back including some from VIA Rail.
While I have detailed photographic notes from the day, what I don’t have recorded were my thoughts on the experience at the time. This was one of several similar trips I made to former New Haven electrified territory in the summer of 1986.
Amtrak mail train with a VIA Rail baggage car.Catenary masts at Westport draw.
At the end of June 2019, I exposed a few frames of Ilford HP5 using an old Nikkormat FTN with 105mm Nikkor Lens of Conway Scenic’s 0-6-0 7470 working the North Yard at North Conway, New Hampshire.
Following my normal presoak procedure; I processed the film using Ilford ID-11 mixed 1-1 with water for 6 minutes 15 secs at 70F.
I made this telephoto view of a northward Amtrak shuttle (running from New Haven, Connecticut to Springfield, Massachusetts) using a Nikon F3 with a 105mm lens and loaded with Fuji Acros 100 black & white film.
I like the way the Amtrak train glints in the morning sun.
To maximize tonality and detail, I used a split-development process, first soaking the film in a very dilute mixture of Kodak HC110, then using a more concentrated mix of Rodinal for primary development.
Travels have kept me on the move. But last night I finally sat down with the paper copy of December 2019 Trains and read my column on page 13 that talks about New York Central and Conway Scenic.
Cover of Dec 2019 trains.
There I am on page 13!
Here’s the scene I wrote about in the column but didn’t picture in the article. I made a couple of color slides here too.
Stark winter light suits black & white photography.
Back in January (2019), photographer Pat Yough and I made a day of photographing New England Central between White River Junction, Vermont and Leverett, Massachusetts.
Among the trains we photographed was freight 611, the Brattleboro to Palmer turn.
I made these views near Northfield, Massachusetts on Fuji Acros 100 black & white film using a Nikon F3 with 50mm lens.
To maximize tonality and detail, I used a split-development process, first soaking the film in a very dilute mixture of Kodak HC110, then a more concentrated mix of Rodinal.
During October’s Cobh Rambler tour, I made these views at Cork’s Kent Station on Kodak Tri-X black & white film.
The tour was operated by Railway Preservation Society of Ireland in conjunction with Irish Rail.
Kent’s curved Victorian train shed makes for a fascinating venue to photograph a modern railway in action, while the inclement weather on the day translated well with the traditional media.
I processed the film using a customized split development process consisting of Kodak HC110 presoak mixed 1-200 followed by primary development using Ilford ID11 1-1. The negatives were scanned using an Epsom V500 flatbed scanner with some minor final adjustment using Lightroom.
Tuesday last week, my arrival at Sallins, County Kildare by Irish Rail suburban train was merely a jumping off for a much more productive photographic endeavor.
See yesterday’s post, SUBURBAN TRAINS PASS AT SALLINS.
So Tuesday last week, I met fellow photographer Aiden McDonald outside Sallins and traveled by road for another visit to Bord na Mona’s Lanesborough narrow gauge network. This was my fourth foray in 2019 photographing on this wonderful industrial railway, and my second in less than a week.
My first visit to Lanesborough was more than six years ago and of all the Bord na Mona systems, it is my favorite.
We lucked out and met the empty ash train immediately on crossing the line near Derraghan More, County Longford.
It was bright and sunny and followed the train all the way back toward the Lough Ree Generating Station.
This was just the warm up and for the next six hours we were treated to almost non-stop action on one of Ireland’s coolest little railways.
A meet with a pair of empty trains returning to the bog for reloading.
Sadly this is an Indian Summer for the system, both literally and metaphorically. Word to the wise: time is running short.
Photo adjusted with digitally applied ND Grad using Light Room. A bit heavy handed here by my normal standards of adjustment, but possibly necessary for a more successful image. Leading the ash train was one of the last locomotives on the Lanesborough system still working in the older Bord na Mona paint livery. This photo also benefits from wee bit of digital adjustment to the sky.
