This is not a problem.
In 2007 while working on my book Railroads of Pennsylvania, I visited the Middletown & Hummelstown, a short line operating a short section of the former Reading Company.
I made this 2 1/4 inch square Fujichrome transparency using my Rolleiflex Model T.
The focus of the image was the Alco Products builder’s plate on the model T-6 switcher.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Here’s a photo from my black & white archives that I’d completely dismissed. I’d exposed it at Huntington, Massachusetts in March 1985.
There were a few of problems with this image that irked me.
The first was cosmic. Moments before I release the shutter, a cloud coverd the front of the train. That sort of thing used to drive me nuts.
The second was strategic. I’d released the shutter a little earlier than I’d like, leaving the train just a bit distant. I didn’t have a motor drive in those days, and typically would wait for the decisive moment to take my photo.
The third was a chronic failing from my Leica 3 days. I tended to photograph slightly off level, leaving most of my photos annoyingly tilted.
All of these flaws are now easily overcome using Adobe Lightroom.
I altered the exposure and contrast to correct for the obscured sun, while bringing in sky detail partially lost to over exposure. I cropped the photo to minimize the foreground, and this pleasantly altered the composition to feature the code lines to the right of the locomotives and milepost 119 on the left. Lastly, I leveled the image, a task that take now about 2 seconds.
Looking at this photo now, I find that I’m very pleased with it. It has aged very well. The minor flaws don’t bother me, since these were easily corrected, while the overall subject fascinates me. It is the time machine I needed today.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Electro-Motive Division’s BL2 was one of the strangest looking diesels of the mid-20th century.
On my visit to Bangor & Aroostook’s Northern Maine Junction yard (near Bangor, Maine) in July 1983, I made a variety of photos of stored diesels.
At the time, most of Bangor & Aroostook’s BL2 and F3 fleet was out of service. I was fascinated by these antiques.
Working with my Leica 3A, I made this study of the rear-end of BL2 number 55 surrounded by other stored diesels.
Although bizarre in appearance, EMD’s BL2 was mechanically and electrically very similar to the model F3,
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
It was a warm November morning, when Kris and I visited Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on the old Pennsylvania Railroad Middle Division.
Years ago, my old pal TSH and I would visit his grandmother who lived in Huntingdon. Kris and I drove around the village and I located the row house where Gram H. once lived. Then we proceeded to the Amtrak station to wait for the eastward Pennsylvanian.
Norfolk Southern fielded a few freights ahead of Amtrak, including this short local frieght led by a lone SD70ACU. Back in the old days, a pair of GP38-2s would have been standard on the local.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with f2.8 70-200mm zoom lens.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
On January 27, 1984, I made a few photos of Central Vermont Alco RS-11s switching at Dublin Street in Palmer, Massachusetts.
Locomotive 3608 was a rare bird on CV’s Palmer Subdivision. I only caught it in daylight on a few occasions. This RS-11 was distinctive for its boxy chopped nose on its short hood.
I scanned this negative a few days ago using my Epson V600 flatbed scanner and made some very minor post-processing adjustments to contrast using Adobe Lightroom.
Tracking the Posts Daily!
On this day ten years ago (January 11, 2012), I spent an afternoon with my Irish friends Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe around Werfen, Austria, photographing the ÖBB in action .
I made this selection of photos with my Canon EOS-7D—a camera that I still own, and still occasionally use.
I love the Canon color palatte, and this really shows in these digital photos in the snowy landscape along the river Salzach.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
In my capacity as Manager of Marketing & Events at Conway Scenic Railroad, I’ve launched a cross-media advertising campaign to promote the railroad’s winter season Snow Trains that run from the North Conway, New Hampshire Station to the Attitash Whistle Stop near the village of Bartlett.
This service begins today (January 8, 2022) and runs weekends through March 6, plus holidays and vacation weeks.
I exposed the original photograph of GP7 573 on the Snow Train during the 2021 Snow Train season using my Fujifilm XT1 fitted with a 12mm Zeiss Tuoit.
This image is featured in Conway Scenic billboard advertising as well as print ads in the Conway Daily Sun, Vibe magazine, Union Leader, Portland Magazine, among other area publications.
In addition to advertising the train, I’ve worked closely with Conway Scenic Railroad Train Master, Mike Lacey in refining numerous details of Snow Train operation. This has included working out running times, drafting the operating timetable, producing public schedules, etc.
I plan to travel on the first Snow Trains this morning! (Saturday January 8, 2022)
Tracking the Light Publishes new material Everyday!
Another choice image from my recently scanned roll of Ilford FP4 exposed in Spring 1985.
I made this view with a 50mm lens looking timetable west at the west end of Conrail’s old Boston & Albany yard in Palmer, Massachusetts. I had driven in behind Howlett’s Lumber to photograph a Sperry rail defect detection car that was stored near the B&A freight house.
Just about everything in this scene has changed. The freight house was demolished in Janaury 1989. The large building at right beyond burned down some years later. The code lines were removed after the B&A was re-signaled in 1986-1987.
I’ve posted two versions of this photo. The top is my unaltered and uncorrected scan. The bottom reflects a series of nominal adjustments using Adobe Lightroom.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Former Maine Central GP38s 252 and 255, led Conway Scenic’s New Years Special trip to Sawyer River on January 2, 2022.
I made this photo using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm zoom lens.
For dramatic effect, I set my zoom to a relatively long focal length and placed the camera on level plane with the rail for this ‘low angle’ view.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
2002 was a productive year for my photographic adventures.
Working with my Contax G2, I exposed this sequence of black & white photos on Kodak Tri-X at Irish Rail’s Manulla Junction in County Mayo.
This isolated station served as the transfer point for passengers traveling on the Ballina Branch.
In the the long view, the Ballina branch train can be seen to the right, with the Westport-Dublin train on the left.
Leading the Dublin train is Irish Rail Class 201 #215.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Both views below show a Lechmere-bound Greenline train at Boston’s Government Center station.
I made the top view on Ektachrome about 1980, using my old Leica 3A. This features one of the Boeing-Vertol ‘Light Rail Vehicle’ cars.
The bottom view was made last October (2021) using my Nikon Z6, and features one of the AnsaldoBreda Type 8 cars.
Although the angle of the photos varies and there’s about 41 years between them, both were exposed at approximately the same place.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
In my archive of Kodachrome slides, I found this view from October 1982.
I’d been traveling on a Mystic Valley excursion that was returning from a run through the Hoosac Tunnel.
At Greenfield, Massachusetts we overtook an eastward Boston & Maine freight led by Maine Central run-through power.
In the lead was GP38 255.
At the time, locomotive 255 was just one of 13 Maine Central GP38s.
Today 255 is Conway Scenic’s latest purchase.
Interestingly, in October 1982, Maine Central’s Mountain Division was still open as a through freight route.
My 39 year slide is a difficult image. Hard backlighting, combined with suboptimal exposure on my part led to a pretty dark slide. Worse, in processing Kodak didn’t produce the best result, which suffers from a heavy magenta color bias.
I scanned the image and then made a series of adjustments to make it better. I’ve also included a recent photo of former Maine Central 255 on Conway Scenic.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Earlier this month, Conway Scenic Railroad operated a few charters from North Conway, New Hampshire to the White Mountain Cider Company in Glen.
I traveled on this trip and made publicity photos of self-propelled Rail Diesel Car ‘Millie‘ making its Glen stop— immediately east of the twin truss bridge over the Saco River (east of milepost 66).
I was working with my Lumix LX7 for these morning views at Glen.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
It was a pleasant June evening in June 2001 when I made the short walk from the bed & breakfast where I was staying to this bridge at Copyhold Junction, north of Haywards Heath, England.
Although the railway line was in shadow, I exposed a few black & white photos with my Rolleiflex Model T.
This image interests me because it features a two-piece diesel-electric multiple unit of the now obsolete ‘slam door’ type. The ‘slam door’ cars featured multiple doors to allow for rapid boarding and unload and were a characteristic type of train on the old Southern Region.
While in 2001, these cars were still relatively plentiful, they were soon to be phased out in favor of more modern equipment.
Consider this: my primary goal of my 2001 visit to this area was to photograph the nearby Bluebell Railway, a well-known preserved line famous for its steam power. Twenty years later, the Bluebell Railway remains as one of Briain’s most popular heritage railways and hasn’t changed radically in its overall appearance. By comparison, the era of ‘Slam Door’ trains (such as that pictured) working regular revenue mainline services are largely a memory. (A few have been preserved)
The lessons: an ordinary train may make for a more significant historical photo than an image of preserved train. Yet, I’d be willing to bet that the photos I made of Bluebell’s steam will still draw greater interest than the Slam Door DEMU on the move!
Tracking the Light Posts Daily
It’s been several months since I last featured photos showing the progress to the HO Scale Reading Company Kris and I have been building in her basement.
I’ve been working on scenery, using lots of plaster and foam board. To demonstrate my progress I made these views using my Lumix LX7.
I still have a lot of work to do on the scenery, and it is by no means complete, but it sure beats the open timber frame appearance that the model railway exhibited in my earlier photos.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Tracking the Light!
Much has changed at the summit of the Allegheny Divide in 22 years.
In the 1990s Conrail enlarged the tunnel clearances on one tunnel and added a second track while abandoning an adjacent bore. Conrail operations were conveyed to Norfolk Southern in 1999, and a new bridge was built over the tracks.
Last month on our visit to the Tunnel Inn at Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, I made a variety of photos of Norfolk Southern trains passing through the tunnel.
I thought it would be neat to pair these helper images with vintage photos of Conrail trains from approximately the same location that I made on Kodachrome 25 back in July 1989.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
Last week I was part of a Conway Scenic crew involved with trackwork on the old Maine Central Mountain Division.
The light was December-dull, and the setting reminded me of trackwork scenes I’d photographed on black & white film back in the 1980s.
Working with my Nikon Z6 in a monochrome-mode, I made these digital images to capture the texture of the event.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
I timed our visit to Horseshoe Curve to coincide with the passage of Amtrak’s eastward Pennsylvanian—train 42.
I made this sequence of the New York- bound train as it descended the curve using both my Nikon Z6 and Lumix LX7 cameras.
Rich Novmeber sun and late season foliage made for a pleasing combination in contrast with the metallic Amtrak equipment.
All five images were adjusted in post processing using Adobe Lightroom.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
The other day I was part of a crew that ran GP35 #216 light engine from Conway Scenic Railroad’s North Conway, NH yard to milepost 64 on the former Maine Central Mountain Division.
Our mission was to clear flangeways from ice accumulation and freshly fallen snow.
Once stopped at milepost 64, I climbed down and made a few photos using my Lumix LX7.
Although the sky was a flat December gray, the scene brightened when the sun briefly emerged from a low cloud bank over the Saco River.
Soon we were working eastward again.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
In the autumn, the sun swings around in the late afternoon at Cassandra, and neatly lines up with the rock cut to the west of the Railfans Overlook bridge.
We heard a westward freight approaching, so I took a position over the middle track to make for a dramatic telephoto view in the low autumn sun.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Although Dublin’s new LUAS tram system would not commence operations for another two years, in April 2002 the first batches of Alstom Citadis trams had already arrived.
I was invited on a tour of the Red Cow depot as a member of the Irish Railway Record Society, and made this view of tram 3013, which at the time was a ‘short’ three-section tram.
Recently I scanned this negative along with numerous other images exposed on the same roll of film. It’s amazing how much has changed over the last twenty years in Ireland.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
My first visit to Horseshoe Curve, Pennsylvania was memorable. It was summer 1981; we arrived in our Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and as we got out of the car, I could hear a westward train in the distance with the unmistakeable sound of an SD45 in the lead.
Without wasting a moment, I ran the 200 plus steps from the parking lot to the park in time to catch a Conrail 6100-series SD45 leading a freight passing the former Pennsylvania Railroad K4s Pacific that was then on display at the Curve.
Fast forward forty years. This November, Kris and visited the famous Curve on an unseasonably pleasant morning. Not long after we arrived, we heard the thunder of a climbing westward freight, and together we enjoyed its circumfrential passage up the valley.
I made these photos as the Norfolk Southern freight squeeled around the famous Horseshoe Curve.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
Last month Kris and I booked two nights at the Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin, PA, located at milepost 248, immediately west of the tunnels below the Allegheny Divide at the summit of the old Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line.
I love Pennsylvania.
I’d made my first visit to Gallitzin on a family holiday back in the summer of 1981—40 years ago. There was no Tunnel Inn back then.
In the 1980s, my old pal TSH and I would make photos from the bridge over the line adjacent to the building that would later become the Tunnel Inn.
On arrival last month, Bob, the proprietor of the Tunnel Inn offered Kris and me a room overlooking the tracks named for the old Pennsylvania Railroad MO Tower. (The tower had controlled movements through the interlocking at Cresson, several miles to the west of Gallitzin.)
The Inn is nicely furnished and decorated inside, and there’s a nice tavern just a short walk down the road. Across the tracks is a preserved Pennsylvania Railroad N8 caboose.
Minutes after we checked in to the Tunnel Inn, the first of many Norfolk Southern trains rolled by.
What a cool place! More to follow soon!
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
In August 2003, I was traveling on the Steam Enterprise, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s Dublin-Belfast express led by compound 4-4-0 number 85—Merlin .
On board the train, this once-timeless scene caught my eye. Today, I wonder how much longer might passengers afford of the luxury of perusing the Sunday newspaper while traveling by rail? Or has this activity already become completely obsolete?
Less than 20 years ago, the smart phone had yet to grip the population and emerge as the chief vehicle for media and entertainment on board trains.
I scanned this black & white negative yesterday morning for presentation here. Ironically, when I exposed the photo, I expected to make prints from it, not scans.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Way back in the days of Blue, Mike Gardner and I paid a visit to Cassandra, Pennsylvania. We called into the Railfan’s Welcome Center and were given a memorable tour by the mayor of the borough, and then spent the afternoon photographing Conrail trains from the famous Overlook Bridge.
That was November 1998, and only a few months before Conrail’s class 1 operations there were to become part of Norfolk Southern.
Some 23 years later (has it really been THAT long?), Kris and I paid a visit to the same bridge.
The paint has changed. The old PRR position-light signals are gone. The trains are longer. But Cassandra is much the way I remember it back in 1998.
In 1998, I was photographing on Fujichrome with a Nikon N90S with an 80-200mm f2.8 Nikkor zoom. Last month, it was a Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm f2.8 zoom. (But many other cameras in between.)
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
In July 2003, I exposed a single frame of 120 size Tri-X looking toward the old Duncormick Station on Irish Rail’s lightly used South Wexford line.
I’d processed the film in Ilfotec HC shortly after the time of exposure. The other day I scanned this photo along with other images on the roll.
Working with Adobe Lightroom 5.0, I made use of the ‘select sky’ feature under the ‘New Mask’ option (located at the righthand side of the control panel and indicated with a pixilated circle icon) to make the sunset sky more dramatic.
Previously, I would have achieved a similar effect by creating a linear gradiation mask to make my adjustments.
The advantage of the ‘select sky’ mask is that it neatly segregates the sky area from the rest of the image and allows for a cleaner adjustment while requiring less work on my part.
In this case, to make the sky appear more dramatic, I used the ‘clarity’ slider, moving to the right (+) which increases the constrast without a substantial loss of detail.
Below are both the unaltered scan of the original black & white negative, and my adjusted version. In addition, I’ve included a screenshot of hte Adobe Lightroom control panel.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
The wee village of Steward, Illinois is located amongst a glade of trees where the old Burlington makes a sharp bend on its westward run between Aurora and Savanna—where the line reaches the Mississippi River.
Steward is just a few miles from the busy crossing at Rochelle, where the old Burlington crosses the very busy Union Pacific former Chicago & North Western east-west line between Chicago and the Omaha/Council Bluffs gateway.
Twenty-five years ago, I’d occasionally frequent Steward to photograph trains on Burlington Northern/BNSF.
A few weeks ago on our way east, Kris and I stopped briefly in the village of Steward to photograph the preserved former Burlington station there.
This was one of the railroad’s standard pattern stations, in other words a building using a standardized floor plan that was applied to many similar structures along the company’s lines.
It appears that the building was moved both across and away from the tracks since it last had served as the company’s station building at Steward. Notice the position of the bay window on the ‘wrong’ side of the building. As built, the bay window would have been on the track-side of most station buildings.
I made these images using my Lumix LX7 digital camera.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Yes, you read the title correctly.
In July 2002, my Irish friends and I paid a visit to Cornwall in the west of England, to photograph long distance passenger trains on the old Great Western Railway main line.
To make a long story short; the car we were traveling in developed a ‘fault’ at Par, which invovled a delay to our travels, and resulted in a trip on a stink buggy ( a common bus) in order to reach the railway station.
Ultimately the automobile was repaired and so we visited myriad other destinations and locations in the south western regions of England, but in the meantine we made the best of being at the station at Par.
Using my Contax G2 rangefinder, I made this view of an approaching Virgin Cross Country ‘HST’ passenger train operating approaching Par on a bright overcast morning.
I was working with Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film that I later processed using my custom tailored recipe using Agfa Rodinal Special mixed about 1 to 60 with water. If anything, these negatives are too constrasty and required some post processing adjustment using Adobe Lightroom
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
At the train watching platform in Rochelle, Illinois, a scanner is perpetually broadcasting railroad radio chatter.
On our brief visit there a couple of weeks back, Kris and I overheard BNSF’s dispatcher discussing with unknown parties the status of an eastward unit tank train tied down near Steward.
Armed with this knowledge we drove railroad east through the sprawing industry and cornfields toward Steward, where we found the afforementioned freight. It was crew-less and its headlight extinguished.
I made these photos with my Nikon Z6 and 70-200mm Nikkor zoom lens.
Tracking the Light Looks at Illinois!
In the 1980s a pair of SD40-2s was a common find.
Today these old locomotives seem noteworthy.
Kris and I visited Rochelle, Illinois two weeks ago and found this clean pair of BNSF SD40-2s in the siding east of the Union Pacific crossing. I made a few photos with my Lumix LX7 and Nikon Z6 digital cameras.
The light was dull, the landscape uninspiring, but the bright orange paint on the old diesels made for a photogenic subject.
I wonder if in my travels I had ever previously crossed paths with either of these two antique Electro-Motive diesels.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Since my first visits to the Highway F bridge over the Wisconsin Central tracks at Byron, Wisconsin in 1994, the railroad here had been functionally transformed.
In the late 1990s, two main track (both lines signalled for bi-directional operation) replaced single main track, the old signal code lines were removed, while a modern highway bridge was installed in the place of the old span.
Canadian National acquired Wisconsin Central two decades ago, and today the freight trains are significantly longer than they were 25 years ago.
It was snowing hard when Kris and I paused to watch this southward CN double stack train ascending toward the summit of Byron. I thought back to Wisconsin Central days, and scanned the comparison view from 1994 made from a similar vantage point on the old bridge.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
Yesterday, Friday November 26, 2021, Conway Scenic began operating its annual Santa’s Holiday Express.
It was a wet & dreary debut, but well attended.
I was focused on the details of the operation; the schedule, the decorations, and the narrations.
I traveled on the first run to Conway, and made photo of Santa’s arrival.
At Conway Scenic, Santa Claus rides in the caboose.
I’ll bet S. Kip Farrington would have something to say about that!
At Conway, I made photo of Santa waving from the railroad’s vintage former Central Vermont wooden body caboose using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series zoom lens.
After exposure, I modified the NEF RAW file using Adobe Lightroom.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Wisconsin Central’s Byron Hill grade south of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin was among my favorite place to photograph trains in the mid-1990s.
A few weeks ago, Kris and I revisited a few of my old locations.
At Lost Arrow Road, we caught a southward Canadian National double stack train on its ascent of the grade.
In February 1995, I’d pictured a Wisconsin Central loaded iron ore train with then new Southern Pacific DASH9-44CWs from almost the same angle.
In the interval between the photos, the railroad has been converted from one main track to two, the grade crossing protection has been upgraded with crossing arms, and the trees have grown.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
The trappings and extras incorporated into November 14th’s Soo Line 1003 photo freight gave the whole experience a throw back feel.
In addition to period freight cars and Soo Line caboose, were some vintage automobiles posed at crossing in Burnett, Wisconsin, where a man played the roll of crossing tender.
Here I focused on the details and extras, making a few photos that appeared like those from more than six decades ago.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
Often I’ve described the details of my black & white film techniques on Tracking the Light.
Today’s post features a digital photograph converted to monochrome in post processing using Adobe Lightroom.
This was a comparatively simple task. Working with the Lumix RAW file, I used the ‘Saturation’ slider control to eliminate all color from the image. Then, to increase drama and contrast, I implemened some dramatic changes using the ‘Clarity’ slider that intoduced a stark contrast curve before converting the image into the final JPG file displayed here.
Why not make this photo on film? All things being equal, I wish I had exposed a black & white negative, but in this instance I was traveling light: I kept my repitoire of cameras flexble and was working with just two digital bodies, and no film at all.
Perhaps next time, I’ll bring a single film camera with lens.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
This timeless scene was made possible by the Trains Magazine steam photo charter on November 14, 2021.
I was among the dozens of photographers taking advantage of the time machine.
This was among the dozens of images I made that day using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera. It was snowing lightly, which added atmosphere and depth.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
