Exposed on Fujichrome 100 with an F3T fitted with Nikon 80-200mm lens.
In the heat of summer sometimes it’s nice to remember how things are in the winter.
Looking compass south on the Maine Central at Lincoln, Maine in the Winter of 1996.
The trick is exposing so there’s some texture in the snow without making the image so dark that the snow appears battleship gray and the shadows become opaque. Controlling flare helps.
Union Pacific’s Encina Hill in eastern Oregon on June 12, 1993.
Looking west on the Union Pacific. I exposed this view on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a f1.8 105mm lens. Kodachrome had excellent dynamic range that allowed it to capture detail and color from the brightest highlights to the deepest shadows. Look carefully. Follow the tracks around the bend to the right; a train has passed, but the exhaust from its helpers can still be seen illuminated by the setting sun.
Pleasant Valley siding on Union Pacific’s mainline in eastern Oregon is aptly named. I made this image on Kodachrome 25 while traveling with Brian Jennison.
We’d driven up from Nevada to intercept Union Pacific’s Challenger, locomotive 3985, that was running trips toward Portland. The weather was excellent and this was a good excuse to photograph this remote but scenic section of heavily traveled steeply graded mainline.
I remember the scent of sage and the wide open skies and the relative quiet; qualities I associate with the great American west.
We were waiting for Pan Am Southern’s westward empty autorack, train 206. This was just the gravy: Earlier Mike Gardner, Brian Jennison and I, had already had a productive summer’s day following the Mass-Central and caught Amtrak’s Vermonter in perfect light at Millers Falls.
As we waited for 205, Pan Am’s dispatcher routed its eastward counterpart, loaded autorack train 206 (destined for Ayer, Massachusetts), through the yard at East Deerfield to get it around a track gang.
Pan Am Southern train 206 crosses the Connecticut River at East Deerfield, Massachusetts on the evening of July 10, 2014.
This was an unexpected bonus! The train was led by a colorful consist of General Electric diesels. A Union Pacific Evolution-series was up front, followed by a curious former Conrail and/or LMS DASH8-40CW lettered for Canadian National and sublettered for CN’s subsidiary Illinois Central. Trailing was a common Norfolk Southern DASH9-40CW.
It’s just as well I shot this as a digital image and not as a color slide. I couldn’t have fit all this information on the slide mount! (Although I did exposed a frame of black & white film).
We never saw Pan Am’s 205 that day.
Nor did we catch the following unit grain train with BNSF locomotives leading. You can’t win all the prizes.
Here are a few views I made with my Rolleiflex Model T of Mass-Central’s former Boston & Albany branch on July 10, 2014.
Why black & white? Why film? Why in 2014?
Mass-Central GP38 1751 crosses the Route 32 bridge in Ware, Massachusetts on July 10, 2014. Exposed on Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar lens.Former Boston & Albany freight house at Gilbertville, Massachusetts along the Mass-Central’s Ware River Branch on July 10, 2014. Exposed on Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar lens.Exposed on Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar lens. The film was processed in Kodak HC110, dilution B (1 part developer to 32 parts water) at 70 degrees F, for 6 minutes using three agitation inversions every 30-60 seconds.Mass-Central 1751 works north of Gilbertville on July 10, 2014. Exposed on Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar lens.
There’s no question, digital photography is easier. If I desire a square black & white image, all I have to do is set my Lumix LX7 to a 1:1 aspect ratio using a switch on the camera, and set the ‘photo style’ to ‘monochrome’ using the function button.
This set up procedure takes just a few seconds, and I can switch back to color quickly and easily whenever I choose.
Working with the Rolleiflex is more cumbersome; the camera is klutzy to load, it only makes 12 frames per roll of film, and the film takes about an hour to process in the darkroom (dry to dry). Then I need to cut and sleeve the negatives and then scan them for presentation here.
Yet, I still do this. Not for every photograph, not on every outing, but I still go through the motions of using black & white film.
Why? I have five reasons:
1) I like it.
2) It gives me a subtle ‘retro’ quality that I can’t really get from digital.
3) It allows me visual continuity: I’ve been making black & white railroad photos since the 1970s. Why stop now?
4) I can still do it: I have the cameras, the film, the darkroom and the skills to get great results.
5) The B&W film medium is known to be archival. I process my film using a two bath fixer, permawash and rinse for 15 minutes in clean running water. They are stored in archival sleeves. Barring the unforeseen, the negatives I processed should still be in good condition for viewing in 50 to 100 years, maybe longer. They will need no extra attention regarding ‘back up’, except to store them in a safe dry place.
This last point is not true with digital photos. I make three backup copies of every digital image and store them in separate locations, but digital remains an ephemeral media. Hard drives, DVDs and all other existing means of commercially-available digital storage will, in time, go bad. Hard drives can fail, suddenly, completely and without warning. The information will be lost. The photos will vanish. Like the tide coming in on a child’s sandcastle, the images in their digital form will be washed away, forever.
Mass-Central at South Barre, Massachusetts. Exposed on Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar lens.A cropped section of the above photo, enlarged to show detail. One of the flaws with WordPress web media is that images are automatically compressed which lowers the quality for ease of display.
In April 1988, I was exploring locations along Conrail’s former New York Central ‘Water Level Route’ west of Dunkirk, New York. Parallel to this line was the old Nickel Plate Road.
Where the former New York Central Line was a highly engineered grade-level route and crossed the terrain on high earthen fills, Nickel Plate was built to a lighter standard and used plate girder viaducts over the valleys of rivers and streams.
Lighter engineering often results in more interesting photographs.
Exposed on black & white negative film using a Rolleiflex Model T with f3.5 Zeiss Tessar lens. By using a 645 ‘superslide’ insert, I obtained a rectangular negative size instead of the more common square associated with the Rollei T. This gave me a more conventional photographic aspect. In retrospect, I’ve found that I prefer Rollei photos made in the square format.
I caught this Norfolk Southern freight working toward Buffalo over a tower-supported plate-girder trestle near Westfield, New York.
At the time, Norfolk Southern had recently purchased a fleet of General Electric C39-8s and tended to work these long hood first. I found this arrangement fascinating and so I made a variety of images of the big GE diesels working ‘hammer head’ style.
The former Pennsylvania Railroad at Princeton Junction is on an exceptionally long level tangent and on fast track. A headlight appears as a twinkle. Minutes pass. The rails begin to sing and the catenary starts to resonate. Then a train blasts by at more than 100 mph!
Amtrak’s Acele Express blasts through Princeton Junction at more than 100mph. Exposed with a Lumix LX-7.
It was here that my father captured the United Aircraft TurboTrain on trial at speed back in the 1960s.
Princeton Junction is also where you can switch to the ‘Dinky’, which traverses NJ Transit’s shortest branch (recently made even shorter) to Princeton.
Old Pennsylvania Railroad position light signals (modified with color aspects) remain standard on the Northeast Corridor. Exposed using a Canon 7D with 200mm lens.On the evening of June 29, 2014, an Amtrak Keystone train approaches Princeton Junction. The old PRR tower is on the right. An eastbound Keystone from Harrisburg was bearing down at the same time. The two trains passed at the station with a closing speed of more than 200 mph!Think fast and act faster; I had only a few moments to turn around and catch this running meet between Amtrak Keystone trains. Both are moving at more than 100 mph!An NJ Transit train from New York Penn Station pauses on the platform at Princeton Junction. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D with 200mm lens.An eastbound New Jersey Transit train from Trenton glides toward Princeton Junction. Since track 1 is out of service, passenger will board from platform extensions to track 2. The fading light of this June evening made for an atmospheric image on the busy North East Corridor. Canon EOS 7D with 200mm lens.
Tomorrow, Tracking the Light takes a spin on the Dinky!
Once upon a time, long long ago, Pennsylvania Railroad’s New York City terminal was among the world’s greatest railway stations.
Its architecturally enlightened design cleverly blended classical motifs and modern engineering on a colossal scale. Electrified lines brought long distance trains directly into the station. It was beautiful and functional.
Fifty one years ago the wrecking balls put an end to the fairy tale. Although, from what I’m told, in its last years the old Penn-Station was a tired, tatty vestige of its earlier days. Yet, New Yorkers were justly disgusted when the Pennsylvania Railroad ruined its once-glorious gateway to the city.
Madison Square Garden, which as someone famously pointed out, is neither! Pennsylvania Station is below.Lumix LX7 photo.
In its place, PRR built the present uninspired maze of passageways and escalators. I find it more confusing than Heathrow Airport. It looks something like mall, feels a bit like an overgrown bus terminal, and seems to have very little to do with railways until you descend into its bowels to hastily board a train.
In June, I decided I’d try to make some photos of the place. After all, it is Amtrak’s busiest station, thus noteworthy.
Philadelphia you say? I’ll give it a shot!Penn-Station was mobbed with railway passengers, all trying to get someplace.
Brass railings, a vestige of earlier times. Drop down into the roar and odors that characterize New York Penn-Station and board a train for New Jersey! (That’s what I did).
America’s most famous station, New York Central’s crown jewel, and in 2014, a great place to photograph; that’s Grand Central Terminal. It was also my gateway to Manhattan in late June.
I’d taken Metro-North from New Haven.
When I arrived, I had a few minutes to re-explore the station and make a few photographs. I wasn’t alone in that regard. It seemed like everywhere I turned there were people aiming iPhones, or staring through the viewfinder of cameras.
The vast space of Grand Central’s main concourse with its trademark information desk and celestial ceiling makes for a compelling urban scene. It’s makes for complete contrast to New York Penn-Station’s maze of uninspired passageways that looks more like a run-down 1970s-era shopping mall or bus terminal. I was heading there next, by subway.
Cable Car on Columbus, exposed on Kodachrome in 1994.
This isn’t your typical cable car image. Where photographers, myself included, have often focused on San Francisco’s exceptionally steep hills, where cars appear to cling precariously to tracks, instead I’ve tried to make the most of one of more level sections of the cable car system.
I exposed this on Kodachrome 25 this using my old Nikormat FT3 with a secondhand Tokina 400mm lens.
This exceptionally long telephoto was very sharp but had very shallow depth of field. I used this quality to set background highway traffic, include some MUNI Trolley buses, out of focus, thus helping the viewer concentrate on the main subject—the famous cable car.
Although a simple image, there’s a lot to see in it. Despite my use of selective focus, the path of the cable car track (with its trademark central conduit) leads the eye beyond the car and around the corner toward Powell Street.
Aiding my effort was the rich afternoon sun for which San Francisco is often blessed. There’s an exceptionally pleasant quality to Bay Area sunshine that is best experienced in person, but has made for a great many photographic opportunities. I miss that quality of light when I’m not there!
By this date it was unusual to find pairs of small GMs working passenger trains in Ireland. Mixed pairs (dual-cab 141/181s and single-cab class 121s) were even stranger, but not unheard of.
I was in position on the platform at Ennis to catch the arrival of this Gaelic Athletic League special that ran with 134 and 163 and a set of Mark II carriages. The crew wasted little time in running around the train in preparation for returning the empty train to Limerick.
Exposed on Fujichrome Sensia 100 with a Contax G2 Rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Zeiss Biogon lens.
I had only a few minutes to make this image of the locomotives on the Limerick-end of the train before it departed. If you look carefully, you can set a shunter coupling the locomotives to the carriages.
I’ve always like the effect of dusk in this image. For me it serves as both a graphic and a symbolic role. However, I’m not completely satisfied with the composition. The orange cone in the foreground is distracting and the radio mast at the far right annoys me.
As I recall, I didn’t have time to refine my angles. Before I could relocate, the driver sounded the horn, throttled up and was on his way!
Dawn and dusk are great times to make urban images where there’s a mix of natural and artificial light.
The reduced amount of daylight and the change in color temperature helps control contrast, simplifies exposure, while making for a more dramatic image.
I exposed this view of a tram train under the shed at Karlsruhe on the evening of May 11, 2011 using my Lumix LX-3.
The Germany tram train system allows specially designed light rail cars to share tracks with mainline trains. The system greatly benefits passengers and maximizes the use of the railway network.
Back in the 1980s, I’d buy my film at Frantek in South Hadley, and then return via Holyoke, where I’d almost always find the Boston & Maine switching. Back then the old Connecticut River line was busy with through and local trains.
On a typical day, there would be between three and four freights daily, plus the nocturnal Amtrak Montrealer.
Holyoke itself generated a fair amount of traffic, and the yard there was always full of cars. Pioneer Valley Railroad interchanged with B&M at the south end of the yard. During the day it wasn’t uncommon to find one of PVRR’s EMC SW1s or Alcos working Holyoke industrial trackage.
The old Boston & Maine station at Holyoke, one of a handful of surviving railroad stations designed by noted architect H.H. Richardson (also responsible for the station in Palmer, Massachusetts, which is routinely featured in Tracking the Light.) Canon EOS 7D photo.
Vestiges of Holyoke Yard on June 22, 2014. Canon EOS 7D photo.Old mill buildings on the canal in Holyoke. All quiet on a Sunday morning. Lumix LX-7 photo.Lyman Street in Holyoke on Sunday June 22, 2014. Lumix LX-7 photo.Pan Am’s EDPL crossing a canal bridge in Holyoke on June 22, 2014.Pan Am’s EDPL crossing a canal bridge in Holyoke on June 22, 2014. Lumix LX-7 photo.
Sunday, June 22, 2014, I revisited Holyoke. The railway scene is very much changed from the 1980s. Most of the yard is gone, as are the majority of the customers it once served. The Montrealer hasn’t operated in decades, and the volume of mainline freight is now carried by Pan Am Railway’s lone symbol freights EDPL/PLED (East Deerfield, Massachusetts to Plainville, Connecticut).
Now, Holyoke is on the eve of rail revival. It will soon host a new station for the Knowledge Corridor, and in a few months time will be a stop on Amtrak’s re-routed Vermonter. Hopefully, an increase in freight traffic will soon follow.
The old mills and factories in Holyoke make for a fascinating post-industrial setting.
LX-7 photo.Holyoke City Hall rises above a sea of red brick. Canon EOS 7D photo.
Most Amtrak trains working the line between New Haven, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts consist of two-car push-pull shuttle sets with a GE P42 at one end and a former Budd Metroliner cab car at the other. The exceptions include the daily Washington-St. Albans Vermonter and some weekend services.
On the morning of June 22, 2014, Amtrak P42 150 leading train 145 on the former New Haven Railroad at Springfield, Massachusetts passes below Memorial Bridge. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D fitted with a 200mm lens.On the morning of June 22, 2014, Amtrak P42 150 leading train 145 on the former New Haven Railroad at Springfield, Massachusetts. Memorial Bridge spans the Connecticut River between Springfield and West Springfield. Exposed with a Lumix LX-7.
Train 145 is a relatively new service that runs Sunday only from Springfield to Lynchburg, Virginia. Photographically, it offers an opportunity to feature a P42 leading a relatively long train in nice morning light on the former New Haven line south of Springfield.
Lets talk about hardware and software for a minute. What?Why?
I mention this because I’ve found in my years of writing about railways, a majority of people have never considered the significance of train numbers versus equipment numbers.
This may seem pedantic, but it is an important distinction.
A train is a service, while locomotives, passenger cars and multiple units are equipment. Take these photos for example: we have Amtrak P42 number 150, leading train 145. The locomotive number solely specifically identifies that individual piece of hardware; while the train number identifies the service.
Locomotive 150 only operated on train 145 as far as New Haven, where was replaced by an electric for the run to Washington (there another diesel took over for remainder of the trip to Lynchburg). Interestingly, later in the day I caught engine 150 again, this time leading train 54, the northward Vermonter.
I’m glad I’ve cleared up any misconceptions!’
As an aside, a few weeks ago I was at Penn-Station aboard Amtrak train number 94. On the opposite platform was an Acela Express HST (high speed train). Both were destined for Boston. Some passengers were rather confused as to which train to board. To help clarify matters, an Amtrak employee made this announcement:
“THIS IS TRAIN Ninety Four! If you ARE NOT ON TRAIN NINETY FOUR, GET OFF TRAIN NINETY FOUR!”
It was a fresh clear morning in Oregon. I was photographing along the Oregon Trunk on advice of Brian Rutherford. This route was jointly used by Burlington Northern and Union Pacific and traversed some stunning scenery.
Having hiked into a choice location in Trout Creek Canyon, I was rewarded with a Burlington Northern grain train in nice light.
I was impressed by the solid consist of freshly painted company hoppers.
Kodachrome 25 exposed with a Nikon F3T with 28mm lens.
The next day, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe announced merger. Although a year of merger machinations and approval processes would entail before BN+SF was consummated, it was the end of an era for BN (and Santa Fe).
Over the years, I’ve made countless images of the Central Vermont Railway, and its modern day successor, New England Central at Palmer.
It was a warm August evening, the light was nice, and a pair of CV GP9s were working the Conrail interchange.
Exposed on Kodachrome with a Leica M2 with 35mm Summicron lens.
Rather than simply make another close-up trackside-view, I opted for this unusual angle south of the old Union Station. I put CV’s tracks in the foreground, while framing the locomotives in the canopy supports of the station. For me this tells a story while putting a less common perspective on a familiar place.
This was 15 years before the station was restored and transformed into the Steaming Tender Restaurant. Now the station is again vibrant, while CV and Conrail are many years gone.
I had visions of wolves howling in distant ravines, silhouettes of bats flitting through the air against a luminescent full moon, and an aged caped gentleman speaking in a thickly accented voice. . .
Then I arrived in Romania by train from Budapest and reality interrupted my fantastic imaginations!
Turns out that Predeal, at the summit of the Transylvania Alps, is a great place to photograph trains. No bats, no moon, no wolves; not that I saw anyway.
Predeal, Romania, exposed on Fujichrome using a Nikon F3 with f2.8 180mm lens.
The weedgrown right-of-way is deceptive. The mainline is electrified and heavily traveled.
On the afternoon of July 11, 2007, I exposed this image south of the summit a Predeal of a Compania Naţională de Căi Ferate (Romania National Railways) electric leading an oil train.
The other evening, on my way over to visit Dennis LeBeau in East Brookfield, I checked CP64, where there’s a set of controlled signals on CSX’s Boston Line. There I found a pair of GE Evolution-Series diesel waiting with a westward empty autorack train. While the engines were shadowed, I thought if this train got the signal to go west, there would be some nice angles.
I met Dennis, and we had a few errands to run. Afterwards he suggested, ‘Ring Julie, and see how the Lake Shore is doing.’
I phoned Amtrak’s automated agent, and learned that train 448 was expected about four hours late into Springfield. Since that is about an hour to the west, it meant the train wouldn’t pass until well after dark. Besides, Dennis was playing a gig, and that was the main reason I’d come out this way.
‘No joy,’ I said. But as we returned to East Brookfield, we saw that the westward autoracks were on the move. ‘We can catch that, no problem!’ And we reversed, and sped along Route 67 out to an open location near milepost 66 in Brookfield. (I’d photographed a CSX empty ethanol train here last October. (Click to see: CSX Empty Ethanol Train Catches the Light at Brookfield.)
CSX’s 922 leads a westward emtpy autorack train near milepost 66 in Brookfield. The train stopped for a few minutes to wait for its conductor. I exposed several views using a Lumix LX-7. For this angle, I included the Country Bank billboard.Tight view of CSX Evolution-Series locomotive 922. The lighting was just about perfect.
After a short wait, the train pulled up and then stopped. We learned that it was waiting for it conductor. This was most likely CSX’s Q283, an empty autorack train that runs from the unloading facility in East Brookfield west toward Selkirk, New York and beyond.
Once the conductor was on board, Dennis and moved west about a mile to the Route 148 Bridge near the old station location at Brookfield. I’d made several photos here last autumn, and was keen to try this spot in June, when the sun swings around. Afternoons in October are more shadowed and didn’t offer a clean view. (See: Boston & Albany Milepost 67, Brookfield, Massachusetts.)
CSX 922 west as view from the Route 148 bridge in Brookfield, Massachusetts. More than 35 years ago, my dad, my brother and I had watched the westward Lake Shore Limited pass this spot with a pair of old E8As in the lead. There used to be a large wooden mill building to the left of the tracks, but this was destroyed by fire a decade or so ago. Lumix LX-7 photo.
We didn’t have to wait long, and the pair of GE’s came chugging along with about two miles of autoracks in tow. There was great evening light and it was a nice setting. Not bad for a few minutes effort. It is situations like this one that justifies always carrying a camera!
Exposed on May 11, 2010 using my Panasonic Lumix LX-3.
Here we have a contrast. Beneath the Victorian-era shed dating from the time of I.K. Brunel’s famous seven-foot gauge Great Western Railway (purists will note with precision, that the correct measurement of the track was 7 feet and ¼ inch) idles a 1970s-era HST.
That’s one of the great things about railways, is the fantastic longevity of technology and infrastructure. No place offers greater contrasts than Britain. Paddington is neither the oldest, and the nearly 40-year old HST’s are hardly Britain’s newest, but the point is made. Perhaps someone else will offer a more perfect juxtaposition!
Moments after I exposed this image, I boarded the First Great Western HST and soon after was gliding west on Brunel’s old GWR route. Today, this is one of the busiest non-electrified mainlines in the world. Not for long though, as I understand the wires are coming!
A hot and hazy late summer evening, and Amtrak 48 the Lake Shore Limited was running late.
In the lead was FL9 489. I exposed this cross-lit Kodachrome slide to show the train with the Hudson in the background.
This, after all, is the former New York Central ‘Water Level Route’. It was here that the famed 20th Century Limited rolled up the miles between Chicago and Grand Central Terminal behind J3A Hudsons, S1 Niagaras, and Electro-Motive E-units in lightning stripe paint.
All before my time.
I was just happy to catch an Amtrak FL9 roaring along in the late light.
I exposed this view on Kodachrome with my Leica M2 and 35mm Summicron. My notes indicate that this was at an overhead bridge at the beginning of grade separation near an interlocking called ‘Snyders.’ It’s been 25 years since I made the photo, so I question my memory as to correct name for the location, but it was several miles timetable east of B&M’s Hudson River Bridge at Mechanicville.
I’d been photographing the west-end of the old Boston & Maine all day. In the afternoon, I caught NADH (Nashua-Delaware & Hudson) rolling through Eaglebridge, New York with SD26 639 in the lead.
A westbound in evening light, what could be better than that? The light was perfect, so I followed it west to Mechanicville. There’s something special about the golden glow of a sunny afternoon in June that just makes a scene seem better. I get nostalgic for that sort of light.
It was on June 19, 2010, that John Gruber, Henry A. Koshollek, and I drove from Madison, Wisconsin to Union, Illinois to photograph at the Illinois Railway Museum.
Among the attractions that day were a freshly restored former North Shore interurban car and the former North Shore Electroliner.
Back in the day, John was among the lucky ones who rode and photographed the North Shore in service. He was on hand for North Shore’s final runs in January 1963.
Later, John photographed Denver & Rio Grande Western’s narrow gauge steam in its final years. In August 1967, John had the rare opportunity to ride and photograph one of D&RGW’s very last revenue freights over Cumbres Pass, courtesy of David P. Morgan at TRAINS.
As a child, I recalled looking through an old dog-eared copy of that issue of TRAINS with John’s cover feature. Back then, I never could have imagined that I’d become friends with John, let alone work with him editing magazines.
Four years ago today: John Gruber with his vintage Nikon F on a restored North Shore car at the Illinois Railway Museum. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D.
Recently, John and I have collaborated on several book projects. He was an important contributor to The Twilight of Steam, which features some of his outstanding D&RGW photographs. John also helped make important connections, and introduced me to several of the participating photographers. It should be no surprise to readers when they read my dedication.
John and I have also authored book on American streetcars, expected this summer.
Russell Buck, son of late photographer Robert A. Buck, holds a preview copy of Brian Solomon’s The Twilight of Steam. This book features photography and stories from some of the great steam photographers.
The book can be viewed at Palmer Hobbies on 1428 Main Street in Palmer, Massachusetts. Phone: 413-436-5318. Open Tuesday to Saturday.
John Pickett with his Graflex in July 2013. Photo by Brian Solomon
John E. Pickett is among the great photographers I featured in my book The Twilight of Steam. A life long friend of Jim Shaughnessy (also featured), John has had the opportunity to photograph steam locomotives all across North America.
In the 1940s, he was fortunate to grow up in Canajoharie, New York, located just across the Mohawk River from New York Central’s four-track mainline at Palentine Bridge. His early experiences watching the parade of Hudsons, Mohawks, and Niagaras working the Water Level Route inspired him to make wonderful photographs of locomotives at work before diesels took over.
John’s early New York Central photos were exposed with 616 Kodak Monitor but he later bought a National Graflex that had a relatively fast Bausch & Lomb f3.5 lens and 1/500th of a second top shutter speed, and then a Series B Graflex with a top shutter speed of 1/1000th.
The Twilight of Steam features dozens of John’s images and tells of his experiences and techniques.
It was a bright afternoon in Charlotte. I was curious to see this city’s innovative light rail system that uses Siemens built trams. Charlotte’s public transport goes by the initial’s ‘CATS’ while the Blue Line light rail is called the ‘Lynx.’
More tracks are being built, and a heritage style trolley is in the works.
Here’s a few views made with the Lumix LX-7.
Lynx outbound near Tremont with Charlotte skyline.Some of the light rail cars carry advertising.Light rail along Norfolk Southern in suburban Charlotte.
May 30, 2014, Salisbury’s Innes Street Overpass was a popular gathering point for photographers seeking mainline attraction during North Carolina Transportation Museum’s Streamliners at Spencer event.
At lunchtime, I was poised to photograph Amtrak number 75, one of North Carolina sponsored Piedmont services that runs with F59PHI diesels and heritage style equipment. This is one of the most distinctive long distance trains on the East Coast.
Amtrak number 75 makes its station stop at Salisbury, North Carolina. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D with 200mm lens.Lumix LX-7 view of Amtrak 75 Piedmont at Salisbury, North Carolina. This is one of the only F59PHI’s in Amtrak service east of the Sierra.
I returned in the evening, to catch Juniata Terminal’s Pennsylvania E8A 5809 and three matching streamlined cars on its return run from Spencer to Charlotte. The sun made a surprise appearance just in the nick of time.
Lumix LX-7 photo at Innes Street, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Avalon is at the heart of Arthurian myth. And, as it happens, it’s also on Wisconsin & Southern’s former Milwaukee Road Line between Janesville and Chicago!
No knights in armor here, nor Merlin, nor Lady of the Lake; just a matched set of SD40-2s in clean paint leading a long freight and tall late season grasses blowing gently in the wind.
A few hours earlier I’d met up John Gruber at the Janesville Roundhouse and we spent a pleasant afternoon photographing this freight. We had a fair wait at Avalon before the train came into view.
Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D with 200mm lens. ISO 200.
This photo is among my favorite from the day. I used a long lens to compress the locomotives while setting the grass in the foreground out of focus. I also made a closer view on Fujichrome film.
A few weeks ago, Ciarán Cooney asked me about photos I’d made of Irish Rail’s Athy Cement. This used to run weekdays from the cement factory near Limerick to a cement silo off a short branch that crossed the River Barrow in Athy, County Kildare. It was the only train to use this branch.
On several occasions, I’d made the effort to photograph this train, which tended to arrive laden in the very early morning, then depart empty after it had discharged. Most of the times I saw it, it ran with a single Bo-Bo General Motors diesel (class 141 or 181).
I caught it crossing the Barrow at Athy on a fine spring morning, May 3, 2002.
Exposed with a Nikon F3 with 85mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia 100 slide film.
That was more than 11 years ago, but it doesn’t seem so long.I think I last photographed this train about 2005, shortly before it was discontinued. While cement trains worked Irish Rail for a few more years, they are now extinct.
Exposed with a Nikon F3 with 85mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia 100 slide film.
To compensate for bad luck, and a series of bad timings, I made it a point to photograph Pan Am Railways executive F-unit at Spencer.
What?
Just about every time Pan Am Railway’s has run their glossy metallic blue F-units, I’ve either been in the air, out of the country, and/or at least a thousand miles away and traveling in the wrong direction.
Not this time. Not at Spencer. No, I knew I’d get a photo! Two or three, maybe, and in color!
I realize that PAR-1 may not have been the chief attraction of the Streamliners at Spencer event, but I was very happy to finally see this New England resident up close and in person!
PAR 1 and Southern Railway 6133 bask in the morning light at Spencer, North Carolina. Lumix LX-7 photo.Cab detail of F9A PAR-1 exposed with my Canon EOS 7D with 100mm lens.The logo that once graced globe-encircling Boeing 747s decorates PAR 1.
Exposed with a Lumix LX-7. The diffused light made for wonderful reflections.
Among the stars of the Streamliner’s at Spencer event was Norfolk & Western 611, one of only a handful of preserved American streamlined steam locomotives. Here’s a sampling of the many images I made, and an excerpt of the text from my book Super Steam published by MBI (out of print), where I detailed the J class. Today the locomotive catches attention for its streamlined shrouds, but there’s a lot more to the N&W J than just good looks:
“Among the most impressive products of N&W’s Roanoke Shops were its 14 Class J 4-8-4s. These spectacular machines defied convention while settting record for performance and reliability. The first five J’s were built during 1941 and 1942, with N&W’s distinctive streamlined shrouds, and featured 27×32 inch cylinders, 70-inch drivers, 107.7 square foot firebox grate, and a huge boiler set for 275 lb. psi operation. As built these locomotives delivered 73,300 lbs. tractive effort. (N&W later increased the boiler pressure to 300 psi, and as result tractive effort was increased to 80,000 lbs.) The J class exhibited all of the trappings of modern locomotive, featuring roller bearings on all axles and reciprocating parts, one-piece cast steel frame, mechanical lubrication and light weight alloy-steel rods . . .”
611 Noir. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D.N&W 611 surrounded by the enemy.611 in stereo. Lumix LX-7 photo. There’s nothing like a good puddle to make a great photo!Nose view of one of America’s most famous locomotives. Exposed with a Lumix LX-7.
Part of the attraction of North Carolina Transportation Museum’s Streamliners at Spencer event was the pre-arranged night photograph sessions. Large industrial scale flood lamps were arranged to provide roughly even lighting on locomotives that had been arranged and spotted specifically for photography.
A look at the darker side of night photography! A view of Spencer shops exposed with a Lumix LX-7.
I’ve often worked on the darker side of photography, and this was no exception. While I took advantage of the ‘arranged’ lighting to make standard views of the equipment. I made a special effort to go beyond the obvious.
Here I worked in the shadows, using the lights in a more interpretive way. I sought out scenes of the shops and facilities that were part of the background.
Crime scene or photoline? The local constabulary provided security at the event. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D.This view of Norfolk & Western 611 caught my eye. At the time there must have been 75 people with tripods set up for the 3/4 angle. Exposed with a Lumix LX-7.Rain made for a nice shiny gloss but made the difficult process of making photos in the dark even more complicated. Keeping water off lenses in the dark isn’t easy. At least with digital photography, instantaneous feed back allowed me to know when droplets had spoiled a clean view (or added an extra effect). Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D.Silhouettes with Lackawanna painted F3s. Lumix LX-7 photo.
The challenge was trying to stay out of the way of the photo lines to avoid the ire of those with a front-lit view.
On one of the evenings there was a thunderstorm, which made matters extra challenging!
After I made this image, I relaxed on the bench. Fortunately there weren’t many people set up on my side of the light. Lumix LX-7 photo.This angle reminded me of a Jim Shaughnessy photo exposed in the 1950s. Lumix LX-7 photo.Here I was mostly working with the ordinary sodium vapor lights, with the lights for the night photo event only providing secondary illumination by coloring the sky. Lumix LX-7 photo.Hard glint on the Norfolk Southern business train. Keeping the lights out of the frame is part of my technique. Lumix LX-7 photo.Spencer round house.Ghostly view of the old shops.Spencer, North Carolina—the village across the street from the old Southern Railway shops.
The locomotives were largely static and thus relatively easy to photograph. However, people move about constantly, and getting your friends to hold still long enough for a portrait in an environment characterized by sensory-overload, can be tough.
On the plus side, most everyone was smiling.
I used both a Canon EOS 7D and Lumix LX-7 to make digital portraits, while a few photos were captured on slide film using my EOS 3.
I’d been making photos on Boston’s Green Line for 40 years. Albeit I was a bit shorter for my first efforts using my Dad’s M3 in the early 1970s.
Subway photos on Kodachrome were a real challenge. I never knew if I’d gotten anything at all until the film came back weeks later. But that didn’t stop me from trying.
Boston’s Green Line Subway at North Station on June 2, 2012. Exposed with a Canon 7D with 28-135mm lens.
Digital photography technique is a real boon for subway images. For these photos I’d racked up the ISO setting to 2000 and worked with a telelphoto zoom. That was inconceivable in my film days.
Boston’s Green Line Subway at North Station on June 2, 2012. Exposed with a Canon 7D with 28-135mm image stabilization zoom lens.
Boston’s subways have changed quite a bit since my early photos; modern cameras for modern images.
At crew changes and other convenient points, Amtrak schedule’s ‘smoke breaks’ where passengers can get off the train, stretch their legs, enjoy the fresh air, and, in my case, make photos of the train.
I had about ten minutes at Raleigh, North Carolina this morning to make photos train 80, Carolinian during this momentary pause. By that time, I’d been on the train for more than 3 hours, with nearly another nine hours to go.
Rather than tow the whole camera kit, I just carried the Panasonic Lumix LX 7, which is light, easy to use, and is capable of making extremely sharp images.
Playing with the external Lumix Live View Finder, I adjusted this vertically, which allowed me to place the camera very close to the ground without the need for lying belly first on platform.
Exposed with a Lumix LX-7 using the Live View external finder. Camera set in ‘A’ (Aperture Priority) mode with a minus 1/3 exposure over ride to compensate for the bright platform, bleached station sign and bright sky. This forces the camera to make a slight darker image
The low angle with a slightly telephoto view provides a clean dramatic perspective that minimizes unnecessary and visually distracting foreground.
Number 80’s conductor. Amtrak’s crew was very friendly.
Check my Streamliners at Spencer page for photos of North Carolina Transportation Museum’s special event.
