Nine years ago I made this view of a DB Class 101 electric leading a southward InterCity train along the westbank of the Rhein at Boppard Hertzenach, Germany.
It was a beautiful clear morning and there was a steady procession of trains on both sides of the Rhein.
Germany is among my favorite countries to photograph trains.
Exposed using my old FujiFilm XT1 with a Fujinon 18-135mm zoom set at 29mm; f6.4 1/000th sec ISO 400.
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It was a bright day in suburban Dublin on this day ten years ago when I made this telephoto view of Irish Rail 215 in fresh paint leading the Up IWT Liner (Ballina to Dublin’s North Wall) on the quad track at Lucan South.
My camera of choice that day was a Canon EOS-7D with a prime 100mm lens.
I’ve included two versions of the photo; one is the in-camera color profile, the other is adjusted from the Canon RAW file using Adobe Lightroom to improve color balance, increase color saturation and lighten the shadows.
Special thanks to Colm O’Callaghan for his assistance with my photography on that day.
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Over the last few days, I had been experiencing some technical difficulties posting Tracking the Light. I received numerous alerts from readers, and wasn’t even able to view the site myself at one point. Thanks to readers who sent me suggestions on how to fix the problem and some nuts and bolts help from my father Richard J. Solomon, the site should be up an running again. Thanks to everyone who wrote to me! I consider this a test. Fingers crossed.
In the process of getting things moving, I’ve selected a new ‘Theme’. This alters the way Tracking the Light appears. This is by intent. Let’s see how it goes.
Since this is a Sunday, I thought I’d post a vintage Sunday photo.
On Sunday, December 29, 1985, I spent the day photographing trains on Conrail’s former Boston & Albany main line.
At West Brookfield, Massachusetts, I made this view of the Sunday-schedule Charter Oak rolling west behind Amtrak F40PH 216.
This train tended to have a longer consist on Sundays. This Sunday, I’m working hard to complete my latest book, which takes a look at Amtrak through its locomotives and rolling stock. It covers everything from GG1 electrics to the latest diesels from Siemens-Mobility.
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As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I am presenting a sequence of photos at the same location that I made in March of 1986.
Amtrak had detoured its Montrealer via Palmer as a knock-on effect of a strike on the Boston & Maine. This was a full decade before Amtrak’s Vermonter used a similar routing.
In these photos, Train 61 the southward Montrealer was being towed by a CF7 from Palmer to Springfield, Massachusetts, having arrived in Palmer on the Central Vermont. There was no direct curve from the CV route to Conrail’s Boston Line to allow for a direct north to west move.
I had been showing some visiting photographers around Palmer, and we had set up a the rock cut at milepost 84, a short distance west of the Palmer diamond.
As the Montrealer was heading west on Track one, we could hear the chugging of six-motor GE C30-7As leading the eastward TV6. As it happened the two trains passed in front of us.
In yesterday’s post, I’d mentioned that a few months later, Conrail removed the westward track (Track 1) as part of its single tracking of the Boston Line. And that’s what makes this sequence so special.
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July 20, 1986 was the last full day of traditional directional double track operations (rule 251) on Conrail’s Boston Line between Palmer (future CP83) and Springfield (future CP92).
Using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T, I made this photo of Amtrak F40PH 201 leading an Inland Corridor train east at milepost 84 (in the town of Monson, Massachusetts). The next day, Conrail crews cut in the new crossovers which took the old westward track at this location out of service. It was ripped up some months later.
In 2011, I scanned this 645 size black & white negative. Unfortunately, I forgot to reverse the scan and so it remained as a negative image.
There is probably some ‘one-click’ means reversing the scan into a positive image using Lightroom. I had no luck finding that trick, so Kris and I ‘Googled’ how to accomplish this simple task.
Basically, you open the ‘three bars’ control at top left, expand the ‘light’ controls and scroll down to the ‘D log H’ curve (it’s the graph that plot the exposure curve), and reverse the orientation of the line graph so that it goes from bottom left to top right (rather than the other way around.)
This created a positive, from which I made my corrections, albeit in reverse.
I’ve included the work windows.
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During late summer and early autumn the evening light changes quickly.
Compare these views of Amtrak 651 at Christiana.
The first was exposed on August 14th, the second was yesterday evening (Sept 4).
There are other differences too. The top photo was made with my Nikon Z7-II, the bottom is a product of my Lumix LX7.
Having just composed a summary of the Metroliner for my Amtrak book, I’m feeling nostalgic about these old cars (one leads as a ‘cab car’ in the bottom photo) which are now some of the oldest in revenue service on Amtrak.
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Nine years ago, my Irish friends and I were exploring railway operations in Germany’s scenic Mosel Valley.
I made this view from the wall in a vineyard of a DB freight heading northward (eastward) toward Koblenz.
While not as busy as the Rhein Valley, there are endless perspectives on the railway in the Mosel Valley and we were certainly entertained by a continuous parade of freight and passenger trains.
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Nine years ago, my Irish friends and I were exploring railway operations in Germany’s scenic Mosel Valley.
I made this view from the wall in a vineyard of a DB freight heading northward (eastward) toward Koblenz.
While not as busy as the Rhein Valley, there are endless perspectives on the railway in the Mosel Valley and we were certainly entertained by a continuous parade of freight and passenger trains.
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On the afternoon of September 3, 2013, I stood atop the castle wall in Oberwesel, Germany, gazing across the Rhein toward the railway line on the right bank (east bank). I made this photo of a northward SBB Cargo freight about to enter a tunnel using my old Canon EOS 7D with a 28-135mm zoom set at its maximum focal length.
Oberwesel offers stunning views of the electrified double track lines on both sides of the river, where a continous parade of trains makes for one of the greatest train watching locations in Europe.
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Sometimes a descriptive file name isn’t very helpful.
I made this photo on a visit to the coal fields west of Köln, Germany on September 2, 2013.
The metadata reads: Canon EOS7D, EF28-135mm, 75mm, f7.1 1/500 ISO 200.
The branches make the picture.
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Sometimes a descriptive file name isn’t very helpful.
I made this photo on a visit to the coal fields west of Köln, Germany on September 2, 2013.
The metadata reads: Canon EOS7D, EF28-135mm, 75mm, f7.1 1/500 ISO 200.
The branches make the picture.
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Eleven years ago, I made this side shot of a passing DB Class 146 electric at Buir, Germany near Köln.
To freeze the action, I exposed it at a 1/1000th of a second using my Canon EOS-7D.
In post processing, I made a variety of adjustments to color balance, contrast and saturation.
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On this day in 2016, I photographed Irish Rail’s ‘Sperry Train’ departing Dublin’s Heuston Station from my favorite location at ‘the Box’ at Islandbridge Junction—a short walk from my old apartment.
This was exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 mirrorless camera with a Fujinon 18-135mm lens. I had the JPG set to the ‘Vivid’ color profile.
This is a scaled view of the in-camera JPG, without changes to color, contrast, or exposure.
Irish Rail’s 075 was one of the last locomotives painted in the short-lived ‘freight livery’—black and silver with safety yellow fronts.
At the bottom is the Lightroom work window that shows all of the camera data.
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The Dublin & Kingstown was among the oldest railways in the world. This opened between its name sake points in 1834 and is considered the first steam railway in Ireland. The route is now part of Irish Rail’s network and was electrified in the early 1980s for the DART suburban service.
On August 30, 2016, I’d traveled from Dublin to Blackrock on the DART electrified suburban service to meet my friends. Working with my Fuji XT-1, I made this trailing photo from the footbridge on the south side of the station of a northward 29000-series CAF diesel railcar.
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On our visit to Philadelphia earlier this month, I made this view looking down on Amtrak’s former Pennsylvania Railroad from the Cira Green urban park.
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I’ve been searching my archives for Amtrak photos to include in my latest book project. This is among interesting photos in my selection of out-takes.
Former Amtrak E60CH 973—still wearing Amtrak colors—leads NJ Transit North Jersey Coast train on the morning of July 11, 1986. At right; an eastward Conrail freight on the former Lehigh Valley waits to enter Oak Island yard.
Exposed on Kodak 120 Tri-x using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T with a ‘Super Slide’ 645-formet insert. Film processed in Kodak D76.
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Nice evening light at Strasburg gave me an opportunity to test the camera on my new iPhone 13.
I needed a new phone for a variety of reasons. I think there were about four technology museum’s bidding on my old phone!
Anyway, I made a pair similar photos of a favorite EMD switcher at the Strasburg Rail Road that has been undergoing a restoration for a number of years.
The first photo (and enlarged headlight) were made with the iPhone. The second photo (and enlarged headlight) were exposed using my Lumix LX7 in RAW format.
In both instances I attempted to capture the most amount of data as possible with each imaging system.
Both photos display a variety of artifacts. Neither is perfect.
More comparison is necessary before I draw any firm conclusions, however I’ll keep my Lumix, but I won’t heistate to make grab photos with the iPhone either. In practice, my Nikon Z cameras will continue to be the busiest picture making machines that I own.
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On August 26, 2012, I spent the day photographing the Tall Ships exiting Dublin from the south quays of the River Liffey. In my enthusiasm for the event, I walked from the city centre all the way to the Poolbeg Lighthouse, which is about five miles.
That seemed like a good idea in the spirit of the moment. Except, after the ships were out to sea, I then had to walk back!
I made this selection of photos using my Canon EOS-7D with 200mm Canon prime telephoto. All the photos are the in-camera Jpgs exposed at ISO 200 without post processing modification.
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It’s hard for me to resist a clear evening!
On our way to the creamery, we paused trackside at Bird-in-Hand to roll by Amtrak Keystone 649 on its way west to Harrisburg.
I made this rapid-fire sequence using my Nikon Z7-II with Nikkor 24-70mm zoom lens.
I think these will age well.
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It was a beautiful evening between trains at Strasburg Rail Road’s East Strasburg Station. I used this opportunity to make some detailed views of the equipment and the environment around the station.
Rich low sun offers many opportunities for photos that simply cannot exist on dull days.
No matter how often we visit Strasburg, I always find a new angle.
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We arrived at Jefferson Drive in Lancaster, Pa., a few minutes ahead of Amtrak 618.
Curiously, a film crew was in postion to make a motion picture about someone running. I got into a brief discussion about equipment with one of the tech guys, who approved of my Nikon Z6.
When Keystone 618 came into view, I exposed the burst of images at ISO 1600. There was a hint of sunset in the clouds.
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On August 22, 2010, I’d spent the day photographing trains on Norfolk Southern’s former Erie Railroad mainline in western New York state.
This had been familiar territory for me back in the 1980s, when I was studying photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.
One of the trains that caught my attention this day was Norfolk Southern 048, a special for the James E. Strates Show that ran with spotless ‘simonized’ former Conrail SD60M 6777.
In this view, I aimed to recreate a photo that I made in 1988 of an eastward Conrail freight at the same location immediately east of milepost 314 in Cameron, NY. I was standing on a vestige of the old westward main track, which was converted to a set-out spur when Conrail single tracked this portion of the railroad back in 1994.
Exposed using my (then new) Canon EOS7D with a prime 24mm Canon lens. Below are two versions; one is made directly from the RAW file without modification; the other involved a series of adjustments aimed at improving highlight and shadow detail and overall color balance.
In reviewing this photo, I’ve decided to add it to my screen savers. It brings back some fond memories of my days photographing the former Erie Railroad. I wonder what this location is like in 2024?
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Previously on Tracking the Light, I used an image from this sequence of eastward Keystone 672 to articulate why I expose using the RAW format. For this article, my intent is to demonstrate how I tried to anticipate a rolling meet.
Saturday evening, a glance at the ASM.transitdocs app revealed that Gap, Pa., would be a good place to try for a Main Line rolling meet.
I often use this passenger train application to reduce waiting time and help plan my locations.
The curves at Gap have several advantages; they allow for dramatic angles, while slower train speeds make it a little easier to frame moving trains. Slower trains in curves allow for more options to make images of a rolling meet.
Nice thought. Except, I got it wrong by about 60 seconds!
While I made satisfactory photos of both trains, Amtrak 672 had complete cleared my location before the westward 667 came into view.
I’ll keep trying.
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Sunday, Kris and I brought Seamus for a walk along the Enola Low Grade Rail Trail, starting at the far west end at Turkey Hill, which is several miles west of Safe Harbor, Pa.
A former New Haven Railroad caboose is preserved along the trail. This is painted to represent a Pennsylvania Railroad cabin car.
Although there are a few places where I could get photos of Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Branch running along the Susquehanna River, a tall chain link fence makes it difficult to a get a decent angle. Next time, I may bring a step stool to look over the fence.
Seamus enjoyed his walk and I found it interesting to inspect this historic section of the former Pennsylvania Railroad where E44, GG1 and P5A electrics once hauled freight.
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Summer weekend evenings are a wonderful time to take in the cosmic thrill offered by the Strasburg Rail Road.
Low sun tinted with a golden glow can make for a romantic scene of the iron horse racing across a pastoral landscape.
I made these photos of the last train of the day returning to Strasburg from Leaman Place.
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I come from a black & white background.
In my days of exposing photos using black & white film, I’d try to capture as much information as possible in my original negatives, then print to taste.
What does that mean? The negative was the means to the end. My final interpretation was in the print. In later years, I’d scan the negative and make adjustments digitally. The point is that to get my result I needed to record as much information in one exposure as possible.
Today, I largely work in the digital realm. In order to record as much data as possible, I expose using the RAW format and then adjust the files to produce a presentable image. Without interpretation, the RAW images often seem dark and somewhat dull. The important thing to understand is that RAW files have captured more information than is immediately evident in a casual glance.
Yesterday, Kris and I waited in the curve at Gap, Pa., for east and west Amtrak Keystones. Below is my first frame of the eastward train taking the curve. I’ve displayed the unaltered RAW, plus two interpretations of the file using Adobe Lightroom, as well as screen shots of the work windows. As a magician, I’m revealing most (but not all) of my tricks.
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On our way back through Strasburg, we spotted a hot-air balloon over the cornfields.
It was drifting toward the Strasburg Rail Road’s parking lot, so we pulled in to get a better view. As the balloon approached it was getting lower and lower. I made few photos of it sailing over the railroad’s antique wood passenger cars. Then as the sunset in the western sky, we continued to follow the balloon across the farm fields.
Working with both my Nikon Z-series digital cameras, I made these photos of the balloon. That was different! We don’t get to chase balloons everyday!
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The other day, Kris and I went for a drive. The light was nice, so we paused at Christiana, Pa., to roll by Amtrak Keystone 651 at the old Pennsylvania Railroad station.
I made these photos using my Z7-II fitted with a 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom lens.
Compare the view that includes the Conrail caboose with the view of the same caboose from the train in: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/views-from-the-keystone/
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Layers of haze, a bit of agricultural pollution, probably some high level smoke from distant fires plus some cotton candy clouds made for a colorful textured summer evening sky.
Kris and I drove to Esbenshade Road to roll by the Strasburg Rail Road’s Saturday evening late departure. For me the sky offered something different at a setting where I’ve made countless photos over the last couple of years.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 and Z7-II mirrorless digital cameras. Files were processed using Adobe Lightroom to make the most of the highlights in the sky while retaining shadow detail.
I framed the on coming train in a way to make the most of the clouds, while trying to capture the reflection of the sky as the tail car passed by.
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Over the last few months Amtrak has been performing heavy maintenance on its electrified Harrisburg Line west of Lancaster, Pa.
This has resulted in bus subsititutions for many of the Keystone trains Monday-Thursday to allow work crews to repair and replace tracks.
A few weeks ago I caught up with one of the work trains that was tied down on the main line. This was a good opportunity to make photographs of the sharp looking GP38-3 diesels that Amtrak assigns to work train service.
Photos were exposed with my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens. These are among the images in consideration for my latest book project that profiles Amtrak locomotives and Rolling Stock.
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It was fun gliding west on the old Main Line.
Kris and I had boarded Amtrak Keystone 665 at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I wanted to sit on the northside of the train and check out some of our usual places as we zipped along at 100 plus.
As we approached Lancaster, a thunderstorm had darkened the horizon.
I made these views from the train using my Z7-II.
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A review of my outtakes and a posting error.
Last night, I accidentally posted the Tracking the Light episode, I’d intended for this morning. See: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/subtlety-of-steam-on-soft-evening/
So, to make sure I had fresh material today, I’ve composed a short follow up.
Two of the images in my sequence of locomotive 89 at Paradise Lane suffered from a momentary auto-focus glitch caused by the combination of a low contrast scene, frosting of the front lens element because of a cool camera in high-humidity (see yesterday’s post), and locomotive effluence.
I won’t win awards for these photos, but Tracking the Light is about process, and not perfection.
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(even when the first attempt posts early)!
We were on our way to the Fox Meadows Creamery for ice cream and coffee. I made a slight detour via Strasburg, thinking we might just catch the 5pm train returning.
As we approached Paradise Lane, we saw the train coming aross the cornfields. I pulled in and reached for my Nikon Z6.
Since the weather had been very warm and humid, we were running the air-conditioning in the car. When I stepped outside my lens immediately frosted over. So before I could make an exposure, I had to wipe the front element clean. Then I exposed this sequence of photos.
I’m pleased; these turned out well for hastily composed photos on a soft summer evening.
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On August 11, 2014, I made this photo of a classic bouncy ‘Pacer’ four-wheel railcar crossing the Leeds & Liverpool Canal near the main railway station in Leeds, UK.
I exposed it using my Canon EOS-7D with a prime 100mm lens; ISO 200, f6.3 1/800 second. File adjusted in Lightroom.
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On this day in 2013; Irish Rail’s 072 led an empty timber on the Mayo Road west of Dunamon.
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Over the last few months, I’ve been working on a book describing Amtrak’s locomotives and rolling stock. So, it seemed appropriate that on our visit to Philadelphia, we’d take a look at the variety of Amtrak equipment in the yard at 30th Street Station.
A parking garage located a short walk from the station offers a panaramic view of the yards, where we saw everthing from a former GO Transit GP40TC (now an Amtrak GP38H-3) and retired HHP8 electrics to the latest Siemens ALC-42 Charger diesels (first time we had seen these!) a group of stored Alstom Avelia Liberty/Next Generation Acela trainsets, as well as a selection of ballast cars and a few baggage cars from Amtrak’s Exhibit Train.
I made this selection of photos using my Nikon Z7-II.
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