Category Archives: photography

photography

Greenville Junction—Take 1

Greenville Junction. In the 1950s my father stopped here while traveling on Canadian Pacific’s Scoot to make photos of the crew watering the locomotive.

I recall the station from our visit to Moosehead Lake in 1972.

Historically, Bangor & Aroostook’s line met CP’s just west of the bridge and station.

Last week, Kris Sabbatino and I raced ahead of an afternoon CP Rail eastbound freight so that we could photograph it crossing the bridge east of the Greenville Junction station near the popular restaurant called ‘Kelly’s Landing’.

I made this photo looking back toward the station using my FujiFIlm XT1.

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Nocturnal Moves at Jackman, Maine

We chased the westward CP Rail freight from Moosehead to Jackman, near the Canadian frontier.

Many years ago, my friends and I slept in a van at the Jackman Station, courtesy of the CP agent on our way to Quebec.

I recalled that night back in the 1980s, as my Fiancé Kris Sabbatino and I anticipated photographing CP Rail last weekend.

Lucky for us, it stopped to switch out its consist, giving use several opportunities to make photos.

On our return to Moosehead, we met many moose along Route 15!

Exposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera
Exposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera
Exposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera
Exposed on a tripod with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera
Moose family on Route 15, east of Jackman, Maine. Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.

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Kennebec East Outlet at Dusk—two views.

Among the CP Rail freights we caught on the move on the Moosehead Sub, was this westbound rolling across the Kennebec East Outlet Bridge just after sunset.

Working with my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera, I made this trailing view with the camera set at ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/50, aperture at f4.0, and the 24-70mm zoom adjusted to its widest (24mm) position.

Soon after the locomotives passed we were in hot pursuit of the train for nocturnal photos. More soon!

June 2021—CP Rail SD70ACU 7044 was in the lead.

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Revisiting the Moosehead Sub—Recon.

My first visit to Canadian Pacific Railway’s Moosehead Subdivision was in the summer of 1972, when my family rented a cabin on Moosehead Lake near the East Outlet of the Kennebec River.

In the 1980s and 1990s, I made several excursions to this beautiful and sometime elusive railroad line.

Over the years this line has changed ownership several times, and CP Rail has recently re-acquired the historic route, and since then I’d been itching to get back up there.

Over this last weekend, my Fiancé, Kris Sabbatino and I made the drive from Center Conway, NH to Moosehead, Maine where we stayed at the very same campground that I had visited as a child back in 1972.

Train operations are sparse and I wanted to make the most of trains if and when we caught them on the move. So first we investigated locations near our cabin.

Here are a few photos exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 of the East Outlet Bridge of the Kennebec River at Moosehead, Maine.

More photos of the Moosehead Sub to come over the coming days!

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Dublin Monochrome Sunset—12 APril 2003.

I’d just returned to Dublin from Belfast on an Irish Railway Record Society special train.

Working with my Contax G2 rangefinder loaded with Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film, I composed this silhouette of the signals and buildings near Dublin’s Connolly Station.

I processed the film using Agfa Rodinal Special mixed 1-32 for 3 minutes 45 seconds at 70 degrees F. I scanned the negatives last year with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.

This post was prepared in advance as I am ‘off the grid’ for a few days.

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Extra at North Conway—June 9, 2021

Yesterday I made this photo of Conway Scenic’s Bartlett Extra ready to depart the North Conway, New Hampshire Station. This was added to the schedule to handle a school group boarding in Bartlett.

Exposed using my third Lumix LX7. File adjusted using Lightroom.

Brian Solomon is traveling ‘off the grid’ for the next few days.

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Wee Reading with the Lumix

Over the weekend, I continued to wire and tidy up our HO-scale interpretation of the Reading Company.

Scenery and structures are still in the future.

Working with my Lumix LX7, I made this series of photos.

A couple were hand-held, but others were made with aid of a tripod to allow for greater depth of field, or exposed with the camera positioned on the track for stability.

Handheld Lumix LX7 photo.
Handheld with the Lumix LX7.
Lumix set a f8 and mounted on a tripod for greater depth of field.
Pottsville Junction—Lumix on the track set at f8.

Checking out the 2102!
Chicks dig the Reading Company!

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Photo Freight Second Edit

During the course of last weekend’s special Railfan Photo Freight hosted by the Conway Scenic Railroad, I made several hundred images of the train and its preparation.

Today, I’m just getting through the editing of these images.

A few days ago I posted: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/wp-admin/post.php?post=31266&action=edit

Today, I offer this selection, all exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm lens.

Conway, NH.
View from the head end working west near Bartlett, NH.
Run by at Second Iron, west of Bartlett, NH.
Looking west near Cobb Farm Road.

I converted my Fuji RAW files using Iridient X-Transformer and made adjustments to color and contrast using Adobe Lightroom. When I make contrast adjustments, I generally use the ‘highlights’, ‘shadows’, and ‘contrast’ slider controls.

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Over and Under Five Years Ago!

Five years ago on this day, May 28, 2016, I paid a visit to the Berkshire Scenic at North Adams, Massachusetts to photograph their historic Budd RDC at work on the old Boston & Albany branch.

In this trailing view, I caught the class self-propelled diesel car passing below the Pan Am’s Boston & Maine Fitchburg mainline. Consider the irony of the CSX auto rack!

Oddly, these days I find myself having to answer the question, ‘What does self-propelled mean?’

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12mm view at Oberwesel,

Perched high in a medieval watch tower in the old town wall at Oberwesel, Germany, I exposed this view of northward DB (German Railways) Intercity 2026 along the ‘Left Bank’ of the Rhein.

I was traveling with my old pal TSH in September 2019 on a short, but very photographically productive tour of the scenic Middle Rhein.

Look carefully and you’ll spot the tail-end of a northward freight on the opposite side of the river.

I was working with my FujiFilm XT1 with 12mm Zeiss Touit lens.

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Retro Photo Freight

On Saturday, May 22, 2021, Conway Scenic Railroad operated a retro-photo freight for railfan photographers.

Overseeing operations was the railroad’s Trainmaster Mike Lacey, whose long railroad career gave him decades of experience working with local freights. Adam Bartley was at the throttle of GP7 573.

The train originated at North Conway and proceeded timetable East to Conway to collect ballast hoppers stored in the sidings there. After meeting the regularly scheduled Valley passenger train, the freight ran west, running through North Conway without stopping all the way to Second Iron on the Mountain Division.

I exposed the photo below for the company archives and publicity using my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm zoom lens.

Working with the RAW file, I first converted the image to a DNG file, then imported that into Adobe Lightroom for adjustment. Among the changes were local contrast modification, warming overall color temperature, plus desaturation and shadow lightening to emulate a period color slide.

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Red Electric

In October 2016, Denis McCabe and I visited the Czech Republic seeking rail freight on the move.

The weather wasn’t brilliant, but we sure saw a lot of trains and a great variety of rail-operators and different types of locomotives.

One morning at Grygov, near Olomouc, we set up on the busy east-west electrified Czech mainline, and caught a procession of trains, including this RM Line Class 121 electric leading an eastward grain train.

Although the day was dull, the bright paint on the locomotive helped make for an interesting and compelling photograph.

Exposed digitally using a FujiFilm XT1.

photography

Fabyan Truss Inspection

Last week I accompanied Bridge Inspector Wayne Duffett on his inspection of the unusual truss bridge on the former Maine Central Mountain Division at Fabyan, NH.

The bridge dates from the 1890s. It originally served the Boston & Maine’s branch to Mount Washington that had run parallel to Maine Central for a few miles. At some point decades ago Maine Central decided the old B&M span was superior to its own and traded places.

I made these photos using my Lumix LX7. Images processed digitally in Adobe Light room to improve contrast, color and color saturation.

Greater bridge inspections were undertaken down the line! Stay tuned . . .

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Stuttgart, Germany June 1999.

I made a brief visit to Stuttgart during a trip to Germany and Switzerland in 1999.

On my first afternoon in Stuttgart, I exposed this Fujichrome Sensia II (ISO 100) color slide of a classic tram ascending away from the city center. Notice the effects of cross lighting. (The sun is to the left of the camera).

At the time I was working with an N90s with 80-200mm zoom lens, my standard camera combination for the period.

I’ve found that different types of equipment lend to different sorts of compositions. I wonder what images I would have made in Stuttgart if I could have carried the Nikon Z6 that I own today?

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HyRail at Hazens Eastbound!

Yesterday I traveled by road to the western reaches of Coway Scenic’s line at Hazens in Whitefield, N.H., with Wayne Duffett of TEC Associates.

At Hazens we set on the railroad to run east over the line to inspect bridges. This was the first leg in our latest adventure as part of the annual Conway Scenic bridge inspection.

I was a perfect day, sunny, warm and very pleasant.

I made these photos using my latest Panasonic Lumix LX7. Files were scaled from the camera-generated JPGs using the V (or Vivid) color profile. I made no alterations to color, contrast, exposure or sharpness.

The bridges got bigger as we worked eastward. More photos to come over the coming days.

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GP35 crossing the Ellis

As a follow up to my post from the other day featuring the old Mountain Division Bridge over the Ellis River at Glen, New Hampshire (ELLIS RIVER TRUSS AND EQUIVALENCE), I thought I’d offer this view of GP35 216 leading Conway Scenic’s Valley train over the same bridge.

Exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm lens.

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Paulins Kill Revisited

This is a post about a viaduct.

In March 2007, Pat Yough and I made a visit to the abandoned former Lackawanna Paulins Kill Viaduct in western New Jersey.

I was researching a book on railroad bridges, and needed to fill some gaps in my photographic coverage.

This was one of several massive concrete bridges built by the Lackawanna in the early 20th century. It has been disused since Conrail abandoned the Lackawanna Cutoff in the early 1980s.

Since that time the line has been repeatedly studied for reopening.

Previously on Tracking the Light in Jan 2014 I featured color photos of the bridge exposed the same day as these B&W images.

I made these photos on Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film using my Contax G2 rangefinder with 28mm Zeiss Biogon lens. I processed the film in Rodinal Special mixed 1-32 with water at 68F for three minutes and 15 seconds.

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Helpers at Cape Horn

It was a lazy late-summer evening in September 1990, when I hiked up to the tunnels at Cape Horn, east of Colfax, California on Southern Pacific’s Donner Pass crossing.

East and westward freights were converging upon me, and I wondered which would reach me first. Listening to my scanner, I knew the down hill train was close, when I hear the eastward freight roaring through Colfax below me, on its approach to Long Ravine.

In this telephoto view, I’m focused on the rear-end helper on the uphill eastward freight.

Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Nikon F3T with f4.0 200mm Nikkor lens.

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Clear Day at Moat Brook

Among the most pictured locations on Conway Scenic’s former Boston & Maine Conway Branch is the wooden pile trestle at Moat Brook.

This stream is named for the Moat Mountains compass west of the railroad.

A few weeks ago during my bridge inspection with Wayne Duffett of TEC Associates, I carefully studied the bridge and its environs, considering how to best find a different angle on the bridge.

It occurred to me: while the bridge is often photographed, the stream itself is not. The reason is simple: much of the year there is very little water in the stream.

Last week Thursday and Friday were very wet. But Saturday was clear and sunny.

I walked the line and secured a new vantage point compass east of the famous bridge and along the swollen stream, where I captured the returning Valley train led by GP35 216 with engineer Tom Carver at the throttle.

These photos were exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm lens,

I posted variations of these images on Conway Scenic’s Facebook page to assist with promotion of the popular Valley train on its Conway run.

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Amtrak is 50 Today!

May 1, 1971, Amtrak was born—Fifty years ago today.

I wrote about Amtrak’s 50th anniversary in my May 2021 Trains column.

To commemorate this half-century mark on Tracking the Light, I’m posting this scan of a color slide I that I exposed back in October 2000 of Amtrak P42 No. 1 crossing the Quaboag River at West Warren, Massachusetts.

At the time, I was working to fulfill a assignment for Mark Hemphill, then editor of Trains. Ultimately, Trains used a similar view of this same locomotive on this same bridge that I made a few days later. That photo showed P42 No. 1 panned using a slow shutter speed to convey speed.

Exposed on Fujichrome using a Nikon N90S. Amtrak train No. 449 the Lake Shore Limited, westbound at West Warren, MA.

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Freight Pan Silo

Last Friday evening (April 23, 2021), Kris Sabbatino & I made sunset photos at the Cape Cod Canal lift bridge.

Mass-Coastal’s freight was assembling its train at Canal Junction in Bourne, Massachusetts, giving us several opportunities for silhouettes of the train moving across the bridge.

Clear skies made for ideal sunset silhouette conditions.

Working with my Nikon Z6 digital camera with 24-70mm f4.0 lens I panned the train as it pulled north across the bridge. For this image, I had the ISO set to 100, aperture set to f4.0 (it’s widest setting), and the shutter at 3/5ths of a second to capture the motion.

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GP28 Details

Model GP28 with just over two-dozen domestic examples built may be considered one of General Motors Electro-Motive Division more obscure diesel-electrics.

It was contemporary with the relatively popular GP35 with which it shares a similar external appearance.

Where EMD’s GP35 was a high-horsepower model using a turbocharged variation of the 16-567 diesel to deliver 2,500 hp, the GP28 used a 16-567D1 aspirated with a Roots blower and delivered just 1,800 hp.

The GP28 was only in production for a few months during 1964 and 1965, and may be viewed as a transitional model between the GP18 and GP38.

I don’t recall having ever photographed a GP28 in action until last Friday.

Kris Sabbatino and I were fortunate to capture Mass Coastal GP28 2009 during the course of its daily duties on Cape Cod.

Working with my Nikon Z6, I made these photos as it worked near the Cape Cod Canal lift bridge at Bourne, Massachusetts and nearby at Monument Beach on the Falmouth Branch.

Monument Beach, Massachusetts.

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Impressive New Grade Crossing at Hyannis

Recently, Mass Coastal/Cape Cod Central has installed an expanded and impressive new grade crossing where Route 28 intersects the north end of the Hyannis, Massachusetts yard.

Check out the row of crossing flashers!

Work was still on going last week when I made this image at dusk.

Exposed using a Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.

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Ballast Train at West Barnstable, Massachusetts

Kris Sabbatino and I were very lucky to catch a relative unusual move on Cape Cod last Friday (April 23, 2021).

Mass Coastal’s rare EMD GP28 (road number 2009) led a train of MassDOT ballast cars eastward on the former New Haven Railroad at West Barnstable, Massachusetts.

I was delighted to catch this unusual locomotive (one of less than three dozen built) in good sunlight. In addition to this digital photo exposed using my Nikon Z6, I also made a sequence of color slides with my Canon EOS 3 with 100-400mm lens.

Mass Coastal at West Barnstable, Mass. April 23, 2021.

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Frankenstein on the Billboard

As part of my responsibilities as Manager of Marketing and Events at Conway Scenic Railroad, I organize the creation of our billboards in the Conway-area.

For this season’s billboard, I opted to feature our Mountaineer crossing the Frankenstein trestle on the former Maine Central Mountain Division. The Billboard design was the work of Silverline Graphics; printing and installation was performed by Gemini Sign and Design.

I exposed the billboard photo last autumn using my FujiFilm XT1. And using the same camera, I photographed the billboard itself where our Conway Branch crosses Rt302/Rt16 near White Mountain Oil in North Conway.

Also, I adjusted the photo file that appears on the billboard using Adobe Lightroom using the same MacBook Pro that I use to prepare Tracking the Light.

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April 22, 2016.

Five years ago I spent the day exploring the modern tram system centered on Valenciennes, France.

This is a model system that was built and equipped by Alstom.

FujiFIlm XT1 photo.

This was my second visit to this moderately sized French town and its immediate suburbs.

Lumix LX7 photo.

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Railfreight RastatT

On this day (April 19) five years ago my Irish friends and I visited Rastatt, Germany, a known rail-freight choke-point on the DB rail network.

I made this photo using my FujiFilm XT1 showing freight wagons on southward freights queued up while waiting for signals at the Rastatt station .

Rastatt, Germany on April 19, 2016.

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Summer Evening at Silver Creek—July 24, 1987.

Working west of Buffalo, New York, my old pal TSH and I paused at Silver Creek between the parallel mainlines operated by Conrail and Norfolk Southern. We were on one of our epic Summer photo journeys.

I made this photo on Professional Kodachrome 25 (PKM) using my recently-purchased Leica M2 rangefinder fitted with f2.0 50mm Summicron lens.

A Conrail freight was rolling eastward along the old New York Central Waterlevel Route.

I was standing under the awning of the disused former Nickel Plate Road freight station that was situated between the two highly polished mains.

Silver Creek, NY on July 24, 1987.

Recently, I rediscovered this 33-year old slide in a collection of other photos from the same trip.

Notice how the missing floor boards mimic the pattern of the code line poles partially obscured by the bushes, and also the window pattern on the freight station.

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Conrail Stacks in the Canisteo—Running Against the CUrrent.

The 316 signals were situated immediately east of milepost 317 (as measured from Jersey City).

These twin semaphores were located near milepost 317 on Conrail’s former Erie Railroad in the Canisteo River Valley east of Hornell, New York. 

Although visible from the Canisteo River Road, to reach them required a short walk across a farmer’s field.

The difficulty of capturing this pair of signals with a train was the tight angle on a tangent during normal operations.

My solution to this visual problem was to photograph the signals with a train moving against the current of traffic.

The challenge was finding a train running ‘wrong main’ at the right time of day.

In January 1988, I had my opportunity. A Conrail double-stack had been given a Form-D to run against the current of traffic on the No. 1 track from Hornell to Gang Mills. I raced ahead in time to jog through the field and set up east of the signals.

Working with my Leica M2 and my dad’s 135mm Elmarit lens, I made a series of Kodachrome slides. This image was first the in the sequence and nicely shows the signals and stacks in the scenic valley.

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Amtrak at Middlefield

Here’s an old slide from my Fujichrome archive.

This shows Amtrak P42 number 57 leading train 448 (Lake Shore Limited) eastbound on the old Boston & Albany at Middlefield, Massachusetts—more specifically the site of the old B&A Middlefield Station.

I made this slide nearly 20 years ago using my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Biogon wide-angle. It is part of multiple frame sequence show the passing train.

I scanned it using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and adjusted the TIF file in Adobe Lightroom.

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My HO-scale Reading Company—April 2021 Update.

Working with my Nikon Z6 set to ISO 8000, I made these photos yesterday afternoon to document the progress on the HO-scale interpretation that I’m building with Kris Sabbatino in New Hampshire.

Since my last update several weeks ago, I’ve put down a lot more track, wired up significant portions of the railroad, and begun the task of fixing the track in place which includes laying down ballast.

Also, we have continued to acquire freight cars, mostly Reading Company hoppers. Construction is still very much in the railroad structural phase, the task of building mountains and towns is in the future!

Rather than work with a tripod, and make slow-ISO photos with very long shutter speeds and small aperture (for greater depth of field), I took the easier approach by simply boosting the ISO on the Z6.

Perhaps on my next round of photos I’ll dig out a tripod!

Thanks to Matthew Betzner for the 2021 calendar!

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Views from the Train—April 10th, 2016.

Five years ago, I traveled on the second leg of a two-day Irish Railway Record Society diesel rail tour. We had laid over at Killarney, and in the morning a select portion of the group made a round trip to Tralee and back, before heading eastward for a circuitous trip back to Dublin.

It was a gray Irish day, raining and spitting snow.

Ken Fox was our driver from Killarney in the morning, and Class 076 was our locomotive.

Traveling on the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland Cravens carriages afforded me some great views from the train as we made our way through the lush Spring countryside.

These digital images were exposed using my Fujifilm XT1.

Departing Tralee, Co. Kerry for Killarney.
Approaching Farranfore, Co. Kerry it began to snow . . .
Looking west at Limerick Junction. This scene is much changed today, as a second mainline platform has been added along with a massive modern overhead bridge.
Approaching the home signal for Tipperary on the way to Waterford.
View from the the train near Clonmel, County Tipperary.

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Ice on the Mountain.

Last week on our ascent of New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch with Conway Scenic Railroad’s Work Extra 573, we encountered several minor obstacles.

Near milepost 84, about a mile from the summit, an ice fall had blocked the line.

Our crew set out to quickly remove it and then we were on our way again.

The lighting was flat and cold when I exposed these photos with my Nikon Z6. Keep in mind that if the sky had been clear, this portion of the railroad would have been in deep shadow, conditions that may have made for more contrast and thus more difficult lighting conditions.

I adjusted the camera NEF (RAW) files using Lightroom to improve the overall appearance of the photographs.

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Easter Bunny Express

Conway Scenic Railroad opened its Spring 2021 Season with three days of Easter Bunny Express trains.

Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I made these photos of our train and the Easter Bunny for use in publicity and advertising.

On Saturday April 3rd, the Conway Daily Sun reproduced one of my images on page 12A of its newspaper.

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LUAS Over the LIffey—3 April 2011.

It was ten years ago today that I exposed this digital image of a Dublin LUAS tram gliding over the River Liffey on the Sean Heuston Bridge (formerly Kings Bridge).

At the time, I was working with my first, and only, digital camera, a Panasonic LX3 that I purchased primarily to use as a light meter to aid my film photography and to make social photos of my friends.

I soon learned that the Lumix was an exceptional image making machine and came to use it on almost a daily basis.

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