It was on the afternoon of 9 September 2008, when I made this image of the Wiener Lokalbahn tram sheds in Vienna.
At the time I had visions of writing a book about the lost Hapsburg Empire that once spanned much of central and eastern Europe.
Denis McCabe and I visited Vienna at the tale-end of a whirlwind trip that had taken us around the Czech and Slovak Republics.
I made this view on Fujichrome, which I scanned last night using my Epson V600 flatbed scanner.
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In June 2008, I traveled from Los Angeles to San Diego to research and photograph my book titled Railroads of California (Published by MBI-Voyageur Press in 2009).
I traveled over most of the San Diego Trolley system, during which time I made several dozen photos of the cars including this one near downtown San Diego.
I was working with a pair of Canon EOS 3s. This was was loaded with Fujichrome and fitted with a 200mm Canon lens.
Today, looking back on San Diego from frozen New Hampshire, it seems like a long way away and a long time ago.
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I exposed this color slide on a visit to Brussels with my father in May 1996.
I carried two cameras on that trip. My primary body was a Nikon F3T that I bought new from Nikon in 1990. My secondary camera was second hand Nikkormat FTN with an outer covering of red leather. I called it ‘my red Nikkormat’.
Back then, I’d usually load Kodachrome 25 in the F3T, and Fujichrome 100 in the Nikormat. I exposed film in both cameras manually using a handheld Sekonic Studio Deluxe light meter to calculate exposure.
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In August 1980, on the return from Los Angeles, my family and I visited Philadelphia for a few days.
This was the view from our hotel room.
Working with my vintage Leica 3A rangefinder, I exposed this photo of an inbound SEPTA PCC car working the No. 10 route as it approached the Trolley subway portal off 36th street.
I was working with Kodachrome 64 slide film. The window glass and summer haze contributed to a cyan tint.
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On this day seven years ago, a snow storm hit Philadelphia.
My brother and I went out into the snow to photograph SEPTA’s No. 15 trolley on Girard Avenue and run a few errands.
I made this image using my Canon EOS 7D with 200mm fixed Canon telephoto lens.
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Using my FujiFilm XT1, I made this photo on First Street when visiting Los Angeles in August 2016.
I was pleased to catch then-new cars working the Metro Rail Gold Line light rail line.
Below are two variations. The top is the in-camera JPG, using the ‘Velvia’ color profile. The second view I converted from Fuji RAW to DNG format with Iridient X-Transformer (a specialized 3rd party software aimed at producing superior results with Fuji RAW files) before importing into Lightroom for final adjustment.
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On a whirlwind trip around the Czech Republic in September 2008, I made hundreds of photos in dozens of places in just a few days. A dozen years later I’m still sorting and scanning them.
Catching railway vehicles on different levels makes for photos with added interest.
Which is the subject here? The tram in the foreground, the train in the distance, or perhaps the station itself?
It was the afternoon of September 5, 2008, when photographer Denis McCabe and I were photographing at Plzen hlavni nadrazi (Plzen main station) that exposed this Fujichrome slide using a Canon EOS-3.
Tracking the Light is a Daily Rail-Photography Blog.
In May, 2000, I made this photograph of a Tatra tram (advertising Kodak film) on the streets of Prague using a Nikon F3T that was fitted with a Nikkor 24mm lens and loaded with . . .
Fuji Sensia II!
Just for the record, on a visit to Fuji, Japan, I photographed a 1067mm gauge freight train on Kodachrome.
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On a visit to New York City in 1998, my father and I made a trip on the Flushing Line of the New York Subway.
I exposed these photos using Fuji Sensia II (100 speed slide film) with my Nikon N90S.
Last week I digitized the slides using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 scanner powered by VueScan software.
To make the most of the dark contrasty images I opted for multiple pass scans—a feature offered by VueScan that is similar in concept to the HDR setting used my some modern digital cameras—that blend several scans of the same image at different exposure values into one file to maximize shadow and highlight detail.
After exposure, I adjusted the scans using Adobe Lightroom and outputted these images with watermark for internet presentation.
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Today’s random photo pick was literally sitting atop a stack of slides on my light table ‘to be scanned’.
So I scanned it. Just now.
Dark suits wait for an arriving train in the Tokyo subway in April 1997.
For me this seems like a world away.
And it is.
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I’ve always found railway maintenance equipment interesting: often functional antiques, no longer suitable for revenue work get cascaded into maintenance duties.
As a kid, I was fascinated by the Boston’s bright orange Type 3 streetcars that had been converted into snow plows. For me these were the relics of an earlier era.
So, I was delighted when on a visit to Poznan, Poland in 2000, I found a vintage four-wheel tram in maintenance service,. I made a few photos using my Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO).
This fortuitous encounter was the only time I caught a four-wheel tram in Poznan.
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An afternoon rain in June 2001 had made for a bright gloss at the Leipzig, Germany Hauptbahnhof.
Working with my N90S, I’d exposed this Fujichrome view of a tram in front of the impressive façade of what was once Europe’s largest railway station.
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On September 16, 2009, I exposed this Fujifchrome slide using a Canon EOS-3 mounted on a tripod. I used a long shutter speed for motion blur.
A San Francisco Muni Breda Light rail car was rolling along the Embarcedero beneath the famous San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which once carried tracks as well as the highway.
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I made this view on Ektachrome during a March 2003 visit to New York City’s Flushing Line with photographer Pat Yough.
In 1968, my father brought me on a trip over the Flushing Line making it one of my earliest memories of railway travel.
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California Dreamin’—Working with Fujichrome late in the day on a Sunday afternoon in May 2008, I exposed this long telephoto view of a Valley Transportation Authority light rail train.
VTA Light Rail is the operator of the San Jose, California-area light rail system.
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I needed a topic for today’s Tracking the Light, so I reached in to a sorting file of un-scanned slides and found this photo: Surprise!
On October 13, 2004, photographer Mike Gardner and I chased New England Central Railroad’s 608 south from Palmer, through my hometown of Monson, Massachusetts.
This is a chase I’ve done countless times over the last 40 years, but just because you’ve done something before, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to find a new angle on it.
At Robbins Road in Monson, I made this dramatic trailing view of the train’s locomotives. Here we have a selection of NECR GP38s roaring away in ‘Run-8’—maximum throttle on the tooth of the grade.
The train was moving 10-12 mph, producing a rush of engine exhaust along with traction motors blowers blowing to keep the motors cool. (And prevent them from over heating) These blasts of hot air, combined with the wind from the train’s approach and passage, plus and sand from the sanders to maintain adhesion all helped stir up the ballast and fallen leaves.
It was a good chase and I wish I was there now!
I scanned the photo using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 and VueScan software. My initial scan produced a 4000 dpi TIF file, which I then imported to Lightroom in order to scale it for presentation here.
June 2020 Trains Magazine features my 8-page article on New England Central.
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In August 2014, I made a day trip to the famous Dutch port city of Rotterdam, where I made this view of an Alstom Citadis tram passing the famous Cube Houses-one of the city’s architectural icons.
Although many of photos I made in Rotterdam were exposed digitally, for this view I used my Canon EOS3 with 40mm lens to expose Fuji Provia100F color slide film.
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In April 2005, I visited the Czech city of Brno with Denis McCabe and the late Norman McAdams.
Working with a Nikon N90S with f2.8 180mm Nikkor lens, I exposed this Fujichrome Sensia II (ISO 100) slide of a tram as it approached the stop near the main railway station.
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On November 3, 1992, my brother Sean and I visited Baltimore, Maryland.
Working with my old Nikon F3T with an f4.0 200mm Nikkor lens, I exposed this Kodachrome slide of the Baltimore Light Rail .
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It was a gray December 1997 day when I exposed this telephoto view of a Washington DC Metro train and Union Station’s Tower K using my Nikon N90s with f2.8 80-200 Nikon zoom lens.
Really it was the rows of colored position light signals displaying ‘stop’ that caught my attention.
Although the f2.8 8-200 lens offered convenience, and was both fast and sharp, it had its failings. When used wide open it tended to vignette slightly (darker exposure in the corners), but more serious was that it made me visually lazy. Instead of seeking the best vantage point and an optimal composition, I could get a pretty good angle by merely adjusting the focal length of the zoom.
My film was Fujichrome Provia 100F.
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On a trip to the Ukraine in 2007, fellow photographer Denis McCabe and I spent several days around L’viv—the old Austrian city of Lemberg.
Working with Fujichrome I exposed this view of a tram on very ropey looking street trackage.
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On October 12, 1992, my father and I traveled on the Pittsburgh Light Rail, traversing both the 47 Shannon and Drake Shuttle routes where vintage PCC cars still roamed. Both lines are now defunct. Later in the day, my brother Sean and I revisited these lines by road to make a few more photos.
On that trip, I exposed this Kodachrome slide with my Nikon F3T fitted with a 35mm perspective control lens.
While I was aiming to fill the frame with the rarely photographed PCC car, in retrospect I wished that I’d allowed a little more space around the streetcar.
I’m happy to have made this photo, since it was my only photographic adventure with the Pittsburgh PCCs.
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It was a dreary wintery morning in January 2009, when I exposed this view of PCC-derived Tatras meeting on the streets of Olomouc, Czech Republic.
I was traveling with photographers Tim Doherty and Denis McCabe on a whirlwind post-Christmas tour of central Europe that began and ended in Prague.
I was working with Fujichrome color slide film using a Canon EOS-3 with a 100mm f2.0 lens
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In February 1999, I made a day trip from Brussels to Antwerp, Belgium.
While in Antwerp, I took the number 2 tram to its terminus at Hoboken.
You mean there’s another Hoboken Terminal? In a manner of speaking, yes. But no copper clad Bush train sheds at this one.
When I saw this PCC departing for central Antwerp, I was amused by the National Car Rental advertisement at the back of the car. That same day I expose a view of a similar tram advertising ‘Diesel’ apparel.
Exposed on Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO) with an Nikon N90S probably fitted with a 80-200 Nikon zoom.
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Here are two views made at the tram terminal in Schaerbeek/Schaarbeek in Brussels. The top was exposed on Fujichrome with my Nikon N90S in 1999, the bottom using a Lumix LX7 in April 2017.
The building in the background is the old SNCB railway station house, now part of the Train World railway museum complex.
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On 6 April 2015, I took Irish Rail’s DART service to Bray, and then I hiked around Bray Head.
On my return, I paused to photograph this DART electric train on its southward run toward Graystones using my Lumix LX7.
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The Ponte Dom Luis 1 is one of two magnificent Eiffel bridges spanning the Douro in Porto, Portugal.
On this day (April 5th), 2014, I worked with my Canon EOS 7D to make this photograph of a Eurotram crossing the bridge.
Porto is a remarkable and extraordinarily picturesque city.
Fellow photographer Denis McCabe and I were exploring Porto during a week-long photographic journey around Portugal. While the weather was good in the south of the country, it was foggy, raining and overcast in the north.
Portugal is among the countries prominently features in my book; Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe by Kalmbach Books see:
https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/search?q=brian+solomon+Railway+guide+to+Europe
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The Hungarian capital has a wonderfully complex transit system mixing heavy railways, with metro lines, funicular railways, urban street trams, and interurban trams.
On a visit in July 2007, I exposed this Fujichrome of a route 49 tram passing below a MAV (Hungarian state railways) arched bridge.
It was extraordinarily warm that day.
This was one of the last rolls I exposed using my Contax G2 rangefinder. Not long after returning to Dublin, the camera developed a serious fault and I stopped using it.
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On May 1, 2002, I arrived in Warsaw, Poland on the overnight sleeper from Dresden, Germany.
Working with my Nikon F3t with 24mm Nikkor lens, I exposed this Fujichrome Sensia 11 (ISO100) view of a tram at a junction in the Polish capital.
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Yesterday, when I read about the Magnitude 5.4 earthquake that shook Croatia, I thought back to the pleasant few days I spent on my first trip to the Croatian capital Zagreb in August 2003.
During that trip, I exposed this Fujichrome slide of a tram in Whirlpool a advertising livery near the Zagreb main railway station.
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I liked the old Boeing-Vertol LRVs. (Light Rail Vehicles).
The shape of the cars lent well to photography.
The San Francisco cars reminded me a the old orange creamsicle frozen treats.
Back in December 1990, I made this view of a Boeing car leaving the Geneva Street car house for a run on the M-Ocean line. I was working with my old Nikkor f4.0 200mm lens on my F3T loaded with Kodachrome 25.
I made great use of that lens, but sold it in 1996 when I bought my 80-200mm zoom. In retrospect, I made better photos with the fixed 200mm.
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My father and I traveled from Brussels to Amsterdam by train on May 26, 1996. Shortly after arriving at Amsterdam Centraal, I exposed this color slide of a tram paused in front of the station.
On the front of the tramcar is a bit of graffiti which annoyed me at the time. This bit of marker seemed to spoil the scene.
Later in the day, we traveled by tram to the end one of the lines, just to see what was there. It was like Legoland.
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In August 2008, I made this photo on Fujichrome Sensia using a Tokina 400mm lens fitted on my Nikon N90S.
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I made this view at the CTA’s Clark-Lake Station on the rarely photographed Chicago subway.
The Loop is often pictured, but not the lines underground.
My brother and I had spent the day exploring Chicago and it was nice to get out of the cold.
I used an FLW color-correction filter to compensate for the green cast produced by the artificial lighting underground.
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On a trip to Poland in August 2006, I made a few photos of the four-wheel trams at Bytom.
At the time these were some of the last traditional four-wheel trams in regular revenue service and represented a carry-over from an earlier era.
For me, it was an opportunity to photograph one of Europe’s most obscure transit lines. Thanks to Michael Walsh of the Irish Railway Record Society for recommending this location.
I made this view using a Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO).
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On April 24, 1997, my father and I paid a brief visit to Okayama, Japan, arriving and departing the same day by Shinkansen.
Okayama had a compact two-prong streetcar system with colorfully painted street cars (it seemed that each car was in a different livery).
I made these photos with my Nikon N90S.
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