I’ve just scratched the surface reviewing the many photos I made yesterday (June 29, 2019) of Conway Scenic’s Trains, Planes and Automobiles steam excursion over New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch.
This was the first public excursion with Conway’s new Budd-dome Rhonda Lee (formerly Silver Splendor) as featured on Tracking the Light. And the first time the car was teamed up with steam locomotive 7470.
I made this view of the iconic Willey Brook Trestle on the return run in the afternoon where the steam locomotive was trailing.
For years I’d admired photos from the vantage point on the rocks above the bridge, which has been used to photograph the railway since it was constructed in the 1870s.
I never realized how difficult it was to get up there until I had to make the ascent myself, with all my gear in tow.
This view was exposed using a FujiFilm XT1 with 12mm Zeiss Touit mounted on a Gitzo tripod. I used an external Lee graduated filter to help improve sky detail.
By working in the vertical-oriented portrait format, I was better able to show the distance of the stream below the bridge and the great verticality of the entire scene. I’m specifically mimicking a 19thcentury glass plate view, while remembering a Kodachrome slide my friend Brian Jennison exposed here of a Maine Central freight.
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Here lies a quandary, if not a paradox (or two ducks): when a bridge has a name, even a colloquial one, that describes not the present span, but a previous one, does not the name still stand, even if technically incorrect? The so called Suspension Bridge in/at Niagara Falls (or rather the two communities that while sharing the name of the nearby waterfall are not actually waterfalls themselves) isn’t suspension bridge, but rather a steel arched structure that serves in place of the one-time suspension bridge at or near that location.
You can write Willey Creek Bridge and thus be correct in all instances, although many familiar with the span continue to call it ‘The Willey Creek Trestle’. Its predecessor was, at least in part, a trestle.
Brian S.
Fabulous shot Brian ! What an iconic spot to show mountain railroading ! Were you privy to that steamers uphill run ? I’ll bet the sound was delightful . Hope you don’t get poison ivy for your efforts. Great job.
It’s not a trestle; it’s a deck truss bridge. If we experts are too lazy to get it right, who else will? All trestles are bridges, but all not bridges are trestles! Seems to me I read a book about bridges by you…
Beautiful picture! Hope you share more of the trip. Dave