In March 1976, my father brought me trackside for a couple of days to witness northeastern railroading before Conrail assumed operation of most of the large railroads in the region.

Twenty-three years later, we spent two days along Conrail’s former New York Central lines in eastern New York state , documenting the railroad’s final hours.

At the time Mel Patrick and I were writing a column on photography for Trains Magazine. Magazine Editor Kevin Keefe had organized for Canon to send us a selection of cameras and lens to work with. At the time, I was primarily a Nikon user.

These were among the images that I made on May 29, 1999 using the Canon equipment loaded with Fujichrome.

Two days later Conrail concluded its independant Class 1 operations. CSX inherited the lines pictured here.

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