About a week ago I was asked by regular Tracking the Light reader Ciarán Cooney if I had exposed  photos on May 13, 1989.

This request was prompted by my posting images from May 6^th of that year. (See: Amtrak 63, Ivison Road, South Byron, New York, May 6, 1989.).

I consulted my notes from that year, and found that I’d photographed extensively on that day! (Hooray for my old notebook!)

At the time I was about a week away from completing my course work at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I earned a BFA in Photographic Illustration, and I was making good use of the fine Spring weather in Western New York State.

That day I began my photography on the Water Level Route at East Rochester, and worked my way eastward toward Lyons, New York.

I was particularly fascinated by the abandoned truss bridge over the old New York Central west of Newark, New York. This had carried the Newark & Marion, which had served as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. [See: AbandonedRails.com for more about this line. ]

On an earlier trip, I’d photographed this bridge on a dull day using a 4×5 camera.

On May 13^th, I worked with my Leica M2 exposing Kodachrome 25 color slides, and featured Conrail trains passing below the bridge.At that time SD50s were standard locomotives on many of the railroad’s carload trains.

Later, I explored other vantage points along the busy Conrail east-west mainline.

Thanks to Ciarán for encouraging this foray into my slide archive!

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