photography

Kodachrome Days at Boston Switch

My posts about Attleboro generated discussion about the Boston & Providence route, including mention of a location east of Providence known as “Boston Switch,” where the Providence & Worcester’s namesake line diverged from the old New Haven “Shore Line” route.

More than 40 years ago (June 30, 1986, to be specific), Bob Krambeles gave Bob Buck and me a tour of the Providence area, which included a brief visit to an overbridge looking toward Boston Switch in Central Falls, Rhode Island.

We timed our visit to photograph the passage of Amtrak 175, The Minuteman, which blasted by at 1:14 p.m.

I exposed this Kodachrome of what was then a standard consist on the Northeast Corridor. When the slide came back from Kodak, I labeled it and filed it away in my “New Haven Railroad” box. (At the time, I identified all railroad routes by their historic owners.)

Boston Switch as it appeared before electrification. K64 with Leica 3A. Scanned with a Nikon L5000 scanner usng VueScan software version 9.8.54.02, with final adjustment in Lightroom.
This is a slight variation on the top scan. I altered the color temp/balance in Lightroom in an attempt to get a more neutral color balance. Kodachrome 64 is a difficult film to balance.

When I went to locate this image, I found, to my surprise, that it was exactly where I thought it should be! Not bad after four decades in the dark. Upon researching Boston Switch using Google Maps, I see that the shell of the old tower is still there!

Tracking the Light steps back in time!