The HSP-46 is a diesel-electric unique to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Last November, we paused briefly on the former New Haven Railroad Shoreline Route at Mansfield, Massachusetts, where I made this photograph of an outbound commuter train led by HSP-46 2008.

The railroad was built in the early 1830s as the Boston & Providence, which was among the first lines in North America to employ locomotives in main line service. This was several years before the development of practical commercial photography.

I wonder what it would have been like to watch one of the B&P’s early steam locomotives working the line and if I had a camera, what sort of photograph I might have made of that locomotive.

Tracking the Lights Explores Photography Daily