On November 12, 1987, I drove my 1973 Plymouth Scamp along the backroads from Scottsville to Salamanca, New York. Early that afternoon I caught Conrail’s OIEL east of town, making its way west on the Meadville Line—the former Erie Railroad main line running from Hornell, New York, to Meadville, Pennsylvania.

In its heyday, Salamanca had been an Erie division point, home to a large railroad station and a significant yard. By the time of my visit, however, the town was only a shadow of its former glory. Even so, simply seeing the place fascinated me. I wanted to see more of the old Erie Railroad to the west, so I followed OIEL.

SD50 6822 was in the lead. West of Salamanca, near Steamburg, I made this panned photograph from Route 17. My Leica M2 was loaded with Kodachrome—great for bright, sunny days but difficult to work with on a dull one. My exposure was f2.0 at 1/60 of a second. The wide aperture contributed to the corner vignetting in this image.

What sticks in my mind is that my car radio was playing “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison, from his latest album, Cloud Nine, which had been released just a few days earlier.

I made it as far west as Jamestown—that’s where my map ended. There was no GPS or Google Maps in those days. The Erie dipped down into Pennsylvania beyond that point. It would be another twenty years or so before I finally traced the line over its full distance between Jamestown and Meadville, but those are stories for another day.

Tracking the Light Looks Back on Conrail!