Summer of 1983: I made this trailing view of Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited on the old Boston & Albany at West Warren, Mass.

I had an eye, but hadn’t yet refined technical skills to make my vision work.

My exposure was off; I failed to control flare from the evening sun; and my film processing was imperfect, which resulted in comparatively dense, yet oddly flat negatives that were difficult to print.

For 43 years this photo languished in darkness. The other day I found it in an envelope and scanned it. Working with Lightroom, I was finally able to present digitally what I was incapable of doing with traditional chemical materials. Below are both the straight (unmodified) scan and my digitally processed interpretation of the same.

The end result places me in a dream trackside again, when Amtrak ran with a lone F40PH and classic Budd-built streamlined cars, and I wasn’t yet 17. I can hear the clack of steel wheels on jointed rail and fading roar of the locomotive as the train raced down the Quaboag Valley toward Palmer and beyond.

Tracking the Light Looks Back in Time . . .