In May 1996, my father and I flew to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Early during this trip, I spent a few minutes at the main railway station in Utrecht.
Dutch railways were a novelty for me. I exposed this Velvia 50 35mm color slide of an Nederlandse Spoorwegen VIRM electric multiple unit using my Nikon F3T. This distinctive-appearing passenger train was relatively new to the railway at the time.
I’ve always been impressed by the vivid colors rendered by this film on a dull day. It is no wonder that Velvia is favored by nature photographers.
Last weekend, I put the finishing touches on an article about the dawn of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road.
I write old school, searching sources for details, facts, historical continuity, and understanding. For every word I write, I easily read a thousand. In addition to my various previous writings on the B&O, for this effort I filled three notebooks with source material.
Seamus-the-dog took great interest in my notes and is seen here studying the finer points of Baltimore & Ohio’s early days.
Thirty years ago, I followed the advice of Baltimore & Ohio scholar John P. Hankey and traveled to Ellicott City for the title transfer of the old B&O Station—believed to be the oldest extant railroad station building in the United States—from CSX to the B&O Museum at Ellicott City, which was occupying the structure.
For the event, the 1927-built replica of Peter Cooper’s engine was brought to Ellicott City and hoisted onto the Old Main Line. They fired it up, and I made a variety of photos of the curious vertical-boiler engine as it chuffed back and forth on the historic B&O right-of-way.
After photographing the head end of Norfolk Southern 36A at Washington Boro, Pa., we drove to Safe Harbor, where I made a speedy walk into the darkness. The massive girders of the trestle, built for Pennsylvania Railroad’s Atglen & Susquehanna Branch, loomed above me.
Although night had fallen, a hint of sunset remained in the western sky. I had an angle in mind that I hoped would capture the scale of the enormous viaduct.
Using my iPhone as a flashlight, I set up my 3Pod tripod just as the headlights of the eastward freight began to illuminate the tracks below.
I made several photos of the passing train, of which these two are my favorites.
Although these were exposed using a 50mm lens, next time I’d like to try a telephoto view.
Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography!
The long days of summer are fading fast. With each rotation of the Earth, there’s less light in the evening sky.
Kris and I had just passed Columbia, Pa., when we heard the Norfolk Southern River Line dispatcher talking to the approaching Enola–Edgemoor, Delaware, freight (train symbol 36A).
We turned around, and I started scouting for a suitable place to make action photos in the last light.
I settled on a grade crossing near Washington Boro, where I’ve photographed previously.
Working with my Nikon Z6 III, I made this sequence of images of the approaching train. Here, the concept of the sequence is important, as the group of photos tells the story.
I picked a spot where the line curves at the end of a long tangent, a location that makes the most of the train. Although night was closing in, I hoped to demonstrate that one locomotive led a very long freight, but the angle was a little bit off. The old PRR electrification masts hint at the heritage of the line.
Photos processed using DxO PureRaw5 and PhotoLab9 to make the most of NEF raw data.
Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light has explored railroad photography since 2012!
In May 1988, I stood on a hill near Bullards Road in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, just west of Washington Summit, to photograph an eastward Conrail freight on the Boston Line.
This group of four loaded coal hoppers caught my attention: one each from B&O, C&O, Western Maryland, and Seaboard System. At the time, it represented the short history of CSX Transportation!
What a concept: freight cars owned by railroads and not covered in third-party paint.
Exposed on PKM—Professional Kodachrome 25—using my Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens.
I liked to seek out unusual trains: Second Sections, Extras, unit trains, and moves that operated once a week—or less.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Conrail’s Friday-only TV80W was a short, hot intermodal train that ran to Worcester, Massachusetts, over the Boston Line (former Boston & Albany).
August 12, 1988 was a steamer: hot, humid, and polluted.
I drove over to CP79, east of Palmer, Massachusetts, to catch the once-a-week intermodal train. On this day, it was powered by a pair of GE B23-7s, locomotives atypical for Conrail’s intermodal service.
Conditions were less than ideal for photography—flat light and hazy—but I made this 120-size black-and-white view with my father’s Rollei Model T. TV80W was waiting for a “limited clear” signal to exit the controlled siding after meeting a westward carload freight.
Two versions of the photo appear below: the unmodified scan and an adjusted version using Lightroom to eliminate spots and vignetting and improve contrast and highlight detail.
Scan from B&W negative without cosmetic adjustment. (Scan size scaled for internet presentation only)Adjusted scan to improve contrast and overall appearance without eliminating the effects of the hot hazy afternoon. It was unpleasant to be outside that day.
Someone may ask, “What is a ‘hot’ freight?” To run “hot” means to operate quickly, often in excess of normal speed. A “hot freight” is a high-priority train. So, it was unusual to find TV80W sitting in a siding.
Tracking the Light has explored railroad photography for 14 years!
Leica M2 in hand, I made this pacing view while racing along with a westward Delaware & Hudson freight in New York’s Canisteo Valley on April 16, 1989.
New York, Susquehanna & Western—Susquehanna for short—had been appointed the designated operator of the D&H after Guilford ceased operating the line in June 1988.
For a couple of years, NYS&W locomotives were common on D&H freights such as this ABBU (Albany to Buffalo), which was running via trackage rights over Conrail’s former Erie Railroad main line.
Tributary Fun Fact: Although I was many miles from the Susquehanna River, the Canisteo River is a tributary of the Chemung, which flows into the Susquehanna.
Exposed on Ilford FP4 black-and-white negative film using a Leica M2 with a 50mm Leitz Summicron lens.
There was only the faintest hint of blue in the evening sky.
I could hear Norfolk Southern’s 36A approaching as I walked back along the road to the Safe Harbor Bridge— itself an old railroad alignment.
For these images, I preset and locked my focus on the tall trestle and dialed in a +1/3 exposure compensation to boost the amount of light reaching the sensor. Working in aperture-priority (A) mode with the lens set to its widest opening (f/1.4), my Nikon Z6-III automatically set the shutter speed: 1/8 second for the first image and 1/10 second for the second.
I panned the head end of the freight as it rolled across the lower bridge.
What you see here has considerably more detail and appears much brighter than what I saw with my naked eye at the time of exposure.
NEF RAW file, processed with PureRaw5 with DeepPrime3 lens corrections and demosiacing, converted to DNG format and cosmetically adjusted using DxOPhotolab9. NEF RAW file, processed with PureRaw5 with DeepPrime3 lens corrections and demosiacing, converted to DNG format and cosmetically adjusted using DxOPhotolab9.
Tracking the Light has explored railroad photography for 14 years!
Columbia, Pa., has a fascinating railroad history, but is difficult to portray.
I’ve been seeking an angle that makes the most of Cola Tower.
The other evening, Norfolk Southern’s 38V (Enola to Baltimore) was held at the west home signal for Cola interlocking. The old Cola Tower stands as a relic of an earlier era. As we waited for the train to get a clear signal through the interlocking, I examined a few locations.
This view looking railroad west seems cluttered and distracting during daylight. However, in the glow of evening, it conveys the spirit of the place.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6-III with an f/1.4 50mm lens mounted on a 3Pod tripod. NEF RAW files processed using DxO PureRaw 5 with DeepPRIME 3 corrections.
Top photo; ISO 32000, f1.4, 1/80th second, auto white balance.
Bottom photo: ; ISO 32000, f1.4, 1/160thth second, auto white balance. The shorter shutter speed was necessary to better freeze the action and minimize overexposure of the headlights.
Tracking the Light has explored railroad photography since 2012.
In September 1998, photographer Mel Patrick and I made an inspection of BNSF’s (former Santa Fe) Belen Cutoff route in central New Mexico.
At sunrise, we found this eastward freight holding for an approach signal west of Abo Canyon at Sais. My headend three-quarter view of this same train appeared as the cover photo of my book Modern Locomotives—High Horsepower Diesels 1966-2000 published by MBI.
Fujichrome Velvia 50 exposed with a Nikon F3T and f2.8 Nikkor 24mm lens.
Tracking the Light has explored railway photography since 2012.
Based on past timings (where you gauge the progress of a train by the relative times between locations), I was confident we could beat the loaded coal train that we’d rolled by on the Port Road Secondary at Washington Boro to the boat launch at Peach Bottom.
In the old days, I’d have been trying to navigate the back roads using a DeLorme atlas. These days, we cheat and let Google Maps do the work for us.
We arrived at the grade crossing for the boat launch with plenty of time to spare.
Previously, I’d identified the light near the grade crossing as an aid to existing-light night photography.
Before the chug of GE diesels announced the heavy train’s approach, I positioned the car, set up my tripod, and made a few test shots with my Nikon Z6-III and 50mm f/1.4 lens.
The head-end views were exposed at f/1.4, 1/100th of a second, at ISO 32,000. The laser-beam effect of the headlights gained me about a half stop. In comparison, I used 1/60th of a second for the views of the mid-train DPU (distributed power units), as these photos didn’t benefit from the bright headlights.
On a number of occasions, I’ve eyed this view of Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Secondary as a potential angle for photographing a westward train in the morning, but I’m still waiting for the stars to align.
Recently, however, while following a slow-moving unit coal train along the Susquehanna River in the evening, I decided this would make a nice grab shot.
With regard to my recent post about “elephants,” the zoo keepers had tagged a hopper about four cars behind the head end. Since I’d already covered that subject, I saw no reason to spoil this pastoral view of black diamonds rolling through the countryside by including the defaced car.
Nikon Z6 III with NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.4 lens. Exposure: 1/250 second at f/2.5, ISO 1000. NEF RAW file processed using DxO PureRAW 5 with DeepPRIME 3 noise reduction and lens corrections. Cosmetic adjustment using Lightroom.
Tracking the Light has occasionally featured Conway Scenic Railroad’s former Maine Central GP38 No. 252. As Conway Scenic’s manager for marketing, I’ll admit that—yes, I like that locomotive. As I’ve often said, it was delivered just one week after I was.
Among my tens of thousands of color slides is a Logan slide box (a metal storage box) labeled “Colorado and Utah.” It is filled primarily with images exposed between the summer of 1995 and the autumn of 1998, when I was making regular trips to the Rockies.
While searching for another photograph, I came across these Fujichrome Provia slides exposed on September 1, 1996, depicting a Southern Pacific empty coal train in the yard at Minturn, Colorado, on the Denver & Rio Grande Western’s west slope of its Tennessee Pass crossing. Leading the train is a relatively new GE AC4400CW, No. 252.
I exposed these just a few weeks before the Southern Pacific system—including the D&RGW—was formally absorbed into Union Pacific. The brief wink of sunlight was fortuitous, while the foreboding sky seemed prophetic.
Nearly thirty years later, is Norfolk Southern approaching a similarly pivotal moment? I wonder what things will be like in 2056?
Tracking the Light posts thoughts on railroad photographs.
Tracking the Light has occasionally featured Conway Scenic Railroad’s former Maine Central GP38 No. 252. As Conway Scenic’s manager for marketing, I’ll admit that—yes, I like that locomotive. As I’ve often said, it was delivered just one week after I was.
Among my tens of thousands of color slides is a Logan slide box (a metal storage box) labeled “Colorado and Utah.” It is filled primarily with images exposed between the summer of 1995 and the autumn of 1998, when I was making regular trips to the Rockies.
While searching for another photograph, I came across these Fujichrome Provia slides exposed on September 1, 1996, depicting a Southern Pacific empty coal train in the yard at Minturn, Colorado, on the Denver & Rio Grande Western’s west slope of its Tennessee Pass crossing. Leading the train is a relatively new GE AC4400CW, No. 252.
I exposed these just a few weeks before the Southern Pacific system—including the D&RGW—was formally absorbed into Union Pacific. The brief wink of sunlight was fortuitous, while the foreboding sky seemed prophetic.
Nearly thirty years later, is Norfolk Southern approaching a similarly pivotal moment? I wonder what things will be like in 2056?
Tracking the Light posts thoughts on railroad photographs.
Some readers may have experienced difficulty accessing Tracking the Light over the past day or so, including an occasional “Access Forbidden” message.
I’m aware of the problem and am working to determine its cause. The site and its archive remain intact, and at present the site appears to be operating normally, although access may still be intermittent.
Thanks for your patience—and for continuing to visit Tracking the Light!
Arriving at Port Deposit, we heard that Norfolk Southern’s 38V (Enola to Baltimore) was at Perryville and preparing to enter Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. To intercept it, we made the short drive to the former Pennsylvania Railroad station in Perryville on the east side of the Susquehanna River.
Although the Baltimore leg of the wye runs adjacent to the station parking lot, it doesn’t offer a good view because of a fence and some unkempt trees. To get a better angle, I walked to where the line crosses the road on an overhead bridge.
Not every image is calendar photo. My goal was simply to document a train and its location with interesting photos, and these images do exactly that.
Norfolk Southern 8021 leads freight 38V as it is about to leave the Port Road Secondary at Perryville, Maryland. The passenger station is behind me.
In the early 1990s, I made a project of photographing CSX’s Mountain Subdivision—the former Baltimore & Ohio West End.
Lately, while searching for illustrations for my next book on railroad signal towers, I’ve been scouring my slides of this fascinating stretch of railroad, which connects Cumberland, Maryland, with Grafton, West Virginia.
Most of my visits were in autumn. On the morning of October 15, 1994, I stopped at Q Tower in Hardman, West Virginia. It was well off the beaten path—few people found it by accident. I made this view looking east toward the tower on Kodachrome 25.
As I recall, Q Tower controlled a set of crossovers, and this was one of the locations where helper locomotives were added to heavy eastbound freights.
Even at this late date, Q Tower was a relic from another era—and that’s what made it so cool. This wood-frame structure housed a classic “Armstrong” interlocking plant. Other surviving antiques included a hand-cranked magneto telephone that allowed the operator to communicate over the railroad’s company telephone line with adjacent towers and other locations along the line.
Here’s a surprise: I made two versions of the same scene.
Using my Nikon Z6-III with a 50mm f/1.4 NIKKOR lens mounted securely on a tripod, I exposed two nearly identical photographs. The first was made at ISO 3200, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 1/5 second. The second was made at ISO 100, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 6 seconds.
Both images were exported directly from the original NEF RAW files using identical processing settings. Signficantly, neither image was processed with DxO PureRAW to reduce noise or the effects of lens defects. (So: What you see is what you get).
Can you tell the difference?
When viewed at full size, which one do you think appears sharper?
ISO 3200, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 1/5 second. ISO 100, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 6 seconds.
Tracking the Lightexamines the relationship between exposure and ISO.
Footnote: I asked the ChatGPT AI engine to analyse my post and my results; it came up with this answer:
One technical observation: all else being equal, the 6-second exposure at ISO 100 is theoretically capable of slightly greater image quality because of its lower noise. However, if there is any vibration, wind, or subject movement during those six seconds, the ISO 3200, 1/5-second exposure may actually look sharper. That makes your comparison especially interesting because the answer isn’t always what people expect.
Greatly enlarged version of the top photo; ISO 3200, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 1/5 secondGreatly enlarged version of the bottom photo; ISO 100, f/2.5, with a shutter speed of 6 seconds. Can you see the difference now?
Regular viewers will have noticed that I’ve been focusing heavily on Norfolk Southern’s former Pennsylvania Railroad Port Road Secondary lately. That’s true, and there are several reasons why.
More than 35 years ago, I identified Conrail’s Port Road as a railroad I wanted to photograph in depth. At the time, my brother was studying geology and geography at the University of Delaware in Newark, and I used his apartment as a base for photography throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
My primary objectives then were the Northeast Corridor and CSX’s former Baltimore & Ohio routes in western Maryland and West Virginia. Then, as now, the Port Road was largely a nocturnal railroad, however, and in those days I lacked the ability needed to make consistently successful night action photographs.
Since moving to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I’ve finally had the opportunity to explore, study, and photograph the Port Road more thoroughly. As my familiarity with the line has grown, so has my understanding of its operations. That combination of familiarity, persistence, and patience has finally begun to yield the results that I expect from my efforts.
The photograph below shows the rear of the same unit coal train featured in yesterday’s post, “Coal Train Against an Evening Sky.” The truck racing north on Water Street (PA Route 441) was pure happenstance, but it creates a dramatic comparison between highway and rail freight transportation.
More Port Road photographs are on the way.
I wish that I’d at least made an effor to explore the line in Conrail days, which I could have easily accomplished.
The setup: At Washington Boro, we noted a Clear signal for an eastward train. We continued to Columbia while I scouted potential locations near milepost 37. We waited near COLA Tower until I heard on the train radio, “Clear COLA.”—the eastward train calling the nearest signal at the far end of the interlocking. That gave me the 60 to 90 seconds I needed to get into position near Milepost 37.
There was just enough light remaining in the evening sky to compose what was essentially a daylight photograph. I framed the train between the former Pennsylvania Railroad catenary poles, using the colorful sunset sky and the Susquehanna River as the backdrop.
I placed my focus point toward the lower left of the frame and used a very wide aperture to maximize the available light while separating the background from the main subject—Norfolk Southern locomotive No. 4613.
Initially, I wasn’t pleased with the results, but Kris thought that I’d made a great photo. That prompted me to take another look and interpret what I’d captured.
I created two different interpretations from the RAW file, which I first converted to a DNG using DxO PureRAW 5 with DeepPRIME 3 processing and lens corrections.
The top image benefits from carefully adjusted local contrast, while the lower version features greater amont of brightening and sharpening to emphasize detail.
Which interpretation do you prefer?
Stay tuned for more!
Tracking the Light examines the details of railroad photography.
One night shy of a full moon, I made this silhouette of the enormous curved viaduct at Safe Harbor that once carried the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Atglen & Susquehanna Low Grade Line.
I had visions of boxcab electrics gliding beneath the 11 kV catenary on this humid summer night.
Photographed using my Nikon Z6 III with a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens. Exposure: 1/125 second at f/1.4, ISO 2500. The NEF RAW file was processed using DxO PureRAW 5 with DeepPRIME 3 for demosaicing, noise reduction, and lens corrections, then finished with cosmetic adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.
In recent weeks, a surfacing gang has been working along the Susquehanna River on Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Secondary. On our drive the other evening, we overtook dozens of track machines waiting to get in the clear of the main track at Columbia, Pa.
We paused near the old Pennsylvania Railroad station to watch the whirring parade of mechanical wonder. I made photos under a nearly full moon accented by street light and the lights on the myriad track machines as these glided past.
Photos exposed hand-held using a Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens. RAW files were converted using DxO PureRaw5, which applies Deep Prime 3 corrections to demosiac and denoise files along with a host corrections to address lens imperfections.
My aim was to capture the essence of the location on a July evening.
This sequence focuses on the scene.
The way it appears to the ordinary passer by.
Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens; f.14 1/50th sec at ISO 32000, NEF RAW file converted to DNG format with lens corrections using DxO PureRaw5, cosmetic adjustments using Lightroom. Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens; f.14 1/60th sec at ISO 32000, NEF RAW file converted to DNG format with lens corrections using DxO PureRaw5, cosmetic adjustments using Lightroom. Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens; f.14 1/80th sec at ISO 40000, NEF RAW file converted to DNG format with lens corrections using DxO PureRaw5, cosmetic adjustments using Lightroom. Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens; f.14 1/60th sec at ISO 40000, NEF RAW file converted to DNG format with lens corrections using DxO PureRaw5, cosmetic adjustments using Lightroom. Nikon Z6-III with f1.4 50mm lens; f.14 1/80th sec at ISO 40000, NEF RAW file converted to DNG format with lens corrections using DxO PureRaw5, cosmetic adjustments using Lightroom.
You’ve heard of the ‘elephant in the room’? There are enough of those to found our own zoo! But that’s not what I’m writing about today.
If you watch freight trains, you’ll see it pass by all the time. We may hate it; we may love it. It’s there in broad daylight and in the dark of night. It has been part of the railroad scene for a long time now, and like it or not, it’s here to stay.
I look back on the days when trains were free of it. I cringe when I see a classic car soiled by it. And yet, sometimes I’m fascinated by the elaborate effort involved, along with the messages and images sent rolling across the landscape.
So here are just a few photos from our travels in Pennsylvania. The ‘elephant’ on the rails.
During a visit to Hungary In July 2007, I used my Contax G2 rangefinder to expose this Fujichrome color slide of the Budapest Metro.
I’ve adjusted the exposure, color balance and contrast using Lightroom to improve the presention here.
Generally speaking, I’ve found that the versatility and sensativity of modern digital sensors do a better job of rendering the lighting conditions available in subways than was possible with film. But since, the few photos I have of Budapest transit were all exposed on film, I’ll need to make due with what I have!
Tracking the Light looks back on a visit to Budapest!
Lately, I’ve been scouring my archives for images of signal towers for my next book. Among the photographs that surfaced was this seriously underexposed image of a westbound Guilford freight on the Boston & Maine passing the disused signal tower at Johnsonville, New York.
I was a senior in high school when my father lent me his 1960-vintage Rolleiflex Model T, which I loaded with 120 Ektachrome. My exposures were less than ideal, and this image was among the dark transparencies that resulted.
I’ve applied a similar strategy to improving this photograph.
What I like about this image is the way I balanced the composition to show the abandoned right-of-way to the left of the tower. This was the old Troy & Boston route, dating from the 1850s, which later became part of the Fitchburg Railroad before ultimately being absorbed into the expanding Boston & Maine network. The line on the right served as the B&M’s main line to Mechanicville and Rotterdam Junction, New York.
Below are three versions of the same image. The top is the original, unmodified dark transparency. The two lower versions demonstrate different degrees of lightening, color correction, and contrast adjustment.
I don’t know if this view will make the book, but working on it brought back memories from long ago.
Sixteen years ago—on July 27, 2010—I made a series of photographs of Pan Am Southern’s eastward MOAY (Mohawk Yard, Schenectady, N.Y., to Ayer, Mass.) as it plied the old Boston & Maine Fitchburg Route. It was a pleasant, sunny afternoon—ideal for railroad photography.
Occasionally, I’m asked, “How do you know what lens to use?”
I have no easy answer, since each situation depends on the lighting, the scene, the background and foreground elements, the subject, and the capabilities of the lenses available.
In 2010, I was still relatively new to my Canon EOS 7D DSLR. I found that my older prime lenses tended to have wider maximum aperture settings, and the glass yield sharper results than either the kit-zoom that came with the camera, or my Canon 100-400mm lens, so I generally relied on my 20mm, 24mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 200mm focal lengths.
Keep in mind that the 7D uses an APS-C CMOS sensor with a 1.6× crop factor. As a result, my 24mm lens provided a field of view equivalent to a 38mm lens on a full-frame camera, while my 200mm lens yielded a field of view equivalent to 320mm.
Below is a broadside view featuring SD70M No. 2622 framed by a tree near Shelburne Falls, Mass., followed by a view of the same locomotive a short while later from the highway bridge at Wisdom Way in Greenfield, Mass. Today, I probably would use either my Nikon Z6 or Z6 III mirrorless camera with a 24–70mm zoom for the first photo, and my 70–200mm zoom for the Wisdom Way image. The results would reflect slightly different focal lengths, along with differences in color rendition and contrast.
So there’s my answer! What lenses might you have considered?
Tracking the Light explores compositional choices and the influence of lens focal length!
For more than two years, I’ve been eyeing angles on the former Pennsylvania Railroad arched bridge over Pequea Creek, near where the smaller stream flows into the mighty Susquehanna.
Survey photo exposed in May 2025 using a Fujifilm X-T1 fitted with a 12mm Zeiss Touit lens.Scouting photo made last January with my Lumix LX7.Scouting photo made last January with my Lumix LX7.
This location comes with a variety of challenges. It is difficult to obtain a perspective from the ground that suitably situates the bridge within the surrounding Susquehanna Valley. The bridge itself is fascinating, but lineside obstructions make it difficult to photograph more than about three locomotives crossing the span.
Of course, the biggest challenge is timing. As previously discussed on Tracking the Light, finding trains moving on Norfolk Southern’s Port Road Secondary takes patience and luck. We’ve made at least a half-dozen visits to Pequea at various times of day and night without seeing a wheel turn.
Recently, we got lucky.
In the dark of night, we made the long, sinuous drive following Pequea Creek. I had a sense that something was on the move nearby. Then I heard a short transmission on the radio and said,
“That’s a train calling signals.”
When we arrived at the boat launch, and I discerned, “. . . Clear, West Harbor . . .” from the squawk on the scanner.
While I missed the details of the approaching train, I knew there was a freight nearby. The bridges at Safe Harbor are visible from the Pequea boat launch, 2.6 miles upriver. Soon, a headlight could be seen tracing the horizon. We relocated to the parking lot on the inland side of the arches. A few minutes later the roar of a GE shook the night air.
Working with my Nikon Z6-III fitted with a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens, I exposed a series of panned photographs of the eastward Norfolk Southern freight. The train was led by a single six-motor ES44DC GE locomotive, which enabled me to feature several freight cars behind the locomotive. In post-processing with DxO PureRAW 5, I converted the Nikon NEF RAW files to DNG format, simultaneously applying a variety of lens and contrast corrections. Final processing was completed using DxO PhotoLab 9.
Tracking the Light Explores Photographic Technique!
A few weeks ago, I located this old Kodachrome slide among a selection of slides I’d rejected as ‘bad.’ I only held on to it as an ‘abstract’ that I thought I might be able to incorporate into something at a later date.
Using Lightroom, I was able to mask the sky, reduce haze, and improve the saturation, contrast, and exposure. The results are something less than I’d be able to obtain today using my Nikon Z cameras and modern digital processing, but they are well worthy of presentation here.
The subject matter fascinates me now: a Conrail GP10 leading a local freight west on the Water Level Route across the ice-encrusted Genesee Falls in January 1989. I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide using my Leica M2 with a 50mm Summicron lens.
Tracking the Light looks back on an old bad slide.
Saturday was heavy with humidity, and thunderstorms were in the forecast. Seamus had been dropped off for his summer grooming and we were driving around while we waited to pick him up.
Our first stop was the Middletown & Hummelstown in Middletown, Pa.
“I know I’ve photographed the Alco switchers here before,” I said, “but since we’re here, why not make a few more photographs?”
I stepped out of the car and exposed a few images. The ground was damp, but it wasn’t raining. Moments after I climbed back into the car, the sky lit up, followed almost instantly by a deafening clap of thunder.
“That was close!”
Exposed with a Nikon Z6-III with 24-70mm lens. Processed using DxO PureRaw5 and PhotoLab9.
Sure was. Our next item of interest was to follow the Royalton Branch passed Three Mile Island.
Having rolled by Norfolk Southern’s H19 local freight at Cola Interlocking in Columbia, we took advantage of the slow-speed switch (which restricted the freight’s speed as it continued west on to NS’s Port Road Branch), and zipped ahead of the train by road.
We drove along West Front Street in Marietta, an older part of town near the Susquehanna River. We paused at my preselected location, where I set up my Nikon Z6-III on a 3Pod tripod and waited for the approaching local freight to illuminate the scene.
Marietta’s inky darkness made for a compelling setting, but it also created extreme contrast when the headlights of the leading SD60E pierced the night. I exposed a series of images, yet I think I prefer the photographs made before the locomotives came into view.
Tracking the Light explores railroad photography, day and night!
In November 2008, I made this photo of Pennsylvania Railroad 44-Ton diesel 9331 in midday light at Strasburg. This locomotive had worked Strasburg Rail Road since before I was born. I’ve read that it left the property in 2013 for a new home in Maryland.
More than fifty years earlier, my father photographed a similar locomotive (9347) working Philadelphia waterfront street trackage.
I exposed this image on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS-3 with 24mm lens.
We followed Route 441 north from Washington Boro, as we have on many evenings. The signal in Columbia, Pa., near the old Pennsylvania Railroad station displayed Slow Clear. This indicated that the route had been lined at Cola Interlocking for a train coming off Norfolk Southern’s Columbia Secondary—a vestige of the original Philadelphia and Columbia Rail Road, one of the oldest continuously operated railroad lines in North America.
Although I’ve made a variety of night photographs at this location over the last year, we decided to pull in for another view of H19 local freight on its return trip from Lancaster to Enola.
I opted for a series of handheld images, including a couple of views featuring the mural on the wall adjacent to the old station. A closer look reveals that it includes several railroad-related scenes.
As H19 rolled by, we began our pursuit of the nocturnal freight. I had a location in Marietta that I was hoping to try.
Sometimes the once-common makes for the most interesting images.
On a chilly morning in February 1985, I photographed this eastward Conrail freight at the former New Haven Railroad crossing in Westfield, Mass.
My old Leica IIIa was loaded with Ilford FP4 black-and-white film. Although it was officially rated at ISO 125, I always exposed it as though it were ISO 100.
I processed the film in straight D-76 developer. I may have made a small proof print of the image, but for forty years the negative sat in a common envelope until I located it for scanning just after Christmas last year.
Conrail’s 6550-series C30-7As were favorites of mine back in the 1980s. These unusual six-motor GE diesels were common on the Boston Line, the former Boston & Albany route.
I still recall the sound of the long freight as it wound through the curves west of Westfield before No. 6592 came into view.
On the way back from Virginia, we paused along the old Main Line—Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Line—at SIP 116 in Cove, Pennsylvania.
We were not disappointed, nor did we have to wait long. In the course of 40 minutes, we saw several freight trains. An eastward double-stack train came to a stop for a crew change near where we had parked, which offered the added bonus of allowing us to make meet photos.
This eastward stack train came to stop just a few feet from our parking place. SIP116 is a regular point for NS crew changes.
In recent months, I’ve reviewed thousands of my Conrail photos.
I keep coming back to this image, made near milepost 67 in Brookfield, Mass., of an eastward Conrail freight, probably SEMB (“The Queen”).
It is a moderately competent execution of a classic style: a three-quarter view exposed with a 50mm lens of a freight marching along the former Boston & Albany.
What I’m saying is that, photographically, this image is unremarkable.
Yet, it means a lot to me.
In my teenage years, Conrail’s GE B23-7s were common locomotives on the Boston Line. This image captures a time on the railroad when it was most fascinating to me. At every turn, I was finding something new. The roar of every approaching train brought fresh excitement.
I had little money. No visions of the future. No past to scrutinize. Just an antique Leica in hand, loaded with hand-rolled black-and-white film, to preserve the passage of trains for posterity.
