Amtrak’s daily westward Pennsylvanian, Train 43,was running slightly behind the advertised. This was a bonus train, as I was more interested in catching its eastward counterpart, Train 42, which featured P42 108 specially dressed for Amtrak’s 50th Anniversary.
I was relieved when Train 43 came into view, and I exposed a series of photos as it passed the old PRR station at Christiana, Pa. Old 43’s tail lights were barely past me, when I headed for the car to drive against 42, which was already out of Lancaster and racing in my direction.
Last week, evening light at Canaan, Connecticut made for some colorful photos of the assorted EMD diesels at the Housatonic Railroad shops south of town.
Lurking among the GP35s, GP15-1s, and other myriad products of Electro-Motive Division’s LaGrange, Illinois plant was a lone RS-3M, a locomotive with the body of an old Alco and the heart of an EMD.
I exposed these images digitally using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
The former Erie Railroad between Hornell and Buffalo, New York, is operated at Norfolk Southern’s Southern Tier route. At West Middlebury, New York the line runs parallel to the Dale Road (named for the nearby town).
This CP Rail mixed freight carried NS train symbol 39T. It was working railroad timetable-west toward Buffalo. The timetable and compass do not correspond at West Middlebury; because the track curves to reach Attica, New York, this westward freight is running in a north-easterly direction, which allows for nice morning sun of the front of CP Rail’s GE AC4400CW 9551.
CP Rail’s operation over the former Erie was a legacy of Delaware & Hudson’s trackage rights on Conrail to Buffalo that dated to Conrail’s start-up in 1976.
CP Rail’s westward 39T rolls along the former Erie Railroad parallel to the Dale Road in West Middlebury, New York on May 11, 2007
I exposed this view on Fujichrome slide film using a Canon EOS-3 with 200mm Canon telephoto.
During our forays along the old Pennsylvania Railroad, I sometimes like to imagine what it would have been like to witness the passing of the railroad’s great electrics.
Although I never saw them pass Gap, I remember seeing the GG1s, and to a limited extent, PRR’s E44s on other portions of the electrified system.
My father made photos of PRR’s P5 boxcabs, streamlined ‘P5A modified’ electrics, among the more obscure types that worked under wire more than a half century ago.
Last week as the late winter glow colored the evening sky in Christiana, Pa., I looked to the west as headlights illuminate the rails. As the train approached, I was expecting one of Amtrak’s ACS-64 electrics to pass me in a flash, but wondered what it would have been like to see a pair of the P5/P5A electrics pass with a freight. That really would have been cool.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom. Files exposed in NEF RAW format, converted to PNG format using DxO PureRaw, and adjusted for final presentation with Adobe Lightroom.
The railroad-highway grade crossing protected by flashing crossing lights and crossbucks is a North American institution.
While photos of trains at grade crossing are commonplace, photos that depict the crossing equipment in context with the road and railroad are not.
Last week, Kris and I waited at Marian Avenue on the Reading & Northern’s former Central Railroad of New Jersey Line east of Haucks, Pa., for a passenger extra that we had seen departing the station in Tamaqua.
This was our first visit to this grade crossing, and I wanted to capture the train and the grade crossing signaling equipment.
I set up on a small embankment southeast of the crossing and made a sequence of photographs of the approaching train. In addition to the passenger special, I included the road, crossing signals, relay and battery boxes, as well as the electrical feed wires and poles. All of this equipment is key to the scene.
Exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom lens. This is probably the best photo of the sequence in terms of its ability to convey the grade crossing and the equipment protecting it.
Friday, Kris and I paid a visit to the Reading & Northern at Port Clinton, Pa.
I made this view of restored heavy weight open-end observation car 30 Glen Onoko Falls. This resides beneath the replica of a Reading train shed patterned after the shed that once stood on the Reading at Columbia, Pa.
Photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-Series lens.
Shortly before sunset on a frosty January evening in 1999, I exposed this Fujichrome slide of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad mainline in Batavia, New York.
Most of the Lehigh Valley mainline across western New York was abandoned following the creation of Conrail on April 1, 1976.
This isolated segment survived to serve local customers, and at the time of this image it was being operated by Genesee Valley Transportation.
Conrail itself only had a few months remaining of independant operation before its class-I operations were split between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
We pulled over on Hoover Road near Gap, Pa., and I walked into position to catch the westward train in the golden light of late winter evening.
Gazing to the east, I spotted the blue-white headlights of ACS-64 632 as it took the curves at Gap (east of my location) where I’ve often exposed photos of Amtrak trains over the years.
As I exposed this sequence, the engineer gave a us a friendly ‘toot’ from the head end.
An eastward Amtrak Keystone paused briefly on the platform at Parkesburg, Pennsylvania for its scheduled station stop. I was poised in position with my Nikon Z7-II and f2.8 70-200mm lens mounted on a 3Pod tripod.
The tripod’s ball head and the camera’s built-in level made it comparatively easy to set up.
Working with the a 2-second self-timer, I was able to minimize vibration as the result of pressing the shutter release.
I exposed using the NEF RAW format, then converted the file to PNG format using DXO PureRaw, and made corrections to color, contrast and exposure in Adobe Lightroom.
Over the years, my friends and I would visit the Boston&Maine/Guilford/Pan Am Southern East Deerfield Yard to make photos and get the lay of the land.
Depending on what was on the move, we might follow a freight north or south, east or west. For me the best chases were chasing an interesting westbound.
If we found a westbound with an interesting consist, we might just take it all the way to Mechanicville, New York, where the Boston & Maine crossed the Hudson River on an impressive multiple-span double-track deck truss.
February 13, 2005 was one of those days. Pat Yough and I picked up an EDRJ (East Deerfield to Rotterdam Junction, NY) and pursued it west, making a variety of photos along the way.
This train was led by a GP40 and former Norfolk & Western high-hood GP35 215. (This was a sister engine to Conway Scenic Railroad’s 216 that has often featured on Tracking the Light).
Fujichrome slide scanned using a Nikon LS5000 scanner powered by VueScan 9.8.45 software. Color corrections and leveling performed with Adobe Lightroom.
At the Hudson River Bridge, I made this photograph on Fujichrome Velvia100F (RVP100F) slide film using a Nikon F3 with Nikkor f2.8 180mm prime telephoto.
We continued west, follow this freight on secondary roads all the way to its westward terminus.
As the days grow longer, Kris and I have resumed our evening forays to roll by Amtrak’s Keystone trains in the fading sun.
The other day we arrived at Christiana as the sun was reaching the horizon. I’d been watching the progress of Amtrak Keystone 654 and picked out a location just east of the old Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station where a wink of sunlight illuminated the tracks.
I’d calculated that the train was less than three minutes away. While I was wondering if it would arrive before the light faded the rails began to sing.
Poised with Nikon Z6 in hand, I composed my image as the blue-white headlights of ACS-64 650 came into view and this is what I caught.
Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series zoom (set to 26mm). Image at exposed at 400 ISO, f4.0 1/600, and saved as an NEF RAW file. In post-processing the Image file was converted with DxO Pure Raw into a DNG file and then adjusted using Adobe Lightroom to make the most of highlight and shadows, while adjusting color balance and color temperature.
My first Railroad Photography 101 class held at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania proved to be a success.
We had limited the number of participants to a small, but manageable number.
I started with a 25 minute overview of photography, offering photo tips and discussion of locomotive portraits and other subject matter, before delving into details on lighting, composition and technique. Then the participants were given an hour to wander around the museum to make photographs of their own. I had pre-arranged for some of the safety barriers to be temporarily removed to allow for unobstructed views of key locomotives.
At the end, I told a few anecdotal stories and answered questions.
My hope is that everyone learned something helpful and useful to advance their own photography.
The old Reading truss bridge is long abandoned, while the former Lackawanna plate girder bridge is now used by the North Shore Railroad short line.
Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I exposed this view as a RAF (RAW) image. Below are four variations of the same file that aim to show steps toward achieving a final image.
First I converted the RAF file into DNG format using Iridient X-Transformer. Then I made some nominal corrections with Lightroom.
Out of curiousity, I then returned to the original RAF file and converted it DNG using DxO PureRaw, a program with which I’ve been experiementing recently.
Note: in this excercise I made two distinct conversions from the RAF (RAW) image to the DNG format using the two different conversion programs. I did not re-convert the already converted image.
Working with the PureRaw DNG in Lightroom, I found that this conversion gave me much greater latitude to improve detail and color in the sky. While the sky appears nearly white in the unadjusted files, using the highlights slider in Lightroom I was able to draw in considerable detail.
Overall, I found that the PureRaw-created DNG file was easier to adjust in Lightroom and allowed me to create a better end-result.
I plan to continue these experiments.
Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment.Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled following adjustments to shadow-areas, highlights and color balance. Note the sky.PureRaw created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment. This software corrected for a variety of lens defects among other transformations.PureRaw created DNG file, scaled following significant cosmetic adjustment, including nominal cropping. Notice the differences in the sky detail compared with the other variations.
There was a cotton candy sky hanging over Strasburg.
I thought this offered an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of exposing using RAW, then converting the file using DxO Pure Raw softwar and importing the converted file into Lightroom for adjustment.
Below are three versions of the same image exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 28-70mm lens
The first image is the in-camera Jpg (scaled without adjustment). The second is the NEF RAW file after conversion to PNG format using Pure Raw. The last is end result following adjustment in Lightroom.
In camera JPG without adjustment.NEF file converted using PureRaw to correct for lens defects, reduce pixelization etc.PNG file following adjustments in Lightroom to make better use of shadow and highlight detail, adjust contrast and color balance, etc.
In modern British railway practice positioned a locomotive at either end of a consist is described as ‘topped and tailed.’
Wednesday evening, Amtrak’s Keystone 649 was running slightly behind the adverstised and featured Siemen ACS-64 electrics at both ends. On the front of the train locomotive 640 led a venerable former Metroliner cab-car.
I’d been tracking 649’s westward progress. It was dusk when we opted to park off Hoover Road near Gap, Pa., to roll by the train. I made these panned photos of the passing train using my Nikon Z7-II with f2.8 70-200mm lens.
Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series zoom set at 200mm, f2.8 1/50th sec, ISO 1600.Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series zoom set at 200mm, f2.8 1/40th sec, ISO 1600.
The General Motors EMD model SD45 remains among my favorite diesels.
During my years in California, I exposed countless color slides of SD45s in action on both Southern Pacific and Santa Fe.
This Kodachrome is a memorable image that shows an SP SD45E in near silhouette as it leads a light helper set downgrade in the Tehachapis near Marcel, Calif. This view emphasizes the locomotive’s characteristic flared radiator intakes, which are among the SD45’s noteworthy external features.
I like the geometric play of the signal code lines and the soft background of tapered hills fading into the morning mist.
Nikon F3T with f4.0 200mm Nikkor telephoto. Exposed on March 29, 1992.
On February 26, 2022, It had snowed heavily overnight in the Mount Washington Valley, but the morning was clear and snow clung to the trees and bridges.
I was aiming to capture Conway Scenic’s Snow Train in these picture-perfect conditions to use in the railroad’s future advertising.
So, I set up on a snow bank in Glen, New Hampshire immediately west of the Ellis River bridge and waited. I had the railroad’s Sony video camera on a tripod. As the train approached, I recorded video, while making a sequence of still photos with my Nikon Z6.
Below is one of the original photos scaled from the NEF RAW file without adjustment or cropping. This photograph has appeared in various forms in my 2024-2025 Winter advertising campaign for Conway Scenic Railroad, while the video that I recorded has been used for television commercials and social media posts.
Now, Conway Scenic Roadroad has just one weekend left of the Winter season, with Snow Train operating to Conway on March 1 and 2.
Unadjusted NEF file; exposed using a Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens, set at ISO 200, f7.1 at 1/800 second, zoom set to 200mm. February 26, 2022.Conway Scenic Railroad’s two-page advertisment that appeared in Portland Monthly Magazine. Graphic design by Silverline Graphics of Maine.
Today, I’m giving my first Railroad Photography 101 class at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
Among the topics I’ll touch on is ‘technique’.
To illustrate ‘technique’, I made this sequence of four similar images of former Pennsylvania Railroad E7A 5901 displayed at the museum, which demonstrate that subtle choices regarding angle, light, exposure and focal length affect foreground and background that alter the end result.
On our Saturday drive, Kris and I paused at Reading & Northern’s station at Minersville, Pa. This is home to the preserved Central Railroad of New Jersey 0-6-0 number 113.
On several occasions in year’s gone by, I’ve photographed 113 under steam at Minersville. On those occasions the station has been alive with visitors, who had flocked to the railroad for annual Santa Train excursions.
Saturday’s visit was a complete contrast to my earlier visits. Old 113 was cold, and the rails were rusted. The station was locked up tight and not a wheel was turning. Elsewhere trains were on the move, but not here.
For me Minersville is like Brigadoon, and someday, it will come to life again.
CNJ 113. Photo exposed in NEF RAW and converted to PNG format using DxO Pure Raw software, then adjusted with Lightroom for presentation here.
These photos were exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
Yesterday, I was among observers as Pennsylvania’s Strasburg Rail Road switched with 2-6-0 89. This included a move to position EMD-built SW8 8618 in the engine shop nearest the station.
This is a lesson in back lighting and the lightening of shadows in post processing.
I worked with my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm Fujinon zoom, exposing my photos in RAF raw format. Later I converted the RAW files to DNG format using Iridient X-Transformer. Finally, I made post processing corrections in Adobe Lightroom. This involved lightening the shadow areas and adjusting sky density.
Yesterday evening, after Kris and I finished our workdays, we drove trackside to Bird-in-Hand, Pa., where I caught Amtrak Keystone 649 running a little behind the advertised on its way to Lancaster and Harrisburg.
It was nice to again be able to get sun-on-the-tracks photos in the evenings after work.
I made these images using my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series Zoom.
Friend and regular Tracking the Light reader Wayne Duffett challenged me yesterday to locate (and post) this photo of Southern Pacific’s BIG Jordan Spreaders plowing snow on Donner Pass.
I made the photo at Yuba Pass, California on the west slope of SP’s Donner crossing in March 1991. I was using my Nikon F3T with a 35mm PC (perspective control) lens fitted with a polarizing filter. My film of choice was Kodachrome 25.
Like many of my premium classic chromes, this one has appeared in print several times over the years.
At 10:53 am on February 19, 1988, I photographed this Conrail intermodal hotshot passing the 413 automatic signals near Corfu, New York on the former New York Central Water Level Route.
It was on this tangent section of track, that on May 10, 1893, New York Central & Hudson River Railroad staged its famous speed run with the specially proportioned 4-4-0 999.
Kodachrome 25 color slide exposue using a Leica M2 rangefinder with 50mm f2.0 Summicron lens.
In my illustrated book, North American Locomotives, published by Voyageur Press in 2012 (dedicated to the Memory of Robert A. Buck), I covered 999’s famous run with this description:
In 1893, New York Central & Hudson River Railroad staged a speed run under the direction of George H. Daniels, Central’s General Passenger Agent (and unofficial chief publicity stunt coordinator) with a specially designed 4-4-0 with exceptionally tall drivers, number 999. On May 10th, this engine with engineer Charles Hogan at the throttle sprinted west toward Buffalo with a special section of the Empire State Express. On a downgrade tangent near Corfu, New York, he opened the throttle wide; to passengers on board telegraph polls along the line blurred by ‘like a picket fence’, and those timing the train claimed to have hit 112.5 mph!
In 1988, while I was attending the Rochester Institute of Technology, I shared a rented apartment in Scottsville, New York.
Among the benefits of the apartment was that it was in earshot of the former Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh line to Rochester, operated by Genesee & Wyoming start-up Rochester & Southern.
On the afternoon of February 18, 1988, the horn of the southward RS-1 (mixed through freight from Brooks Avenue Yard in Rochester to East Salamanca, New York) was sounding for a crossing. Track speed wasn’t very fast, so I had time to catch the train and follow it in the afternoon light.
Between Garbutt and P&L Junction, I made this view on Kodachrome 25 slide film of the leading locomotive, a former New York Central GP40.
A Kodachrome in Kodachrome light of a southward Rochester & Southern freight from Rochester, New York, the home of Kodak. A few days after exposure I sent the film to Kodak’s Rochester processing plant, which was returned to me later in the day.
This was among a group of slides that I rejected and sorted into a box labled ‘seconds and thirds’. I scanned it last week for presentation here.
Full frame Kodachrome slide, exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens-February 18, 1988.
The other night wind was fierce, but I braved the conditions to make a photo at dusk of Amtrak’s westward 649-Keystone—passing Christiana, Pa., on the former Pennsylvania Railroad main line.
To capture the action, I’d set the ISO setting on my Nikon Z7-II to 4000, which allowed me 1/1000th of a seond at f2.8. I’d set the focal length of my 70-200 zoom to 150mm, which gave me a good view of the old PRR station to the right of the train.
This view was processed using Lightroom to boost color saturation, correct color balance, and improve both contrast and exposure. I may later import this Nikon RAW file into DxO Pure Raw to see how that software improves the image.
Amtrak ACS-64 652 leads westward Keystone train number 649 at Christiana, Pa., 150mm.
In early September 1991, I was documenting Southern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 4449 with fellow photographer, and noted Southern Pacific author Brian L. Jennison. In between sets of the steam locomotive, we took the time to photograph SP’s freights.
Summer midday sun in the canyons of northern California presented difficult lighting conditions to make photographs using Kodachrome.
Here we were in the Sacramento River Canyon near Conant, California to catch SP’s westward EUWC-M (Eugene to West Colton manifest). I’d set up my Nikon F3T on a Bogen 3021 tripod in vertical (portrait) format in order to capture the train with the famed Castle Crags rock formation in the distance.
My lens of choice was an old Nikkor f4.0 200mm telephoto lens that I’d purchased secondhand a year earlier. This lens was tricky to focus, but offered a wonderful soft color palette that helped compensate for the summer ‘high sun’.
As SP’s EUWC-M came into view I exposed a series of slides. I’d edited some of the other views and filed them away more than 30 years ago, but this one had remained in the yellow Kodak box until a few days ago.
I’ve been gradually sorting, scanning, labeling and filing thousands of my older slides. Although this is a very tight view, it makes me nostalgic for the days when Southern Pacific’s EMD diesels populated the rails of the West. I was especially fond of SP’s classic headlight arrangement that included both fixed and oscillating headlights and a red oscillating warning light, such as featured on SP SD45T-2 9260.
Kodachrome 25 slide exposed using a Nikon F3T with 200mm telephoto.
This was before the use of ditch lights predominated on American locomotives.
On a visit to Stockholm in May 2010, I made this color slide of a Coradia Duplex X40 long-distance electric multiple unit.
My framing inadvertently visually aligned the curves on the front of the train with a steeple in the background. This created an illusion of the train carrying a tall pompous crown.
Exposed on Fujichrome with a Canon EOS-3 with 100mm lens.
Kris called this a ‘bonus train’. We weren’t anticipating this move. But, it was neat to catch this eastward Norfolk Southern unit train (consisting of covered hoppers) as it crossed the Susquehanna River via the former Pennsylvania Railroad Rockville Bridge.
The repetative patterns offered by the arches and off-white hoppers against the backdrop of distant hills makes for a visually compelling scene.
I made these views using my Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens.
On September 2, 1991, at Dunsmuir, California, I made a series of pan photos of the famous Southern Pacific streamlined ‘Daylight’ 4-8-4, engine 4449.
In this image, I was attempting to catch a broadside view of the engine in motion with the driving rods down. While, I captured the rods down, I managed to clip the front of the locomotive and was a bit over enthusiastic pressing the shutter release, so the whole photo suffers from motion blur.
My exposure was f13 (recorded as ‘11.5’) at 1/30th of second. Kodachrome 25 slide film.
Not ever photo wins the prize. This is a qualified ‘fail’. Live and learn.
Sun and clouds. I aimed my Leica M2 at MBTA 905, a former New Haven Railroad GP9 with a complicated lineage.
I like the contrast of the silver locomotive against an old factory shadowed by a cloud.
This is an image characteristic of Kodachrome. This film rendered excellent color in bright sunlight, but tended to result in dark images in cloudy conditions, which was function of its reduced sensativity to the blue spectrum.
Full frame photo. Note the curved corners which are a function of the cardboard slide mount.
In April 2007, standing on the road bridge east of Limerick Junction, I framed one of Irish Rail’s relatively new Mark4 trains with an antique rod-operated mechanical semaphore. The Mark4 driving trailer was leading the train with an Enterprise painted Class 201 diesel at the back of the set.
The Mark4 train set entered service in 2006, while the signal was retired in late 2010.
This was exposed on Fujichrome film using a Nikon F3.
I scanned the slide with a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan 98.4.2 software. This enabled me to make a multiple pass scan to maximize data capture. I then conducted final processing of the TIF file using Adobe Lightroom to better balance color, exposure and contrast.
Not long after the eastward Norfolk Southern intermodal train came to a stop east of SIP 116 to change crews, the westward intermodal train that we’d been anticipating came into view.
This scene unfolded nicely, and I made a series of photos as the trains passed one another on the old Pennsylvania Railroad ‘Middle Division’ at Cove, Pa.
Bright sun and freight trains on the move brought me back to another time, when photographer Mike Gardner and I caught a series of Conrail freights at this same location.
Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens.Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens.Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens.Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens.
Back in January, Kris and I enjoyed lunch at the Fox Meadows Creamery in Leola before heading over to Greenfield in Lancaster, Pa.
When I saw the signal was lit green, I knew I was in luck.
I had just enough time to compose my photo before Amtrak’s inspection train raced by westbound. My goal was to catch cars 10002 and 10005 passing the classic signal.
Car 10002, the Corridor Clipper, is a track inspection car, while car 10005, is a former Pennsyvlania Railroad Metroliner multiple unit that has been equipped to perform catenary measurement.
Thanks Amtrak!
Exposed with a Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm telephoto zoom lens. File adjusted using Adobe Lightroom to lighten shadows, control contrast, and adjust saturation and color balance.
