The other night I made these photos during an intense electrical storm from a hotel room in Windsor, Connecticut.
I exposed them hand held using my Nikon Z7-II set at ISO 200, for 2 seconds at f7.1.
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Lightning!
Mountaineer in the Boston Globe Magazine
An article by By Patricia Harris and David Lyon in the Boston Globe Magazine features one of my photos of Conway Scenic’s Mountaineer ascending Crawford Notch near the Arethusa Falls grade crossing.
This image has been part of my autumn Mountaineer repertoire for a while and is among photos I made of the train in autumn 2021.
I exposed it with my Canon EOS7D with 100mm prime Canon telephoto.
Here’s a wee secret: part of the visual success of this photo is that the nose of the engine is not the focal point. This a counter-intuitive trick I learned many years ago when exposing Kodachrome, and where many photographers miss the mark. By placing the focus on something other than the main subject you can make a more inviting image.
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Bus Tours Cover! (And a hard drive hunt)
My photo of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Mountaineer graces the cover of September/October 2023 Bus Tours Magazine.
For this post I thought it would be nice to say something useful about the photo.
Finding it proved challenging. It’s not like I have one photo of the Mountaineer on Crawford Notch. More like one-thousand. I’m not bragging. It made finding this one a real challenge.
The image was not in the usual Mountaineer selections. An image from the same location has appeared a number of places in recent months, and that photo was made with my Canon EOS7D. But this photo was a puzzle. It wasn’t made with the Canon, but rather with my Nikon Z6. Once I found the correct day in October 2021, I reviewed several sequences looking for a vertical wide-angle.
I was coming up with a goose-egg. Finally after some searching, I started reviewing my original NEF RAW files and found the image I was looking for. This was exposed as a horizontal and cropped vertical!
Below are three versions. The cover of Bus Tours Magazine; the original un-modified NEF RAW file, and an approximation of the modified and cropped file.
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Cobblestones and Trams—Eight Years Ago!
It was on this day eight years ago—September 8, 2015—that my Irish friends and I traveled up the Rhein by train to Mainz, Germany.
In the evening light, I made a few views of the slim-gauge trams navigating narrow streets in the historic city center. And believe me, there was time for a bier in there too.
Here’s a useful photo tip; to allow the LED signs to appear clearly in photos, set the shutter speed to 1/60th or less, and time your shutter release so that the sign is showing just one sequence at time (in a situation where the sign may be scrolling). Note that in the above photo that the sign is mid-scroll, but on the top photos the sign is easy to read.
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Old Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Leola
Just a short distance up line from our new home is this old Pennsylvania Railroad station on the New Holland Branch at Leola.
I made these photos the other evening using my Lumix LX7 digital camera.
It’s been decades since the last passenger train operated over the line and I wonder what this station was like in its heyday.
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Glint Light across the Soyfields
September Sunset at Esbenshade Road in Strasburg. Filtered late summer sun made for classic golden glint light.
Years ago, I made a project of captureing trains in the glint light on Kodachrome. This film had a wonderful ability to render glint that made for many stunning slides.
The other night I used my Nikon Z7-II to capture the fading summer sun.
To make the most of the scene, I set the camera to ‘M’ (manual) and dialed in my shutter speed and aperture by using the in-camera histogram to get the most effective pixel distribution from dark to-light . This resulted in about a stop darker than the in-camera meter was suggesting in ‘A’ mode (automatic).
After exposure, I balanced the image with post processing controls using Adobe Lightroom. In this way I was able to maintain detail in the sky and on the side of the train, while keeping the shadows from becoming opaque.
Tracking the Light Catches the Golden Glint!
Double-headed Ore Train in the Mosel Valley.
On the afternoon of September 4, 2015, I made this photo with my FujiFilm XT1 of double-headed Class 189 electrics leading a loaded iron ore train through a vineyard near Klotten, Germany in the Mosel Valley.
This was on a week long visit to Germany with my Irish friends. We scored numerous excellent locations while exploring the Mosel and Rhein Valleys.
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Stopping 649 with 1/2500th second
Crisp evening light.
Amtrak Keystone 649 was two minutes down from the advertised and cruising to make up time to reach its Lancaster, PA station stop on schedule.
I made this view at Leaman Place using a Nikon Z7II with 24-70mm lens, my shutter was set to 1/2500th of a second.
My drive was set to ‘turbo flutter’. As the train approached, I made this burst of images.
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4-8-0 Rods Down
Many classic steam photographers aimed to photograph steam locomotive ‘rods down’ as to best portray the equipment.
Part of this visual approach stemmed from the classic builders photos where locomotives were posed for their official portrait.
Catching a moving engine with its rods down is easier said than done. In addition to checking focus, watching foreground and background elements, you need to be thoroughly in-tune with the motion of the reciprocating parts, or simply get lucky.
While working on my latest book on steam locomotives, I’ve been looking at a lot of classic locomotive pictures.
The other day, I made this sequence of photos showing Strasburg Rail Road’s 4-8-0 475 working toward the Esbenshade Road crossing.
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Irish Rail Rail Train at Clondalkin
I’m waiting for someone to call me out on title redundancy.
Actually, according to my notes, this Irish Rail permanent way consist is called the ‘rail trucks.’
It was nine years ago that I joined my friend Colm O’Callaghan on an adventure to the west Dublin suburbs to catch this elusive train on the move.
We set up at near Clondalkin looking east toward the Park West and Cherry Orchard station on the recently opened quad track section of the Dublin-Cork main line.
I made this view using my Canon EOS 7D with an f2.0 EF 100mm USM prime telephoto lens. Exposure was f5.6 1/500 at 200 ISO. I adjusted the file using Adobe Lightroom. Below are three variations, each described in the caption.
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View from the Open Car
It’s always a pleasure to take a train ride.
Strasburg Rail Road’s excursions offer open cars which are a pleasant way to spend a summer’s afternoon in Pennsylvania Dutch country.
The other day, our friend Dan Cupper, invited Kris and I to travel on the railroad, so we rode behind former Canadian National Railways 89 to Leaman Place and back.
I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Z-series zoom.
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475 puts on a Good Show
We drove to Cherry Hill Road which is approximately the half-way point on the Strasburg Rail Road.
We didn’t have to wait long before a low mournful whistle announced the approach of the returning 2pm train.
Over the last month, most of Strasburg’s excursion have been led by 2-6-0 number 89, so I was pleased when I saw former Norfolk & Western 4-8-0 number 475 come into view.
As the train pulled away from the Groff’s picnic area, the engineer made a spectucular show of steam and smoke as the train slowly accelerated upgrade.
I made these photos with my Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm lens as Kris recorded the performance with her iPhone.
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Cumbres Pass on Chrome-Scan Comparison
As I write this I am in the final stages of preparing my latest book on steam locomotives for Kalmbach Media.
This is tentatively titled, “Steam by the Numbers” and examines the development and application of steam locomotives in America organized by wheel arrangement.
While many of the illustrations for the text are historical photographs, I have scoured my collection for appropriate photos that I feel provide dynamic illustrations of steam locomotives at work.
Among these is a photo that I made nearly 25 years ago showing doubleheaded former Rio Grande three-foot gauge 2-8-2s at Cumbres Pass, Colorado.
I’d scanned originally this slide in 2010. However, on critical examination of the scan, I found that it wasn’t up to my current standards. Scanning, like so many aspects of photography is an art, and requires patience and experience.
Rather than suffer with a substandard image, or cut the photo from the book, instead I located the original slide and re-scanned it.
I didn’t record the details of my original scan. However with my recent re-scan, I used a Nikon LS-5000 (Coolscan) slide scanner powered by VueScan 9.8.04 software.
I used the ‘fine’ setting and set the scanner to 4000 dots per inch, while using the ‘Auto Levels’ color profile setting. I then imported the scan into Lightroom for postprocessing, which included lightening shadow areas, warming the color balance, and introducing some sharpening.
Below are examples of the original scan and the improved re-scan.
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Irish Rail diesel trains August 28, 2013
Here’s a few views from my old Canon EOS7D from ten years ago.
I’ve Imported the old Canon CR2 (RAW) files into Lightroom (version 5.5) to make a host of minor adjustments that were not available to me at the time of exposure.
Although this older Canon digital camera didn’t capture as much data as my modern Nikons, it still did a wonderful job of preserving the scenes.
It’s been a long time since the 071s wore the black and silver livery.
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Locomotives—August 27, 2016
Seven years ago today, I caught up with photographer Mike Gardner for a morning of photography near Palmer, Massachusetts.
It was a beautiful and clear sunny New England day. I made these photos using my old FujiFilm XT1 with 18-135mm Fujinon zoom lens.
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Glory to the old Metroliner Cabs
In its day, the Budd-Metroliner was America’s answer to the Japanese Shinkansen. This fast electric train (MP85) was built for Pennsylvania Railroad and some briefly carried PRR-Keystone heralds before Penn-Central assumed operations of PRR’s lines in 1968. The Metroliner service was introduced using the Metroliner cars in the early years of Penn Central.
In 1971, Amtrak assumed operation of the Metroliner and continued to use the former PRR/PC trains for fast services on the former PRR between New York and Washington D.C.
The Metroliner body style was the basis for the Budd-built Amfleet cars that were introduced in the mid-1970s, and which remain standard for many Amtrak trains today.
Amtrak later assigned locomotive hauled Amfleet consists to its Metroliner services. In their waining years as self-propelled electric trains the former Metroliner train sets worked Amtrak Keystone services to Harrisburg.
Today, some of the much modified old Metroliner cab cars survive on Amtrak’s five-car push-pull sets, many of which are assigned as standard consists to the New York-Philadelphia-Harrisburg Keystone trains. Until 2014, these consists also routinely worked the Vermonter when it was still routed via Palmer, Massachusetts.
I made these views of Amtrak’s former Metroliner cab cars passing Gap, Pa., a couple of week ago.
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Steam to Kilkenny—Ten Years Ago!
On August 25, 2013, I traveled behind 2-6-0 461 on the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s The Marble City that ran from Dublin’s Connolly Station to Kilkenny and back via Athy.
At various stops along the way, I made digital photos using my old Canon EOS7D with a 28-135mm lens.
Although I’ve previously published some of these photos on Tracking the Light, for this post I’ve re-edited my selection and made a variety of up-to-day post processing adjustments using Adobe Lightroom, which I didn’t use back in 2013.
Hard to believe this was ten years ago!
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Steam working in Low sun at Carpenters.
I like 2-6-0s. Old Canadian National No. 89 is a fine looking machine.
It has been getting a work out this summer and I’ve seen it on numerous runs between East Strasburg and Leaman Place over the Strasburg Rail Road.
A couple of weeks back a clear evening made for ideal conditions to catch the 7pm train on its return run from Leaman Place.
I exposed this telephoto view as the train worked upgrade near Carpenters.
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Glinty Reflections in the Susquehanna.
We found a shady place to park in Harrisburg’s Fort Hunter Mansion Park over looking Norfolk Southern’s Rockville Bridge.
We were hoping to catch a coal train. Instead, an eastward autorack freight came rolling across the bridge. As this was passing, a second an eastward train crossed the bridge on an adjacent track—and was blocked from view by the autoracks.
I made this view using my Z7-II fitted with a 70-200mm lens.
Staying in the shade of the trees in the park helped to reduce flare from the sun in the western sky.
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Trailing views at Esbenshade Road.
Over the summer, Kris and I have been photographing Strasburg Rail Road’s late weekend train, the 1900 departure, which is a favorite of mine because it catches the low sun on its return to the East Strasburg Station.
I think that this past weekend might have been the last opportunity to work with the sun on this train for a while.
I made these trailing views at Esbenshade Road near Strasburg, Pennsylvania.
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Gorgeous Evening Light
The evening began with dissipating fluffy clouds. As the sun sunk in the western sky, I anticipated a colorful late summer sunset.
We drove to Strasburg, where I made this sequence of photos of Strasburg Rail Road’s J tower, and various equipment on dispay at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and in the Strasburg Rail Road’s yard using my Z7-II with 70-200mm Nikkor Z-series lens.
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Sunset and a Clear aspect at Greenfield
The days are getting shorter. You can see it in the evening sky.
Yet, the sunsets are vivid.
I’ve been looking for ways to better feature the color position light signal at milepost 64.5 near Greenfield in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
I made this view with my Nikon Z7-II and Nikkor Z-series 70-200mm lens of Amtrak Keystone train 653 racing west by the signal. This train had Amtrak’s ACS-64 electrics at both ends; locomotive 621 was leading westbound; and 668 was at the back.
I’d guess that something was amiss with the former Metroliner cab car at the westend of the train.
In this instance because the signal is the subject, I picked a trailing angle and selected a slower ISO setting and comparatively slow shutter speed to allow the train a little bit of motion blur, while keeping the signal sharp.
When I try this again, I may zoom in tighter on the signal.
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Morning and Evening at Gap
Light matters.
Here are two photos made of two very similar Amtrak Keystone consists eastbound at the same location near Gap, Pennsylvania.
One was made in the morning; the other at sunset.
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New Holland Vignettes
On Sunday Norfolk Southern runs local H29 over the old Pennsylvania New Holland Branch to it’s namesake.
Last Sunday, Kris and I wandered out along the line, looked at few crossings, and upon reaching New Holland, PA found a pair of GP38-2s with a few freight cars. The crew was just performing a brake test,
We drove a west and parked in the lot at the New Holland post office and waited.
This location offered a relatively unobstructed view the tracks.
After a few minutes the westward local came along and I made a series of photos with my Nikon Z6.
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Steam on a Monday!
There aren’t too many place in the United States where you can pull up to a rural grade crossing on a Monday and roll by a steam locomotive .
That’s just what I did the other day on my drive through Strasburg.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7. The scene is timeless. Consider; a Mogul type hauling wooden-body passenger cars, and there no wires, no automobiles, no cell-phones . . . well all that is all behind me-literally.
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Contrasts at Gap
Amtrak Keystone 656 departed Lancaster, PA on time.
We drove to intercept it along the Main Line at Gap.
This time of year evening trains at Gap are coming directly out of the sun. This can be a challenge or a feature, depending on how you make your photographs.
I like to work with contrasty evening light. In my black & white film days, I’d adjust the contrast in the processing and use a relatively weak (dilute) solution of a highly active developer at comparatively high temperature with minimal agitation.
With my Nikon Z cameras I can achieve similar results in color with post-processing adjustments of the RAW files in Lightroom.
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Details on the Middletown & Hummelstown
On a July evening, we paused for a few minutes as a rosy sun set over Middletown, Pennsylvania.
I made this sequence of photos using my Nikon Z6 fitted with a 1980s-era Nikkor f2.8 ED 180mm telephoto.
I’ve found that when shooting in raw with this old lens, the contrast and color more closely resembles photos that I made in the early 2000s on Fujichrome slide film.
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Unfair Comparisons: Fuji XT4 versus Nikon Z6
During our visit to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Kris lent me her FujiFilm XT4 with 16-55mm Fujinon Lens.
I had with me my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm Nikon Z-series zoom
I made a series of unfair comparisons of similar subjects using both cameras.
Since the Fuji had a crop-sensor and the Nikon a full-frame sensor, the two lenses provided equivalent focal length ranges. However, while I tried to make similar photos, I didn’t make perfect matches for angle and compositions so there might be slight variations that have little to do with the cameras. The may be minor differences in metering as well.
Why are they unfair? To obtain the maximum data, each of the cameras have different ways of exposing. The Nikon tends to make Jpgs that seem too dark (under exposed) but these can me easily lightened in post processing for a visually appealing image. By contrast (pun intended), the Fuji makes wonderful JPGs right out of the camera.
However, I’ve opted to show scaled versions of both camera’s RAW files.
For this unfair comparison, I have not implemented subtantive changes to adjust the appearance of either cameras files.
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Hartman Station Road on the New Holland Secondary.
While runing a few errands, I found Norfolk Southern’s H29 local working its outbound run on the New Holland Secondary.
Leading the train was Norfolk Southern SD40E 6307 (originally an SD50) , which was making quite a show of climbing the short grade away from Greenfield in Lancaster, PA.
I zipped up to Hartman Station Road for a few quick photos using my Lumix LX7.
Step back a century and imagine this was one of PRR’s H10s 2-8-0 Consolidations. Now that would have been cool.
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Siemens Electric at Paradise
It was a pleasant evening. So we drove to Leaman Place to roll by Amtrak Keystone 649 on its run from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.
I made a sequence of photos with my Nikon Z7-II. When I reviewd the images I wasn’t 100 percent satisfied.
Yes, the sun was perfect. The sky was clear and cloudless. The train was running locomotive first and clean. The foreground was free from obstructions. My camera performed flawlessly. The lens was sharp and the autofocus was spot on.
So what’s wrong? For example in the first photo, I’d like to see the locomotive slightly further in the frame to block the shadow to the left of engine nose . And, I wished I’d shown just a little more of the catenary mast on the right. Just little picky details.
On refection, I thought, what if that had been a Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric with a classic passenger train? Well then I’d be absolutely delighted with these photos! So there’s that.
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Color or Black & White at Carpenters?
Sunday morning Kris and I went out to watch Strasburg Rail Road.
I set up for the returning 11 am train at Carpenters cemetery.
As the train approached, I made photos with both my Lumix LX7 and Nikon Z7-II with 70-200mm Z-series zoom.
In post processing, I converted the Z7-II file to make a black & white photo.
Which do you like better?
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Philadelphia & Reading Bridge—Harrisburg
Third time’s the charm.
In June 2009, I made my first visit to the former Philadelphia & Reading arched bridge over the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, Pa.
At that stage, I was still using film exclusively, and using my Canon EOS-3 loaded with Fujichrome, I made some photos of the bridge sans train.
Kris and I paid another visit to the bridge in March of 2022, Again, I made photos of the arches, but no luck catching anything on the move.
Toward the end of July, I made my third visit. This time fortune favored me. Not long after I parked on South Front Street, I heard a horn to the west and soon an eastward Norfolk Southern train came rolling across the arches.
I made these images using my Lumix LX7 and Nikon Z6 cameras.
I had the Z6 set up with my 1980s-era Nikkor f2.8 180mm prime telephoto. While a very sharp lens, this is operated manually, which makes focusing a little tricky.
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Visiting the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania with Wayne.
Two weeks ago, Kris and I accompanied Wayne Duffett of TEC Associates on a detailed tour of railroad equipment, artifacts and models displayed at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.
This is just a great place. I’m never bored amoung the beautifully restored and displayed engines and cars. Everytime I visit, I find something I’d never seen before. and I can never tire of seeing a magnificent GG1 electric dressed in the classic Loewy stripes. (And recall the New Year’s morning 43 years ago, when my dad, brother and I inspected this very same GG1 on the ready tracks at New Haven, Connecticut.)
We spend several hours gazing in awe at all the great relics of railroading past.
The airbrake training car was a real treat. I never knew that this restored in fully operational condition!
Somehow, I made more than 300 photos, working with my Nikon Z6 and Kris’s Fujifilm XT4.
I made a bunch of side by side comparisons between the Nikon and Fuji cameras, but I’ll display those images in a future post.
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Electric, Steam and Diesel in 45 minutes!
Last Thursday morning, I photographed four trains in 45 minutes. Three were scheduled.
I caught eastward and westward Amtrak Keystone trains at Gap, Pennsylvania, then made a short drive over to the Strasburg Rail Road, where I waited for the 10am scheduled excursion to Leaman Place. As this steam hauled train approached Blackhorse Road, I could hear a second horn to the west.
I surmised that Strasburg’s local freight might be following the excursion. My guess was close; Strasburg’s SW8 diesel was leading a ballast hopper toward Leaman Place where it would clear for the excursion to return.
I can’t recall any time in the recent past in America where I caught electric, steam and diesel trains over such a short span of time.
Photos exposed with my Lumix LX7.
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SEPTA Silverliner V near Wynnewood
A warm July Sunday along the Main Line found us near SEPTA’s Wynnewood Station, PA.
I made this coming and going sequence of an inbound SEPTA Silverliner V using my Z6 with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom.
The trees along the former Pennsylvania Railroad made for nice framing elements in the trailing view.
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Score on the New Holland Secondary
Last Sunday morning, Kris and I were heading to breakfast. Rather than jump on the four-lane, I decided to stick to the two-lane roads. As we drove toward the Greenfield Road grade crossing in Lancaster, PA, the crossing flashers lit.
I was surprise to see Norfolk Southern’s New Holland local approaching. We didn’t know this ran on Sunday morning.
After pulling in the clear, I grabbed my Nikon Z6 and fired off a photo of the approaching freight. Unfortunately, in my haste I’d set the auto focus-point incorrectly and my result wasn’t worth the price of the exposed pixels. (It was garbage).
From this mistake, I decided to delay breakfast and we turned around, and zipped up to the Willow Road crossing, just a couple of miles down the line. Here I had ample time to set up and frame some photos. I’d sorted out the auto focus. Kris filmed a video with her iPhone.
I was pleased with these images. We’ll need to head out on a Sunday morning again soon!
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