I was enjoying a prime rib sandwich at the Tamaqua Station Restaurant, taking in the well-preserved Victorian atmosphere with Kris, and marveling at the details, when I hear the unmistable sounds of an approaching train.
Lumix LX7 in hand, I headed for the door and arrived at the platform in time to make a sequence of photos of a Reading & Northern ‘hospital’ move of passenger equipment heading north on the old Reading Company.
I wasn’t expecting this unusual train, but delighted with the fortuity to catch it, and with nice autumn light and brilliant autumn foliage in the distance.
I work in the classic railroad station in North Conway, NH built in 1874 , and as it turns out the old Reading Company station at Tamaqua, Pennsylvania was built the same year!
On Thursday November 10, 2021, while on our way to Wisconsin, Kris and I stopped in at Tamaqua Station for lunch. My friend and fellow photographer Pat Yough recommended this station restaurant to us.
Several years ago Pat & I had visited Tamaqua but the station restaurant was closed for an event. At that time, I made seasonal Christmas photos of the station lit up for the season, and later used one in my book Railroad Depots, Stations & Terminals. I’ve been eager to return.
I exposed these most recent Lumix LX7 photos during our visit last Thursday.
While enjoying lunch we heard the rumble of EMD diesels . . .
On this day five years ago (November 12, 2016), I made this sunset view at CP64 in East Brookfield, Massachusetts with my first Panasonic Lumix LX7.
Tonight, I am scheduled to present My Conrail , a multimedia slide presentation of my Boston & Albany photography to the 25th Beecherfest in Milwaukee.
In January 2012, I was visiting Graz, Austria with Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe.
I made this photo of trams meeting on a pedestrianized street in the ciry center using my Canon EOS 7D.
Below are two versions of the same image.
Camera jpg
The top image is the in-camera JPG, scaled for internet.
The bottom is my interpretation of the camera RAW file with adjustments to exposure, contrast, color temperature and color saturation implemented with Adobe Lightroom to improve the scene.
In November 1987, I lugged my father’s Linhof 4×5 view camera down along the Quaboag River to photograph the old Boston & Albany arched bridge there.
Working with this cumbersome by extraordinarily powerful visual tool, I exposed this unusual black & white photo of an eastward Conrail freight crossing the bridge.
I’d leveled the camera and raised the front element in order to keep the perspective level while allowing the bridge and train to appear at the top of the frame.
I liked the composition of the river in the foreground.
I used an unsually agitation technique to help expand the tonal range. Unfortunately, I can find my notes from the day. Oddly, when I think of the Linhof camera, I can still smell the leather bellows.
September 30, 2016, on the advice of Ken Fox, I traveled to Killarney for an unusual convergence.
Rail Tours Ireland’s Emerald Isle Explorer and the Belmond Grand Hibernian—Ireland’s only two high-end tour trains were both scheduled to arrive at Irish Rail’s Killarney on the same afternoon.
I made my photos and then returned to Dublin on-board Irish Rail’s regularly scheduled train that was worked with one of the common Hyundai-ROTEM Intercity Rail Cars (ICRs).
I made this view on board the ICR using my Canon EOS 3 with 40mm pancake lens loaded with Ilford HP5 processed.
I processed the film in Kodak HC110 mixed 1-64 with water at 68f for 4 mins. Later I toned the processed negatives in a Selenium solution mixed 1-9 for 9 minutes. This last step boosted the highlight detail to give a silvery glisten.
Negatives scanned with an Epson Perfection V600 flatbed scanner.
The other morning I was up early to make daylight of photos of Conway Scenic Railroad’s latest arrival: former Vermont Railway System’s Clarendon & Pittsford GP38 203, originally Maine Central 255.
This heritage locomotive was deemed ideal for Conway Scenic because mechanically and electrically it perfectly matches the railroad’s GP38 number 252 . The two locomotive were part of the same order of GP38s from Electro-Motive Division back in autumn 1966.
CSRR will shortly renumber 203 back to 255. Initially it will operate in a modified version of the red and white livery pictured here.
As soon as it is practical to do so, the railroad will plan on applying green and gold paint to the locomotive to match 252.
I exposed these photos using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
Next Friday evening, (November 12, 2021) I’ll be presenting a mulitmedia program titled; ‘My Conrail,’ to the 25th Anniversary Beecherfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
This is my tribute to the Boston & Albany with a selection of photography spanning nearly 30 years.
SEPA/PASE power in Palmer, Massachusetts in 1989. Kodachrome 25 exposed with a Leica M2 and 35mm Summicron.
Two weeks ago, Kris and I visited the New England Aquarium before taking a spin on the Blue Line to Revere Beach.
I made this photo at Aquarium using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camara.
I exposed in ‘A’ (automatic) mode using RAW which produces an NEF file.
Scaled, but unadjusted NEF file converted to JPG for internet presentation.
Unadjusted, the NEF file appears dark. This is because the A mode metering compensates for the artifical lighting in an effort to hold detail in the highlights.
To make a pleasing photo, it is necessary to adjust the file in postprocessing to modify contrast, exposure and color balance/color temperature.
This shows the same NEF file following adjustments.
I have included a screen shot of the Adobe Lightroom work-window to demonstrate where I moved the slide controls to make the necessary adjustments.
Recently I bought a Nikkor f2.8 70-200mm Z-series lens for my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
After more than a year of experiementing with the Z6 by putting the camera through its paces, I decided I really needed a longer zoom to compliment the 24-70mm lens that I’d been using on the Z6.
The other day, I made this view of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Valley Train arriving at North Conway from Conway, New Hampshire using the new lens.
The lighting was strongly backlit, which helped illuminate the late-season autumn foliage, but made for some harsh shadows.
To compensate in the photo displayed here, I worked with the Nikon NEF RAW file in Adobe Light room to lighten the shadow areas and darken the highlights to help reduce the contrast in the over all image.
I also warmed the color balance and slightly increased the saturation, and made a very slight crop at the lower lef to remove a visual distraction.
Compare the modified photo above with the version below. The lower photo is from the same file but without modification (except for scaling necessary for internet presentation) so that you can see effect of my changes.
On our travels around Boston two weeks ago, Kris and I changed trains at MBTA’s Government Center station.
40 years ago I photographed MBTA’s PCCs squeeling through these subterranean tunnels. Those cars are largely a memory, as are the Boeing-Vertol ‘LRVs’ that replaced them.
So on the most recent visit to MBTA’s Green Line, I made these photos of more modern trolleys in the arificial light of the subway tunnels using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
When I was in high-school, the Monson (Mass) Summer Theater group rehearsed and performed the play Brigadoon that is based on a mythical Scottish village that only comes to life once a century.
Near the western extremities of Conway Scenic’s former Maine Central Mountain Division route is a junction in the forest where the line running northward via Beecher Falls, Vermont to the Province of Quebec had deviated from the main stem to St Johnsbury.
A century ago Quebec Junction was a pretty important place on the Mountain Division.
This year some of our employees took it upon themselves to clear the undergrowth around Quebec Junction, New Hampshire, while the railroad’s Master Carpenter George Small restored the original shanty that had traditional stood here. The shanty had been privately owned and stored off railroad property for many years.
I worked with George and other members of the 470 Club to plan their annual outing over the Conway Scenic, and Quebec Junction was to be one of the highlights of the trip.
October 23, 2021October 23, 2021October 23, 2021
Working from photos that George had sent me and carefully gauging sun angles, I helped arrange for the train to arrive when the locomotives at the east end of the consist would be well lit by the sun. I also hoped to amply illuminate the long-disused diverging line to the left of the engines where speeder car TC 470, painted for Maine Central, was carefully positioned.
So for a few minutes, Quebec Junction was like Brigadoon.
Ten days ago, I presented my Power Point presentation titled ‘Tracking the Light’—named after this blog—to the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts in the Pearl Street Station restaurant in Malden, Massachusetts.
I was allowed to open the back door which faced the Orange Line and former Boston & Maine commuter rail tracks.
Inside the station were paintings depicting how the station used to be.
Dave Brown of the Mass Bay RRE helped me work the computer that projected my pre-recorded program that featured 196 photographs.
Mass Bay RRE’s Dave Brown works the projection computer.Mass Bay RRE’s Dave Brown works the projection computer.
Conway Scenic Railroad’s latest acquisition, former Maine Central GP38 255 is on the final legs of its journey to North Conway.
Last night (October 29, 2021) Kris and I drove up to the St Lawrence & Atlantic line to intercept westward freight 393 that was hauling Clarendon & Pittsford 203 in consist. (This red & white GP38 is former Maine Central 255.)
At Gorham, New Hampshire we rolled by the train at the old Grand Trunk station where there is a variety of historic equipment on display.
The plan was for 393 to drop the engine for interchange at Groveton, New Hampshire. In the coming days, CSRR will plan to collect it at the railroad’s only active interchange (at Hazens near Whitefield, NH) i
I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 mounted on an old Bogen tripod.
In the late 1980s Kodak introduced its new T-grain T-Max black & white emulsions.
I quickly adopted these new films in place of Kodak Tri-X and Kodak Plus-X.
After about a year of trial and error with the T-Max films, I opted to return to the more traditional non-T-grain emulsions. In the mean time I committed countless unrepeatable scenes to T-Max.
This photo features a freshly-painted (and only recently acquired) Guilford SD45 eastbound at Greenfield, Massachusetts. I exposed it on 120-size TMY (T-Max 400) film using my father’s Rollieflex Model-T.
Part of the difficulty was that I insisted on developing the film in straight Kodak D76 instead of the recommended T-Max developer. I did this to save money; when I was at RIT in Rochester (actually Henrietta), New York, photo students received basic photo chemistry as part of their lab fee, which meant I could get all the D76 I wanted without any additional cost, while T-Max developer had to be purchased.
What I saved in developer, I’ve paid 100-fold in laborious print making and difficult scanning.
However, using Adobe Lightroom I’ve finally been able to get decent tonality out of these 34 year-old photos.
Springfield Terminal SD45 679 leads an eastward road freight at Greenfield, Massachusetts on December 19, 1987.
The SD45 has always been a favorite locomotive, and at the time I was quite pleased to catch Guilford’s latest motive power in fresh paint.
Last Thursday evening, October 21, 2021 (10-21-2021), as we rode north on MBTA’s Orange Line I snapped digital photos from the window of the train looking down on MBTA’s former Boston & Maine lines radiating from Boston’s North Station.
We paced an outward commuter train for about a minute.
This reminded me of similar efforts photographing trains through the glass when I was a teenager.
My grandparents had a grand view of the old New Haven Railroad at Pelham Bay Park from their apartment in Co-op City, The Bronx, New York.
Using my old Leica IIIa, I made hundreds of photos of trains rolling along under wire.
This is among the more unsual photos from their 19th floor terrace. On a visit in August 1981, I made numerous photos of diesels underwire, as the result of a failure with the early 1900s electrification that had forced Amtrak to tow its normally electrically hauled trains with diesels.
In this photo, one of Amtrak’s few remaining EMD E8As hauls a then-new AEM-7 electric and train eastward toward New Haven.
At the center of image is Goose Island.
Exposed using a Leica IIIa with 50mm Sumitar lens.Enlarged portion of the train showing the diesel and electric locomotives.
Thursday, October 21, 2021, I had my first experience with MBTA’s new Orange Line subway cars built by Chinese firm CRRC in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It was odd for me because the ‘Old’ cars were delivered when I was in High School. I recall going on a Orange Line shop tour in 1983 with my old friend Dan Howard to see the ‘New Cars’ (now the ‘Old’ Cars). This had been organized by the Mystic Valley Railway Society.
Kris and I were on our way to Malden, Massachusetts so that I could give a talk on Tracking the Light to Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at the old Pearl Street Station.
I made these orange line images using my Nikon Z6 mirroless digital camera.
Old cars at the New North Station Orange Line station.The new CRRC Orange Line subway cars.
On this day 36 years ago, I spent the afternoon making photos at Palmer, Massachusetts.
I exposed this image using my father’s Rollei model T loaded with Kodak VPX (Verichrome Pan) 120-size black & white film that I later processed in Kodak D76 developer.
At that time I was attending Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where I was studying photography and music.
This was led by former Maine Central GP7 573 and former Boston & Maine F7A 4266 with Conway Scenic’s GP35 216 at the back for assistance.
I assisted with planning and executing photo stops. However, I had some other work to do on the way up the mountain, so I rode in the cab of 4266 (trailing westbound).
The 470 Club had arranged to display its other F7A, 4268 on the North Conway turntable. This locomotive rarely sees the light of day. It is a treasured antique that is undergoing a full operational restoration and has spent most of the last year in stall four of the North Conway roundhouse.
As we were departing North Conway, I made this unusual view of 4268 from the cab window of 4266 using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
Labor Day weekend 1978: my dad brought my brother and me out to roll by Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited at the route 148 overpass in Brookfield, Massachusetts.
Working with his ‘motorized’ (mechanical wind-up) Leica 3A, I made a rapid fire sequence of the train as it roared west behind E-units.
I processed the film in the kitchen sink and made a few prints, then for the next four decades the negatives rested quietly in the attic.
I used this Epson scan of one of the negatives from that day as one of the opening photos in my program titled ‘Tracking the Light’ that I presented live last night to the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at the Pearl Street Station in Malden, Massachusetts.
This afternoon Kris and I boarded Amtrak’s Downeaster at Portland. We are headed for North Station, Boston as I write, using the train’s on-board WiFi to upload photos and text to WordPress.
This evening I intend to present a photographic program to Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at Malden.
In April 2003, I was traveling on rail-tour returning to Dublin from Belfast, when I made this pacing view of an Irish Rail DART suburban electric train rolling along on an adjacent track.
I was working with my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Zeiss Biogon, and loaded with Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film.
This is among the photos that I intend to present tonight (October 21, 2021) to the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at Malden, Massachusetts.
By working with a comparatively slow shutter speed, I was able to convey the sense of motion.
For many years, I recorded my photographic adventures with detailed note pages that were organized by date and included: time, location and train information, exposure and camera information, and sometimes interesting or noteworthy details of operations.
On October 20, 1985 (36 years ago today) I was working with my father’s Rolleiflex Model T in tandem with my Leica 3A, when I pictured Conrail’s NHSE (Cedar Hill Yard, New Haven, Connecticut to Selkirk Yard, New York) ascending the old Boston & Albany grade at milepost 126.4 in Chester, Massachusetts.
At that time the New Haven trains still routinely carried cabooses.
Displayed here are the black & white photo exposed with the Rollei with 645-size insert (note notches for ‘Super Slide’ format). I was using Kodak Verichrome Pan 120-size film that I’d processed in D-76 developer.
These are among the photos that I plan to show at my talk to the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts on Thursday evening in Malden.
When I photographed Maine Central GP38 255 (and its sister 256) in the Bangor, Maine yard back in 1986, it was just another GP38.
Soon, if all plans come to fruition, it will become a regular sight in North Conway, New Hampshire, where it can again work Maine Central rails.
There’s a certain satisfaction in bringing the old locomotive back to home rails where it can rejoin its sister 252 to entertain legions of visitors on their travels through the Mount Washington Valley.
Bangor Yard and Kodachrome may have both gone the way of the Dodo Bird, but the 255 is still with us. I wonder whatever happened to 256?
Kodachrome exposed using a Leica 3A with 65mm Elmar attached with a Leica Visoflex.
Late October traditionally represented the start of Irish Rail’s sugarbeet season. This was among the most intensive freight operations in Ireland and saw up to seven laden trains daily operated from the beet loading point at Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford to the processing factory near Mallow in Co. Cork.
In November 2005 halfway through the final sugarbeet season, I made this photo of laden and empty trains crossing at Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary.
Standing on the footbridge in the station, I working with a Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichrome. One of my favorite lenses at this time was a manual focus Nikkor f2.8 180mm, which saw good use during beet season.
The former Maine Central Mountain Division is known for its Willey Brook Bridge that appears to cling to the side the rocks on Crawford Notch in New Hampshire’s White Mountains
This October on two occasions—ten days apart, I photographed Conway Scenic Railroad’s westward Mountaineer on its ascent of Crawford Notch as it crossed this iconic span.
In the first view, I stood line-side just east of milepost 84 and looked back toward Willey Brook.
For the second photo, I took a position well below the bridge, just off Route 302.
I used the same camera-lens combination for both photos: my Canon EOS7D digital camera with a Canon f2.0 100mm telephoto lens.
On the afternoon of 15 October 2016, I was poised with my FujiFilm XT1 to capture this westward CD Cargo freight on the roll at Zebreh, Czech Republic.
Fresh blue and gray paint on an antique electric locomotive made for an interesting subject.
Czech mainlines are extremely busy. Zebreh is located on the heavily traveled east-west trunk line that runs east from Prague to Olomouc and beyond. Every few minutes a train passes, including a variety of freights and open access passenger operators.
On October 14, 2016 during our exploration of the Czech Republic, fellow photographer Denis McCabe and I caught this Metrans Container freight rolling through Kralupy.
I exposed this view as part of a sequence using my FujiFilm XT-1 digital camera.
A Bombardier TRAXX type of electric rolls through Kralupy with a container train in tow.
Kralupy is a busy junction to the north of Prague, wear we witnessed a steady parade of freights.
On October 13, 2016, I exposed these digital photos in the Czech Capital using my FujiFilm XT1.
Prague is among the most visually intense cities in central Europe and I filled several cards during my short cloudy visit five years ago.
In addition, I exposed several rolls of black & white film, including my first Fomapan, a Czech-made commercial brand. My Fomapan photos have made various appearances on Tracking the Light. I carry two rolls in my camera bag, waiting for the appropriate moments to expose them.
My late friend Robert A. Buck of Warren, Massachusetts was born on this day in 1929, and died on this day in 2011.
Bob was a great connector of people and introduced me to many of my life-long friends.
I made this photo of Bob holding court at the West Springfield Train Watchers in the summer of 1986. This loosely affiliated group of retired railroaders and enthusiasts would meet at the west end of the West Springfield, Massachusetts yard to watch trains and trade stories.
In the early 1980s, I’d often travel with Bob to West Springfield.
I made this view using my father’s Rollieflex model T with a 645-size insert to obtain the desired aspect ratio.
