Just a little while ago I was passing the usual place at Islandbridge Junction in Dublin. Although mostly cloudy, I took a glimpse over the wall. A horn hooted from the Phoenix Park tunnel and an Enterprise 201 eased out onto the Liffey Bridge.
As locomotive 206 approached, running light engine toward Irish Rail’s Inchicore Works, the clouds parted and brilliant morning sun illuminated the junction.
Lumix in hand, I made these photos!
Lumix LX7 photo 25 March 2019.
Irish Rail 206; Lumix LX7 photo 25 March 2019.
Travel Notice: Brian will be traveling over the coming days and weeks, so Tracking the Light notices and responses may become infrequent. However:
Last Friday (22 March 2019), Mark Healy and I met in the Dublin city centre to seek out an elusive tram, recently dressed in a yellow advertising livery.
A steady rain was falling by the time we found it.
I made these photos with my Lumix LX7. In post processing, I adjusted the camera RAW files using Lightroom to improve colour temperature, make the contrast more appealing, and restore texture to the afternoon sky.
Please note: Although Brian will be traveling next week, Tracking the Light will continue to post articles every day.
It was Spring 1989 when I made this view of Delaware & Hudson’s westward EBBU at West Middlebury, New York on Conrail’s former Erie Railroad line from Hornell to Buffalo.
This was during New York, Susquehanna & Western’s operation of D&H, after it left the Guilford system and before it was acquired by Canadian Pacific.
Leading the train is a Delaware & Hudson locomotive still wearing Guilford colors but lacking the big ‘G’ on the side.
West Middlebury was a preferred location to catch mid-morning westward trains because the alignment of the railroad favored the morning sun as actually it ran southwest-northeast before curling around to get over Attica Hill.
I was still studying photography at the Rochester Institute of Photography, and typically worked with my antique Leica and Rolleiflex cameras. However for this image, I owe the generosity of my college roommate, Bob, who lent me his Hassleblad 503C for the day. I loaded this with Kodachrome 64 120, which offered superb sharpness and color rendering.
The camera’s 80mm Zeiss Planar lens was among the sharpest lenses available.
To demonstrate this fantastic combination of camera and film, I’ve offered three versions of this photo. The first is the uncropped image; the others show degrees of cropping to demonstrate both the versatility of the Hasselblad’s square format and the ability to crop in while retaining detail and sharpness.
Uncropped 120 K64.Slight crop to offer a superior balance and correct the level.Tight crop to better feature the train. Normally I disapprove of cropping, however I’ll make a rare exception for this circumstance where I feel nominal cropping improves the photograph.
I made this view handheld, and unfortunately didn’t get the level 100 percent perfect, so for years this view sat in my ‘seconds’ file. You could make a wall size print from the original chrome and count the blades of grass.
The forecast had been for rain. And rain it did, as it often does in the Irish Midlands.
Paul and Jay Monaghan and I had been exploring Bord na Mona’s narrow gauge network centered on the Lough Rea generating station, but had taken a break to photograph Irish Rail.
We spied clearing in the afternoon sky, so resumed pursuit of the narrow gauge. Soon we found a pair of empty trains returning to the bog for loading.
At the level crossing in Derraghmore, County Longford the clouds parted and we made sunny images of the diminutive trains as these crossed the road.
Looking at this Conrail photo makes me feel that March 23, 1989 wasn’t that long ago.
I’d left my apartment in Scottsville, New York before dawn and headed west on Rt33 in my white Toyota Corolla.
I knew I had a westbound climbing Batavia Hill—the nominal rise of the Water Level Route that ascended the Niagara Escarpment on the way toward Buffalo.
My Leica M2 was loaded with Kodachrome 200 ‘Fast Kodachrome’ (three stops faster than K25, which was my normal film in 1989).
I parked the car west of Batavia near CP406 (where New York Central’s 1950s track re-alignment to avoid downtown Batavia rejoined the historic railroad route). With time running short, I hike east beneath the code lines and set up my Leica with a 200mm Leitz Telyt telephoto on my Bogen 3021 tripod.
I could hear the slow moving westbound as the sun glimmered above the horizon. But then behind me fast moving eastward stack train blasted for Donahue Road. . .
The headlight of the westbound appeared and over the next few seconds I captured a running meet between the two Conrail trains. K200’s warm color balance and grain structure made for the perfect combination to distill the moment.
Rolling sunrise meet on Conrail’s Water Level Route west of Batavia, New York.
I’ve run this photo in various publications and it’s one of my favorite Water Level Route views.
I spent the rest of the day photographing along the former Erie Railroad, which was alive with trains. I remember it all as if it was yesterday.
I exposed this pair of digital photos about a month ago of LUAS trams crossing the old cast iron Kingsbridge (Sean Heuston Bridge) at Dublin’s Heuston Station.
Soft and orange-tinted evening light made the interesting scene even nicer.
It was August 1987 and the last day of a ten epic adventure photographing trains in western New York, Ontario, and Pennsylvania.
My pal TSH and I had exhausted our film reserves and were getting ready for the big drive home.
I made this street view looking railroad-west on Front Street in Cresson, Pennsylvania using my dad’s Rolleiflex model T. I scanned this B&W negative recently using an Epson V500 and cleaned it up in Lightroom.
You can just feel the heat in the air. A trio of Conrail GP38s has just pulled by, probably for service on one of the secondary lines that radiated from the old Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line at Cresson.
We made a quick visit to MG Tower and Horseshoe Curve on the way down the hill.
Here are some more digital photographs from Monday’s (18 March 2019) Railway Preservation Society of Ireland steam trips behind Great Northern Railway 85.
Runs were scheduled to depart Dublin Connolly Station at 1100 and 1505 and operated between Irish Rail’s regularly scheduled trains.
RPSI’s trips were very well patronized.
Special thanks to everyone at RPSI and Irish Rail for a great railway experience!
In March 1987, I made a trip to the scenic Canisteo Valley where I photographed trains on the former Erie Railroad.
I made this view at the Canisteo River Road crossing at West Cameron, New York of DODX 6-axle flats carrying tanks. This was an eastward Conrail BUOI (Buffalo to Oak Island) freight and it was rolling along at a healthy speed.
At the time, I was experimenting with my black & white process. Unfortunately, I should have experimented with film of subjects that wouldn’t have been so interesting to me 30 years after the fact.
This roll of 120 film has been largely unseen since the 1980s. My ineffective trial yielded uneven processing and negatives that were difficult to print with poor tonality.
Today, I think the subject matter is fascinating despite the inept process.
The irony was that I was adapting a formula recommended to me by former New York Central photographer Ed Nowak. The lesson here is don’t allow a New York Central photographer advise you on how to process photos of the Erie Railroad! (Railroad photography humor).
—Some nocturnal views of Dublin suburban operations—
Working in the gloom of night has its challenges and benefits.
It’s especially challenging when the camera I intended to make film photos was suffering from a flat battery, again (so I thought).
One of my Nikon F3s was again showing signs of no electricity. Changing out the batteries on an railcar, I began to suspect something else . . .
Anyway, last week Paul Maguire, Jay Monaghan and I arrived at Pearse Station as a potential location to picture Irish Rail’s Sperry train that was making its run to Bray to inspect rail conditions.
We decided to try the next station down the line, and traveled on a DART electric train to Grand Canal Docks. With my Nikon dead in the water, I opted to work with my Lumix LX7 and FujiFilm digital cameras instead. This changed my perspective as I’d hope to make black & white film photos.
Grand Canal Docks viewed from Irish Rail’s station of the same name. Lumix LX7 photo.DART at Grand Canal Docks. Lumix LX7 photo.Irish Rail 29000 series CAF-built diesel train. Lumix LX7 photo.A Howth-bound DART at Grand Canal Docks, FujiFilm XT1 photo.Irish Rail 086 leads the Sperry detection train at Grand Canal docks. FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm f2.0 prime telephoto.
As we waited on the platforms for the Sperry train. I made photos of the DART and suburban diesel railcars, which dominate operations on this route.
Diesel haulage is the attraction of the elusive Sperry train; and on this evening Irish Rail 086 did the honors.
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Oh yeah, about the F3T’s battery problem. Later, I discovered that the plastic cartridge that holds the batteries appeared to have developed a short. Luckily, I have a spare F3 and swapped out the cartridge solving this difficulty.
On Monday, 18 March 2019, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland operated its annual The Midlanderexcursions from Connolly Station along the Midland route following the Royal Canal to Maynooth.
This resulted in an uncommon visit by Great Northern Railway (of Ireland) engine number 85 to the historic Midland Great Western route.
The trains were well patronized and reportedly sold out.
I both traveled and made photos line-side as two trips were operated; the first departing Connolly at 11am, the second just after 3pm.
I exposed this view of Central Vermont GP9s on Kodak 120 Tri-X Professional, a film that came with an ISO rating of 320 compared with 400 for the off-the-shelf variety.
This was CV’s southward road freight number 444 which terminated at the Palmer yard, south of the crossing with Conrail’s former Boston & Albany.
I made this image on July 23, 1986; the previous day Conrail began its single track operation of the Boston Line by cutting-in CP83 and CP92, removing one track from service and thus ending directional double-track operation (rule 251) between those two points.
Close examination of this photo will show that the old westward main track is cut short of the CV crossing.
This is a much enlarged scan of the above photo to better illustrate the single-track section over the Palmer diamond.
This was one of many photos I made around Palmer during the single tracking of the B&A route. Today the CV route is operated by New England Central, and the Boston & Albany line is CSX. There were far fewer trees by the tracks back in 1986.
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Irish Rail’s old Midland Great Western line to Westport follows a rock and roll profile as it works its way across the Midlands.
This is one of Ireland’s busiest freight routes which handles both container and timber traffic.
On misty March afternoon we waited at quiet overpass at Slieve located north of the River Suck (yes, that’s its name) in rural county Roscommon railway-west of the old station at Donamon.
I’d traveled from Dublin with brothers Paul and Jay Monaghan, I navigated and helped locate this photo location.
The roar of Irish 082 could be heard for miles before it came into view leading the down IWT Liner that runs between Dublin and Ballina Co. Mayo.
I exposed this view on the south side of the line using my FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm prime telephoto.
In September 1988, I was set up at Dixon’s on Conrail’s former Erie Railroad line over Attica Hill.
Roaring up the grade with a CSX SD40-2 in the lead was this Delaware & Hudson Sealand doublestack land-bridge train bound for Little Ferry, New Jersey. The New York, Susquehanna & Western had just been appointed designated operator of the D&H, and NYSW locomotives were common on many D&H road freights.
Land-bridge trains, such as this one, reached the east coast via Delaware & Hudson trackage rights over Conrail’s former Erie mainlines between Binghamton and Buffalo, New York, and NYSW’s rights on the old Erie east of Binghamton.
Catching a CSX painted locomotive was a rare find in western New York in 1988, and finding one leading on the Erie seemed like a special treat.
This represents window in time in the dynamic melting pot of western New York railroading in the late 1980s.
After exposing this black & white view using my dad’s Rollei model T, I followed the train east and exposed dozens of photos along the way.
Two views exposed with my Lumix LX7 of a Rotem ICR (InterCity Railcar) running from Dublin to Cork that had paused at Thurles for its first station stop since departing Heuston Station.
Departing Thurles for Kent Station, Cork. Trailing view.
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Less often photographed than the famous Horseshoe Curve, is Bennington Curve further up the old Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line grade toward Gallitzin, Pennsylvania.
Back in July 1987, my pal TSH and I camped near the curve. I was kept awake by the roar of uphill diesels and the ear-piercing flange squeal of wheels in the curve. At sunrise I was track side to photograph the action.
One of my first images of the morning was this black & white view of a light helper set returning down grade toward Altoona to assist a westward freight.
In 1987 my choice film was Kodak T-Max 400, then a relative new emulsion. After about a year of work with T-max, I returned to using older emulsions such as Kodak Tri-X, which I felt produced better results.
At that time Conrail routinely assigned its 13 former Erie-Lackawanna SD45-2s as helpers based at Cresson near the top of the hill on the West Slope.
Below are a few more views of Dublin buildings coloured with green light for the 2019 St Patrick’s Day Festival.
Exposed digitally using my Lumix LX7 and FujiFilm XT1 cameras.
Trinity College at College Green.Dublin’s Custom House.Irish Rail’s Connolly Station on Amiens Street at dusk.
Loop Line Bridge over the River Liffey.
Brown Thomas on Grafton Street. Harp shaped Becket Bridge in the Dublin Docklands.LUAS Green Line at St. Stephen’s Green. Royal College of Surgeons at the right.
Radio media reported that a bus-tram collision occurred after 7am this morning (16 March 2019) at the intersection of Benburb and Queen Streets on Dublin’s north side.
A bus bound toward the City Centre on Queen Street collided with eastward Red Line tram (unit 3003) heading toward The Point.
The leading section of the tram was derailed and there was damage to both vehicles.
News media have reported eight injuries and that it may hours before the tram line is open to traffic.
Looking east on Benburb Street. Exposed with a Lumix LX7 .
I exposed these photos minutes ago.
I find this accident especially shocking since I’ve often watched trams pass at the adjacent pub, and I travel this route regularly, having been on a tram to Bus Aras just last night.
Benburb and Queen Streets were closed to road traffic.
I’ll post more photos to this site shortly. To make photos quicker/easier to load I’ve lowered the resolution. Hi-res images from my cameras are significantly sharper, but might slow down this site.
Tram 3003. View looking east on Benburb Street. Exposed with a Lumix LX7 .
Looking North on Queen Street, with Benburb Street and tram behind the photographer Bus was traveling southward toward Dublin City Centre. Exposed with a Lumix LX7 .Looking south on Queen Street at the intersection of Benburb Street. View of the eastward section of tram 3003. City Centre toward the left. Photo at 0830 16 March 2019.Looking east on Benburb Street. Exposed with a Lumix LX7 .Looking south on Queen Street toward the intersection of Benburb Street. Damaged bus on right. View of the eastward section of tram 3003. City Centre toward the left. Photo exposed at about 0830 16 March 2019.
Looking east on Benburb Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1
Looking east on Benburb Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
Damaged bus on Queen Street.
Looking south on Queen Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
Looking west on Benburb Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
Looking west on Benburb Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
Looking north on Queen Street. Lo-res view Exposed with a FujiFilm XT1.
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Classic photo from my archives: In the late 1980s, I’d buy film from Frantek in South Hadley, Massachusetts. This was across the Connecticut River from Holyoke.
Typically on my way back with a fresh load of film, I’d seek out the Boston & Maine, which would often have a switcher working the Holyoke yard or on industrial sidings.
I made this photo on a bright August 1987 morning using my dad’s Rollei Model T with super slide insert. My film choice of the day was the recently introduced Kodak T-Max 400 in 120 format.
Guilford had just repainted this old Boston & Maine SW1 into its company livery and lettered it for its operating entity Springfield Terminal. The SW1 was colloquially known as a ‘Pup’ because it was a small switcher type.
The view is looking toward Springfield with B&M’s Connecticut River bridge just beyond the factories.
A week ago, Friday 8 March 2019, toward the end of our exploration of Bord na Mona’s Lough Rea narrow gauge network near Lanesborough Co. Longford, the sky grew textured and glowed with evening magnificence.
I made this view of an empty Bord na Mona train crossing the bog on its way to reload.
The trick making this photo work was to expose for the sky while letting the train go relatively dark. I was working with Ilford HP5 black & white film, and during processing, I used two developers followed by selenium toning of the negatives to extract the maximum shadow detail.
My intent was a moody and stark view of the train against the textured sky.
I was working with two Nikons that day, one loaded with Fujichrome the other with Ektachrome. If I were to guess, I’d say based on the color balance and saturation of this slide that it was made on Fujichrome.
March 14, 2003—Sixteen years ago—I made this sunset view at Long Island Rail Road’s Jay Tower on a visit to Jamaica, Queens with Pat Yough.
Jamaica is among the busiest junctions in the United States and serves hundreds of LIRR trains daily.
A little while ago I made this pair of photos at Islandbridge Junction in Dublin.
In a repeat of a few weeks back clouds were racing across the sky making for wild changes in the quality of light from moment to moment.
First up was today’s (14 March 2019) IWT Liner from Dublin’s North Wall to Ballina, County Mayo. This had 073 in retro orange. A few minutes later, Irish Rail 080 came around with an empty LWR (Long welded rail train).
The clouds foiled my first effort. But breaks in the cloud allowed for respectable telephoto view of the LWR. On the downside, my 50mm colour slide of same won’t be as impressive as the clouds quickly dampened the light again.
Such are the challenges of photographing moving trains in Ireland.
On the morning of May 9, 1987 I exposed this view of Conrail’s BUOI (Buffalo to Oak Island) easing across the former Erie Railroad Portage Viaduct over the Genesee River at Letchworth Park.
I was working with my father’s Rollei Model T that he purchased in Düsseldorf, Germany 28 years earlier. My film of the day was Kodak T-Max 400 (TMY).
Sunday morning 10 March 2019, I paid another visit to the old Midland Great Western terminus at Broadstone in Dublin.
You have to admit the name is cool. Broadstone just sounds like something substantial in a medieval way.
Anyway, this old Dublin railway terminal has served as a bus depot (garage) for decades, and in recent years has been nearly encircled by the new LUAS Green Line Cross City tram route.
Continued landscaping has much improved the grounds around the old railway station.
On May 2, 1987, Doug Eisele and I spent the day photographing trains on Conrail’s former Erie Railroad.
We been following Conrail TV301, a double-stack train carrying APL containers on a transcontinental land-bridge movement toward the west coast. At the time, the Erie route was preferred for double-stacks.
At Dalton, New York we spotted an eastward Delaware & Hudson stack train carrying Sealand containers. This was crawling along the old Erie eastbound number two track at about 10mph, as Conrail didn’t maintain the eastward track for anything faster than that, and instead preferred to route all movements over the number 1 main.
As the Conrail train was flying along, we pulled over and bailed out the car; and I made this hastily composed photograph with my father’s Rollieflex Model T on Kodak TMY (Tmax 400).
While not a perfect composition, for me this captures the spirit of the moment, and shows the old Erie Railroad alive with heavy freight.
They said we were mad driving to the Irish Midlands in a March rain to look at bog trains.
But we did anyway.
And we did very well.
Friday March 8, 2019, Paul and Jay Monaghan and I made a foray toward Lanesborough, County Longford to observe Bord na Mona’s Lough Rea system in action.
For me this was repeat of similar trip three weeks earlier.
Here’s a hint: Bord na Mona has one of the coolest train sets in Europe.
The whole operation is like a big garden railway. Well, except that it runs in a bog.
Here’s another hint: just because rain is forecast, doesn’t mean it will rain all day!
November 2018, Anaheim, California: I made this trailing view of Metrolink train 661 with F59PH 854 working northward amidst lots of transportation infrastructure.
Working with my Lumix LX7 I made these three evening glinty views of Irish Rail trains to and from Cork at Dublin’s Heuston Station.
I’ve always loved the soft orange glow of filtered evening light.
Where’s the filter you ask? It’s in the sky. A mix of clouds and pollution—particulates and other stuff—alters the spectral qualities of the setting sun by pushing the color balance toward the red-orange end of the spectrum.
Check out podcast Episode 17 ‘Conversations with Brian Solomon’: On a frosty day, I discuss the ins and outs of the freight car business with industry professional Dan Bigda. This offers an inside look into real freight railroading.
Dan has often asked me to make more photographs of freight cars when I’m out and about on the railroad, so here’s a few recent views of North American freight cars on the move exposed on frosty days during my January 2019 trip to Wisconsin.
Working with Czech-made Fomapan Classic in my Nikon F3, I’ve wandered the streets of Dublin seeking timeless images.
By careful chemical manipulation in the processing of the negatives, I aimed to extract exceptional shadow detail, maintain rich black tones and control highlight areas.
I’ve exposed these views over the last few weeks. In many instances, I’ve set my lenses to their widest apertures both to let greater amounts of light to reach the film, but also for the effects offered shallow depth of field.
Weather, including fog, added to the challenge and the atmosphere.
(If your not on Tracking the Light, be sure to click the Link to get the BIG picture.)
In the realms of the rarely seen on the move, Irish Rail’s bogie spoil train is one of the rarest.
By luck I’d spotted this train running toward Dublin’s North Wall on Wednesday 6 March 2019. And as it happened, the crew was taking train to the yard to swap one set for another.
Patience on my part yielded this view of the train returning from the North Wall. As seen from my standard location at Islandbridge Junction in Dublin.
The bottom line: it helps to live near the tracks, but it also helps to sit tight when something unusual and unscheduled is on the prowl.
Exposed digitally using a FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm prime telephoto.
I have a variety of my favorite images in my screen saver file that the computer brings up at random when I stop using it.
Many are railroad photos, some recent, some from the archives. One is a photo of a Shinkansen high speed train approaching Tokyo, another is a small critter on a railroad tie in Colorado, a third is a recent view on Canadian National’s Wisconsin Central on a bitterly cold evening.
In my mix is this classic view of Santa Fe DASH8-40BW 575 racing eastward through a curve at Willard, New Mexico.
I exposed it on Kodachrome 25 during a trip to California in January 1994. I worked with my old Nikon F3T with a prime 200mm Nikkor telephoto that was one of my staple lenses for many years.
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