This past Saturday, I gave a 45 minute talk on the Development and Application of the American Steam Locomotive to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

Among the attendees was SUNY-Buffalo Associate Professor David Alff, who presented later in the evening. His topic was on his most recent publication, the Northeast Corridor. He offered a fascinating social history, not just of the modern day railroad, but of more than two centuries of transportation.

Earlier in the day David and I shared a table signing our respective books and I was telling him of my days watching trains from my grandparents terrace in Co-op City overlooking the Northeast Corridor in The Bronx.(New York City).

Sitting out in front of the museum is Amtrak AEM-7 915, a locomotive that spent roughly 35 years hauling trains on the Northeast Corridor. I have more photos of this classic electric at Strasburg than I do of it under wire.

Over the last few months, I’ve scoured thousands of my own photos, looking for the most representative and evocative images of Amtrak locomotives and trains for my latest book ‘Amtrak Equipment’ (that I’m now in the final stages of completing). In this process, I was frustrated in locating decent images of old 915 at work. (Although, I found a few of its from years ago, and some of those have appeared on Tracking the Light.)

Last night, I was reviewing some black & white negatives from the 1980s that I’d scanned back in 2016, and I found a sequence of telephoto views that I made with my father’s Leica M3 from my grandparents’ terrace.

I had been making photos here since the mid-1970s, but many suffered from inexperience and ineffective technique. By the summer of 1985, I had perfected my black & white photo technique to the point where I finally able to make some satisfying images of trains from this family vantage point.

In the black & white view below of Amtrak 915 crossing the Pelham River, I was using a Leitz Wetzlar f4 135mm Elmar lens, which was a remarkable sharp piece of glass.

Finding this photo was a Eureka! moment.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!