There’s more than one Swift River. In fact, in Massachusetts, I know of at least two. The river discussed here is the Swift River in New Hampshire that passes through Albany and Conway.
My railroad photography has been light since the end of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Snow Trains on February 29, so I thought I put up something a little different.
Last weekend, fellow photographer Kris Sabbatino offered to show me some interesting photo locations in the Conway area and we drove to the Swift River Bridge at Albany.
Panoramic composite exposed in-camera with my FujiFilm XT1.
I made these views using my FujiFilm XT1 with 12mm Zeiss Touit. In addition, I exposed a few frames of black & white film, which at the rate I’m moving on processing might not get processed until the leaves are on the trees.
The style of bridge intrigued me. While I’m familiar with the Howe Truss, this was something different. Later I looked it up on-line, and it was described as a ‘Paddleford type with added arches’.
In mid-July 1984, I heard the distinctive roar of EMD 20-cylinder engines working an eastward train on the west slope of Washngton Hill. My friends and I were positioned at the summit of the Boston & Albany route, as marked by a sign.
We often spent Sunday afternoons here. Rather than work the more conventional location on the south (west) side of the tracks, I opted to cross the mainline and feature the summit sign.
As the freight came into view, I was delighted to see that it was led by a set of Conrail’s former Erie Lackawanna SD45-2s! While these locomotives were more commonly assigned to helper duties at Cresson, Pennsylvania on the former PRR, during the Summer of 1984, all 13 of the monsters worked the Boston & Albany.
In July 1984, Conrail 6666 leads an eastward freight on the Boston & Albany at Washington Summit, Hinsdale, Massachusetts. This photograph is unpublished and previously unprinted. It was exposed on 35mm Tri-X using a 1930s-vintage Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens. Post processing allowed for localized contrast control to maximize the detail in the original negative.
I have a number of photos of these machines, both on the B&A and PRR routes. However this image of engine 6666 never made my cut. Back lighting and hazy afternoon light had resulted in a difficult negative. My preferred processing techniques of the period didn’t aid the end result, and at the time I dismissed the photograph as ‘unsuitable’.
The other day I rediscovered this unprinted view and decided to make a project of it. Now, 30 years later, I felt it was worth the effort. I scanned the negative and after about 30 minutes of manipulation using Adobe Photoshop, I produced a satisfactory image.
I made a variety of small and subtle changes by locally adjusting contrast and sharpness. These adjustments would have been difficult and time consuming to implement using conventional printing techniques, but are relatively painless to make digitally. I’m really pretty happy with the end result.
