The old Beechers Falls Branch was a vestige of Maine Central’s foray into Quebec that survived on Maine Central’s system in later years as a truncated  appendage accessed by trackage rights over Boston & Maine and Grand Trunk lines.

After Maine Central gave up, various short lines had operated the trackage. Today the line to Beechers Falls, Vermont is a trail.

Beechers Falls itself is a curiosity on a narrow strip of land wedged tightly between New Hampshire and Quebec.

On Saturday (May 23, 2020) Kris Sabbatino and I explored this abandoned line.

I made these photos where the Branch crossed the upper reaches of the Connecticut River at Canaan, Vermont.

Working with a Nikkormat FT with an f2.8 24mm Nikkor lens, I exposed Ilford HP5 400 ISO black & white film.

Although I intended to process this in Ilford ID11, yesterday, I realized that I was all out of that developer, so instead I worked with Kodak HC110, which I mixed as ‘dilution B’ (1-32 with water). Before my primary process, I mixed a very weak ‘presoak’ (1-300 with water and Kodak Photoflo) and soaked the film for five minutes, then introduced my primary developer for 4 minutes 30 seconds.

Last night Kris and I scanned the negatives using an Epson V500 flatbed scanner with Epson’s provided software.

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