Early November is a great time to explore the Ware River Valley. The trees are largely bare, yet a few colored leaves still cling to higher branches.
Vestiges of old industries survive, as the old Boston & Albany branch meanders up the valley. This is a railroad that was left for dead nearly 40 years ago, and only survived through the dedication and hard work of a handful of local people.
At least once every autumn, I make a photographic study of the line.
The old B&A station at Gilbertville, Massachusetts.Northward Mass-Central local freight. The ghostly vestiges of an old mill loom silently beyond the trees.
Using my FujiFilm X-T1 I exposed these views at Gilbertville— a village in the town of Hardwick, where the old B&A station remains as a restaurant.
Most week days, Mass-Central’s local freight departs Palmer after 7 am and works its way up to South Barre and back serving its customers along the way. On this day I found the train working in Ware.
November light in New England; fleeting shafts of low sun, heavily textured skies; images with brown, burnt and amber hues mixed with shades of slate and blue.
It was always tough with film because of the subtlety of light, but how about using digital media?
The other morning I went out to some familiar locations and made some photos. I’ve imported these into Lightroom and made some minor adjustments to contrast, color temperature and saturation.
This is an exercise in lighting and texture. The photos are more about the places and the quality of light than about the specific railroad elements.
November sunrise looking east at Palmer. LX7 photo.West Warren, Massachusetts. LX7 photo.Sunrise at West Warren, Massachusetts. LX7 photo.Looking west at West Warren. Lumix LX7 photo.CSXT Q019 passes milepost 81 east of Palmer, Massachusetts. FujiFilm X-T1 digital photo.CSXT Q019 westbound. LX7 photo.
I can return tomorrow to these same places, but I’ll get different images because the quality of November light is so subtle and always changing, like drops of mud spilt into a pond.
My recently published Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals highlights railway architecture around the world, including Helsinki, Tokyo, and London.
As an author, I always like to add a personal touch to my books, and when possible include items of local and special interest. If you scour my pages, you’ll often find photos made in Palmer, Massachusetts and Dublin, among other favorites.
Among the topics covered in the recent effort is a small section on the former Boston & Albany station at East Brookfield, Massachusetts. I’d photographed and researched this building over the years. Sadly, it was destroyed in an arsonist attack five years ago.
This photo of the East Brookfield station was one of the first images I made with my new Panasonic LX3 digital camera. I was testing the camera (which I’d bought to use as a light meter) on a bright October morning in 2009. There were two eastward CSXT freights coming and I was trying to gauge the light. CSXT had just recently put a new roof on the old building. Less than a year after I made this view it succumbed to fire. This photo is reproduced on page 83 of my book.
On Pages 82 and 83, I discuss East Brookfield and its demise as part of greater story on lost stations. In my text, I mention that a period photo of the old station still hangs in East Brookfield Pizza, a few blocks from CSXT’s former B&A mainline.
My friend Dennis LeBeau has helped preserve East Brookfield’s history, and has a collection of glass plate negatives exposed by William Bullard, a local photographer working from the 1890s through the World War I era. Several Bullard photos appear in the book.
The other day, I called into East Brookfield to give Dennis his contributor’s copy of Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals. We went down to East Brookfield Pizza to show the owners and staff the book, and I had Dennis and company pose with the Bullard photo of the station.
On October 30, 2015, Dennis LeBeau holds his signed copy of Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals at East Brookfield Pizza where the old William Bullard photo that he supplied to the restaurant hangs on the wall. The restaurant and the photo get a mention in my book.I exposed this view the other day. It shows the Keith Block and the site of the old station.
Photographing the Lake Shore Limited is a tradition in our family dating back almost 40 years.
It was a clear afternoon. The Boston section of Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited was nearly on schedule.
The other day my father and I selected a location near the summit of the Boston & Albany at Washington, Massachusetts.
In this view, back lighting helps to emphasize the train. The angular shape of Amtrak’s General Electric P42 diesel-electric catches the light nicely while the front-end is in a shadow, which draws the eye to it as the primary subject.
Using my FujiFilm X-T1 I set up a view that places the train in the left-hand portion of the image, while featuring the pastoral autumnal scenery on the right.
On Sunday October 11, 2015, my father and I drove over the Berkshires to travel and photograph’s Berkshire Scenic’s Hoosac Valley excursion that is now operating on a short portion of the old Boston & Albany branch between Renfrew in Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts.
This presented an opportunity to travel in an old Budd RDC and ride a rarely used portion of the Boston & Albany. This new excursion service had only begun on the previous day, and should run over the next few weekends.
Berkshire Scenic’s former Boston & Maine Budd-built RDC. Lumix LX7 photo.Berkshire Scenic train departing Renfrew. FujiFilm X-T1 photo.
At Renfrew I met my friends Otto Vondrak, and Kevin Chittenden. Kevin was the engineer for the day.
The weather was nearly perfect—clear polarized sunny skies.
On the only hitch was that a day or two earlier the RDC had developed an electric fault, and as a result was being towed/propelled by a vintage EMD SW8 switcher.
My Irish friends will note that this 800 hp locomotive is remarkably similar to CIE’s Class 121s (also built by EMD).
I made this selection of photographs with my Lumix LX7 and FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera. However, I also exposed a few colour slides with my father’s Leica M4 with 35mm Summilux lens.
Thanks to everyone at the Berkshire Scenic/Hoosac Valley for making this an enjoyable day out.
Otto and Kevin at Renfrew, Mass. Lumix LX7 photo.Lumix LX7 photo.Interior view of the RDC. Lumix LX7 photo.Ticket collection on board. Lumix LX7 photo.Lumix LX7 photo.
On the evening of July 6, 2015, I arrived in Palmer in time to find Mass-Central’s daily freight getting ready to head up the Ware River Line.
I relocated to a favorite location on the branch along Route 181 to make this image of the Mass-Central freight on the branch.
Exposed using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera. 32 years ago, I made a photograph from a similar angle of Mass-Central 2100 working a freight. Today the track has never looked so good on the branch!
Years ago, the former Boston & Albany ‘West End’ was among my favorite places to photograph. The cosmic qualities of the railroad’s east slope of Washington Hill seemed to offer unlimited vantage points.
This can be a serene place, especially in the early morning.
B&A’s Washington Hill grade (1212 line relocation) near milepost 130.
On one of the longest days of the year, I made my way trackside, and revisited places that I haven’t been to in several years.
At Middlefield, I met fellow railroad photographer Don Pasquarelli and we compared experiences.
Looking east.In the pre-dawn glow, I watched CSX Q293 change crews at Palmer. More than two hours later it was climbing toward Washington Summit. Fujifilm X-T1 photo.
These days, the old B&A route is not as busy as I recalled it from Conrail days in the 1990s. Back then a traffic swell had the railroad alive with trains in the morning. Based on my old photo notes, I’d expect to see as many as ten trains between dawn and lunch time.
By contrast, on this June morning we saw five moves over the railroad, which was two more than I expected. But today’s trains are only part of the story. For me, the B&A West End is now more about the place than about what passes through it.
The sound of the lead SD70MAC’s dynamic brakes preceded the passage of CSX Q022 by several minutes. Exposed with my Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera.On the westend it helps to know your locations. Over the years I’ve learned that in the long days of summer, there’s nice light on this tangent in the morning. It also helps to have goat-like agility to get into position ahead of the train.Hours pass between trains. Shortly before the noon-hour, CSX Q-264 came east with more than a mile of autoracks in tow.
I’d learned via Facebook that it was Railroad Illustrated’s annual ‘Day in North America.’ The day dawned cloudless and bright, and while I had a full schedule of events for the day, I opted to make the most of the first part of the morning.
I’d stopped into Palmer, where I’d found a couple of New England Central locomotives in the yard. Then opted to travel up the Quaboag River Valley.
This landed me at my familiar spot in the old Warren, Massachusetts yard. My knowledge goes back a good long time. While there’s not been a switch in the Warren ‘yard’ in my lifetime, although I can recall when the line was double track, and the old Warren Crossovers were around the corner to the east.
Way back in the day (and that day was more than 60 years ago) Warren was served by a local freight. Go back even further and there was really quite the complex of tracks at Warren.
Now a carwash occupies part of the property. Yet the old passenger and freight stations survive, and someone has put some effort into fixing up the windows in the passenger station.
I contemplated all of these things while patiently waiting for a wheel to turn.
Then the phone rang . . .
Doug Moore, a loyal Tracking the Light reader (and sometimes proofreader and fact checker) said to me, “there’s an eastbound piggyback train through West Warren, it should be to you shortly! I’d seen your car parked there by the station.”
Hooray for good information! (Thanks Doug).
Without a moment to waste, I sprung into action, made my test photos, when the train roared into view, I exposed these photos with my Fuji X-T1 (and also a super-wideangle view on Provia with my EOS 3).
An eastward CSX intermodal train, probably Q012, approaches Warren. Exposed with a Fujifilm XT1 digital camera.A closer, more traditional view from the same location. Exposed with a Fujifilm XT1 digital camera.
The Boston & Albany yard may be gone, but the mainline lives on.
Today, May 9, 2015 has been deemed ‘National Train Day’.
My participation with this event was to mark the passage of Amtrak 449, the westward Lake Shore Limited.
So, with this in mind, a little while ago I positioned myself along Route 67 east of Palmer, Massachusetts at a time-honored location along the Boston & Albany route. (Time-honored = I’ve made photos here many times before).
Here was my test photograph exposed at 2:37pm. An hour and five minutes later Amtrak 449 finally past my location.
What I’d hoped would only take a few minutes, soon extended into an hour. So it goes when waiting for trains, even scheduled moves.
This was my first view of one of Amtrak’s new baggage cars.
Amtrak train 449 seen east of Palmer, Massachusetts at 3:42pm on Saturday May 9, 2015. Exposed with my Fujifilm X-T1 Digital camera.
The other day, I was on Main Street in Palmer, Massachusetts near the Day and Night Diner (where I’d just finished breakfast), when I saw an eastward CSX intermodal train approaching the Palmer diamond.
Fuji X-T1 photo of Palmer’s Day and Night Diner on May 1st, 2015.
In the lead was a 4700-series SD70MAC. Since in recent times, CSX’s safety-cab General Electric locomotives have dominated the scene on the old Boston & Albany route, I was keen to make a photo of this comparatively unusual leader.
Now, I’d been away for a while, so for all I knew, the 4700s had been leading every day for the last month. Or, it may have been the first time over the line since I was here last. Hard to know, but why take a chance. Plus it was as good as excuse as I needed for a time-honored chase up the Quaboag River Valley.
But would I make it? Intermodal trains can be nimble and tend to have a high horsepower per ton rating. There’s a speed restriction across the diamond, and I thought, if I moved quickly, I might be able to zip east toward Warren for a photograph.
First I had to navigate three traffic lights in Palmer. The first two I made without problems, but the third stabbed me. Soon, I was heading out of town on Route 20, but reasons beyond my understanding, the car in front of me dawdled.
I was even with the locomotives and gaining quickly by the time I’d reached ‘Electric Light Hill’ (where the right of way of the projected Grand Trunk line to Providence was graded to cross the B&A—a point so known for the nearby electric substation opposite the tracks).
At this point, the engineer should have opened the throttle to ‘run-8’ and been charging for the grade up the valley. By rights, I would have lost the race at that stage, unless I was willing to ignore the posted limit.
As it turned out, there was no need to consider such transgression of highway safety. The eastward train had begun to slow down. I surmised that it might be stopping at CP79 for a meet with a westbound.
A pair of CSX GE’s lead a westward carload freight past CP79. The eastward intermodal train would have to wait. Exposed with a Fujifilm X-T1 with 18-135mm lens set at 135mm.
Kudos to the dispatcher in Selkirk! It was a very tight meet. At the field near CP79 (where the long controlled siding that began at CP83 ends), I spotted a westward train and caught a photo of it from across the freshly greened fields. Yet, my primary subject never had to stop.
This meet gave me the extra couple of minutes I needed to reach Warren with ample time to park, adjust and set my camera and compose my images.
Eastbound at Warren. Just like back in the day when Bob Buck would photograph Boston & Albany’s Lima-built Berkshires working eastbound tonnage. Well sort of.
It’s a chase I’ve done many times over the last three decades. It helps to know the railroad. All was quiet in Warren that day, save for the roar of the train.
I exposed this black & white photograph on December 31, 1986. An eastward Conrail freight was rolling through Springfield (Massachusetts) Union Station.
I intentionally selected a relatively slow shutter speed to allow for motion blur.
Today, the scene has completely changed.
What to me seemed like a timeless scene back in 1986 is now a much dated image.
The buildings behind the freight cars are gone. The old 11-storey Hotel Charles was demolished decades ago, while in December 2014, the long closed baggage rooms and signal tower area of Springfield station were cleared away as part of a pending redevelopment of the facility.
Exposed on 120 size Kodak black & white negative film using a Rollei Model T with 75mm Zeiss Tessar lens. Exposure calculated with a Sekonic Studio Deluxe handheld photo-cell.
Even the old 50-foot boxcars are rapidly becoming scarce. This once standard vehicle is being supplanted by more modern cars with larger capacity. Anytime you see an old-50 foot car on the move (or waiting in the yard) it is certainly worth a photograph or two. Don’t wait.
On the afternoon of July 1, 2011, I heard a heavy westward freight ascending Washington Hill near the old Middlefield, Station.
It’s been a long time since there was a station here, but the site remains a dramatic place to photograph the old Boston & Albany line. I got into position for some photography. Nice afternoon sun and inky shadows; what’s the best way to work this?
Canon EOS 7D with 28-135mm lens set to 135mm; 200 ISO, f7.1 at 1/500th of a second. I set the exposure manually, using a meter reading off the ballast. If I’d let the camera program select the exposure, it would have likely over-exposed the front of the locomotive (in other words the front of the engine would appear too light.) The reason for this is simple; the camera meter program would have tried to balance the scene for the dark shadows. Here experience with the equipment, knowledge of the location and an appreciation for light and shade allowed for correct exposure of the scene.
To accentuate the effect of the grade, I used a telephoto perspective, while setting my focus on the front of the locomotive. I waited for the right moment when it was in full sun.
I made a sequence of images, but for me this one best captures the drama of the scene.
Here’s another gem from my Conrail files. I have tens of thousands of Conrail photos, many of them exposed in black & white.
This image caught my eye. November 1984 was a busy month photographically, and I exposed almost all my photographs that month with an old Leica 3A. (My original camera had suffered a failure, so I was using one of my dad’s.)
This was exposed mid-month, probably on a Saturday. I was traveling with some friends. We’d seen Conrail PWSE (Providence & Worcester to Selkirk, New York) working the old Boston & Albany yard in Palmer, and were heading west to find a location.
The train got the jump on us, and there was a panic as we saw the train racing west behind us: “There it is!” I made this grab shot looking down the road at North Wilbraham toward one of the few grade crossings on the B&A route west of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Conrail PWSE races across the grade crossing at North Wilbraham, Massachusetts in November 1984. Exposed on 35mm black & white film using a Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar. Photo cropped to eliminate unnecessary foreground. Notice my careful placement of the locomotives in relation to the trees and poles.
For me this captures the scene. North Wilbraham isn’t the most salubrious environment, but so what? Not every place is a park and it shows the way things were in the mid-1980s. I can hear ‘The Cars’ (Boston band) playing on the radio.
Need a close up of Conrail’s B23-7s? I have lots of those too.
Now wouldn’t this have been a cool angle 40 years earlier with one of Boston & Albany’s class A1 Berkshires hauling freight under a plume of its own exhaust?
It was an exciting time. Mass-Central had just recently acquired a former Santa Fe CF7, which to me seemed like a really exotic locomotive, and was running excursions over the old Boston & Albany line from Ware to Palmer, and Ware to South Barre.
My friend Bob Buck of Warren got involved with publicity while I made a point of both riding some of the trains and photographing them from the ground.
Exposed on 35mm black & white film using a Leica 3a with 50mm Summitar; exposure calculated with the aid of a Weston Master III photo cell. Film processed in D76.
This image was probably exposed on a Saturday afternoon in late September or early October. I’m not sure of the exact date because the individual negative strip has been separated from its original sleeve and my notes from the time are a bit minimal (and filed about 4,000 miles away). However judging by the foliage on the trees, it wasn’t too late in the season.
I’d followed the train down from Ware. It made a spirited run and approached each crossing with the bell ringing and horn blaring. Here a man has jumped off the engine to flag the difficult Route 181 crossing in Palmer, Massachusetts, where the tracks cut across the road at a difficult angle.
I’ve always liked this location because the line angles toward the road down a gently curving ramp with a row of trees beyond that makes the whole scene seem like a big diorama.
Back then, my photography was entirely inspired by the spirit of the moment and I didn’t put a lot of forethought into details such as location, lighting and composition. My mode was to ‘get ahead of the train then jump out and grab a photo or two.’
It was an even zero degrees Fahrenheit (that’s about -18 Celsius) when I arrived at the top of State Line Tunnel. A heavy blanket of snow covered the ground and I could hear a heavy CSX eastward train climbing.
The twin-bore State Line Tunnel is the only true tunnel on the old Boston & Albany. The older of the two bores was abandoned in late 1988 when Conrail single-tracked the line.
Driving east on the New York State Thruway, I’d noted the eastward freight crossing ‘Bottleneck Bridge’ east of the interchange with Taconic State Parkway. I knew then, that if I didn’t dally, I could get to the top of State Line in time to roll the train by.
I recalled a chase many years ago with Bob Buck in the twilight hour. When we arrived at this favorite location, I insisted on making black & white photos with my old Leica and ignored Bob’s advice to, ‘Save your film for a sunny day.’
Back to the present. Despite the cold, I set up my Bogen tripod and attached my Lumix LX7. The train whistled for the grade crossing west of the tunnel. Not much time. I made a test shot at 8 seconds. Too dark. Switching to manual mode, I set the camera for 20 seconds. I made an exposure just as the headlights were illuminating the curve.
Lumix LX7 test photo; exposed at f2.2 for 8 seconds. This was too dark for my liking, so I increased the amount of time the shutter was open to 20 seconds.The lights of the eastward freight have begun to illuminate the curve. Lumix LX7 at f2.2 for 20 seconds.
The view of the train in the photo with the Lumix was blasted by the headlights and isn’t very effective.
However, I had my brand new Fuji X-T1, but I hadn’t the time to figure out how to set it for long time exposures, I did make a few hand-held views at ISO 1250.
My first railway photos with my new Fuji X-T1 mirror-less camera were made of the approaching train at State Line Tunnel. I exposed for the snow and made the photos hand held. Too dark for my liking, but it catches the drama of the moment.
Then I exposed a view with the Lumix of the freight cars rolling below me.
CSX’s east ward freight passes below me. The quality of light offered by the full moon mimics the characteristics of sunlight, albeit at a substantially lower luminosity.
On this day in 2011 (January 31), I exposed this view of a CSX light-power move rolling westward through East Brookfield, Massachusetts on the former Boston & Albany mainline.
I used my trusty Lumix LX3, a camera with which I exposed many thousands of railway photos before it finally gave up the ghost.
ISO 200, f5.6 1/800th of a second. Notice that I’ve included the shadow of the lead locomotive at the far left of the frame. If cropped, this image would have less impact.
If you haven’t seen it, check it out! My eight-page exclusive Boston & Albany photo feature graces the pages of February 2015 Railfan & Railroad magazine.
Special thanks to Otto Vondrak for facilitating this article which features some of personal favorite photographs!
Tracking the Light Daily Post: A View from a Favorite Location.
For this photograph, I’ve selected an off-center composition and used strong side-lighting and selective focus to increase the sensation of depth.
Autumn on the Boston & Albany in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. An eastward CSX freight descends Washington Hill at the old Middlefield station-location on October 7, 2004.
At 3:35pm on Thursday, February 25, 1988, Conrail C32-8 6617 and C36-7 6622 chugged eastbound upgrade through Warren passing the old Boston & Albany station.
Conrail SEPW at Warren on February 25, 1988. Exposed with a Rolleiflex Model T with a 75mm Carl Zeiss 3.5 Tessar. Kodak Verichrome Pan (VPX) black & white film exposed at ISO 100 f4 1/250th of a second, processed in D76 1:1 with water. Scanned on an Epson V500 flatbed scanner. Image cropped slight from a 645 size 120 negative.
Waiting for trains at Warren, you can hear heavy freight coming for several minutes, as they labor on the grade up the Quaboag River valley. General Electric diesels make a distinctive sound as they gain speed. Usually by the time the train passes downtown Warren, the train is making a pretty good clip.
This freight was Conrail’s SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester), a working through freight that typically dropped cars at West Springfield and Palmer.
I’d been trackside since the morning, but spent several hours following a Central Vermont local freight working to Belchertown, and this was the first eastbound Conrail train I’d photographed, although I put several Amtrak trains on film.
After SEPW went east, I headed over to Tucker’s Hobbies (which was then on Bacon Street, within sight of the old station) to visit with Bob Buck.
CSXT eastward intermodal freight at Warren on October 20, 2014. Lumix LX7 photo. (Adjusted for contrast in post processing).Warren Station on Ocotber 20, 2014. Lumix LX7 photo.
Compare the 1988 view, with these photos I exposed few weeks ago at almost exactly the same location. (I posted a version of the action image in an earlier post, but I thought it made for a nice contrast.)
Since 1988, the old westward main line was lifted (it was out of service since late 1986), the code lines were taken down, the station has fallen into disrepair (it hadn’t served a passenger train since the 1950s) and the line has become rather brushed in. Step back to 1888, and there was grade crossing at this location, but that’s another story altogether.
A westward freight catches the glint of the morning sun. Would the photo be improved, if let the train come closer? I like the inky gloom on the right side of the image.
Working with my old Leica 3A —a camera I’ve been using on and off for some thirty-odd years—I made this image of CSX’s westward Q293 at Palmer, Massachusetts on the morning of October 5, 2011.
My lens of choice was a 21mm Super Angulon, which tends to vignette a little in the corners. I processed the film using my customized chemical formula that makes the negatives easy to scan. This image received virtually no post-processing after scanning, except to remove a few dust specs and to scale for internet presentation.
Sometimes the old cameras yield the most satisfying results. Some of my earliest photos were made with this same camera-lens combination.
Tracking the Light presents: Palmer, Massachusetts February 24, 1988.
In keeping with the spirit of Otto Vondrak’s Facebook challenge, I’ve dug into my scanned black & white negative file and found this old black & white photograph from the days or yore.
I exposed this using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T that was fitted with a ‘super slide’ 645 insert. I processed the film in Kodak D76 at the Rochester Institute of technology. Back in 1988, I made prints from the negative back, but the full-frame image presented here is from a scan of the negative made in more recent times.
For me the old Boston & Albany West end is hallowed ground. This was the first true mountain mainline in the modern sense. The line was surveyed in the mid 1830s and by 1839 trains were working over Washington Summit.
Over the last 30 years I’ve made countless trips to photograph this line and it remains one of my favorites. Yet, I rarely come up here in the winter.
On Friday, February 7, 2014, my father and I went up to Huntington to catch Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited, train 449. Not far behind was CSX’s Q427.
This freight runs daily between Portland, Maine and Selkirk, New York via Ayer and Worcester, Massachusetts. This day it had a pair of General Electric Evolution-Series diesels of the type that have come to characterize modern freight operations on the Boston & Albany route.
Since the train wasn’t making great speed, we pursued it on Route 20, stopping to make photos at opportune locations. At CP 123 (where the line goes from single track to two-main track) Q427 met an eastward freight holding at the signal. We continued upgrade ahead of the train.
I remembered that there’s a gap in the hills at Chester which allows for a window of sun on the line that lasts late in the day. So we zipped ahead of the train.
Working with my Canon EOS 7D and 200mm lens, I exposed a series of vertical images of CSX Q427 (Portland to Selkirk) as it passed through a window of afternoon sun.The dappled light on the trees and the dark shadowed hillside beyond made for a dramatic painterly back drop, while tree shadows on the foreground snow minimized the effects of glare and provided texture.
At Chester, Pop set up his tripod to make a hi-resolution video of the train climbing. I positioned myself with my Canon EOS 7D with a telephoto lens to make use of the window of sun against a dark background.
As the train grew closer I also exposed more conventional views with my Lumix LX3. The heavy train took more than two minutes to pass.
Difficulties of Photographing in the Spring and Summer.
That’s just what you want to read about right now, isn’t it!. Gosh, those awful warm months with the long days, soft sunlight and thick foliage.
Well, here I have two views, both made at about the same location off Route 67 in West Warren, Massachusetts at approximately the same time of the morning. Both views show a CSX eastward freight.
On July 31, 2010, an eastward CSXT intermodal train works the former Boston & Albany at West Warren, Massachusetts. At the time heavy line-side brush made photography challenging. Canon EOS 7D.This sequence of photos was made at almost exactly the same location, but after CSXT performed undercutting work and brush cutting along the Boston & Albany route. These views were exposed on the morning of May 10, 2013.Slightly closer view that nearly approximates the position of the train in the July 31, 2010 photo.
The first was exposed on July 31, 2010; the second two views were made on May 10, 2013. While I’ve used one of these views in a previous post (see: Quaboag Valley in Fog and Sun, May 10, 2013 ), I thought these made for an interesting contrast with the earlier image.
The primary difference is that in the interval between 2010 and 2013 CSXT cut the brush along the Boston line and performed undercutting work at West Warren. This is just one of many locations that benefited visually from such improvements.
A secondary difficulty about photographing when foliage is at its summer peak is selecting the optimum exposure. In the 2010 image, I took a test photo and allowed for some nominal overexposure of the locomotive front in order to retain detail in the foliage. I then made a nominal correction in Photoshop during post processing to make for a more pleasing image.
This is the ‘unprocessed’ camera-produced Jpg to show the slight ‘over exposure’ on the locomotive front.
Here we have an instance where everything came together nicely.
Amtrak 449 at West Warren, Massachusetts, 2:03pm January 24, 2014. Canon EOS 7D fitted with a 40mm pancake lens exposed at ISO 200 f5.6 1/1000th of a second. Camera RAW file converted to a Jpeg in Adobe Photoshop.
On Friday January 24, 2014, I’d got word that Amtrak’s heritage locomotive number 822 was working the westward Lake Shore Limited, train 449
This was the second time in a ten-day span that I’d be alerted to a heritage locomotive on this run. As noted in my January 18, 2014 post, Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited, the weather wasn’t cooperative on my previous attempt at catching an Amtrak heritage locomotive.
By contrast on January 24th it was clear but very cold. I opted to make the photo at West Warren, where it’s nice and open and there’s a distinctive landscape.
Normally, Amtrak 449 passes East Brookfield at 1:30pm, and Palmer about 1:50pm. West Warren is roughly halfway between them, so I aimed to be there no later than 1:35pm
As it happened, 449 was delayed on Charlton Hill and passed more than 15 minutes later than I’d anticipated. Other than resulting in my nose getting a bit cold, this delay produced little effect on the photograph.
I opted for a traditional angle because I wanted to feature the locomotive as the primary subject this scenic setting. I picked a spot on the road bridge over the Quaboag River where I could make a view that included the old mills and waterfall, as well as a side view as the train got closer.
Working with my Canon EOS 7D fitted with a 40mm pancake lens, I set the motor drive to its fastest setting, and exposed three bursts of images as the train rolled east on CSXT’s former Boston & Albany mainline.
Since the camera’s buffer will quickly become saturated when making multiple photos in rapid succession, I was careful to wait until the train was nearly where I wanted it in each of the three sets.
This tighter view offers a clean perspective on the equipment. I was aiming to feature both the heritage painted locomotive and the ancient baggage car. Word to the wise; get the old baggage cars while you can, they won’t be around forever.
Have you had luck catching Amtrak’s heritage locomotives? Do you have a favorite? Let me know! There’s a venue for comments on this blog, scroll down.
25 Years Ago, Conrail Demolished Palmer’s Boston & Albany Freight House.
During the 1980s, Conrail demolished many disused structures along the Boston & Albany line. The East Brookfield freight house went in 1984, Worcester’s went in 1986. In January 1989, I noticed that the railroad was preparing to erase Palmer’s B&A landmark.
The wrecking machine was parked out in front and had already taken a bite out of the northeast corner of the steam-era red brick structure.
Palmer freight station on the eve of demolition. Exposed with a Leica M2 in January 1989.
I proposed a short article to the editor of Palmer Journal Register. The newspaper supplied me with a roll of black & white film and processed it for me. I photographed the building from every angle and wrote the article that appeared about a week later.
Conrail made short work of the old building, which had stood at the west-end of the yard near Haley’s Grain Store. Today there is almost no evidence of the building.
For me it had been tangible evidence of the old Boston & Albany—never mind Conrail or Penn-Central. While its usefulness to Conrail may have ended, I recalled speaking with the agent there on various occasions in previous years.
I still have the negatives that I exposed with my Leica M2 and I’ve scanned these using my Epson V600.
Palmer freight on the eve of demolition. Exposed with a Leica M2 in January 1989.Palmer freight on the eve of demolition. Exposed with a Leica M2 in January 1989.
Amherst Railway Society‘s Big Railroad Hobby Show show is pure sensory overload. Everywhere you look there’s something or someone that seizes your interest. An old friend, an F-unit, a trolley buzzing underwire, video of a steam locomotive, the sounds of trains.
Paul Carver.Pioneer Valley Railroad‘s Dave Swirk.Dan Howard with the Seashore Trolley Museum.Wait, what? A vintage fishbowl bus? At the TRAIN show?!Caboose and a vision of Pennsylvania’s Martin Creek Viaduct in the distance.Lens-master George C. Corey.
Conrail’s sunday TV9 departs West Springfield yard at 3:55 pm on February 9, 1986. The film had a decidedly red color bias (Kodachrome as it aged tended to shift towards the red). This has resulted in a pinkish cast that is especially noticeable in the snow. The image is also off-level. I corrected these problems and others after scanning the slide. See below.
Here we have a typically New England scene; a fresh blanket of snow has fallen and the sky has cleared to a clear blue dome. Perfect light right?
Not exactly. The great contrast between the brilliant bright snow and the shadow areas makes for a difficult exposure. Complicating matters was Conrail’s rich blue paint.
While I was fortunate to catch Conrail’s TV9 leaving West Springfield Yard, I faced an exposure conundrum. If I exposed for the train, I risked grossly over exposing the snow, furthermore if I simply set the camera based on the snow on the ground, I’d end up with a pretty dark slide.
In the end I compromised, and stopped down enough to retain detail in the snow, while leaving the rest of the scene reasonably exposed.
However, 28 years later I’m still not satisfied with the slide.
There are three problems. I was concentrating on the exposure and the moving train (while trying to manipulate two cameras simultaneously) and I missed the level by about two degrees. Secondly, the Kodachrome film had a decidedly red bias, which resulted in pinkish snow (hardly what my eye saw that day).
I was easily able to correct these flaws after scanning the slide. I imported it into Photoshop and made three changes.
1) I cropped and rotated the image to correct for level.
2) Using the red-cyan color balance sliders, I shifted the highlights and mid-tone areas to toward cyan to minimize the excessive red in the scene. (cyan is the color opposite of red)
3) I made a localized contrast adjustment on the locomotives by outlining the area I wanted to change and then making a slight change using the curves feature.
I’ve illustrated the original unmodified scan two intermediate steps and the final image.
Here I’ve corrected the level; and using the color balance sliders I’ve shifted the color balance in the highlight and mid-tone areas to eliminate the pink-cast.The last step requires a subtle localized contrast adjustment. I selected the area to be adjusted and made a very minor change to the contrast and color balance. For this example I’ve grossly exaggerated the selected-area strictly to illustrate where I’ve made the changes. Obviously the extreme contrast change looks absurd when viewed out of context.Here’s the final image. One last change require the use of the burning tool; I made a few light passes around the seam between the area of localized contrast change to minimize the effect. My feeling is that if you can quickly perceive the adjustment, then the effect is too extreme.
They were Budd’s follow up to its successful stainless steel rail diesel cars built in the 1950s. But where Budd’s RDCs had established standards for self propelled diesel cars, Budd’s SPV-2000 didn’t measure up.
I think ‘SPV’ was supposed to mean ‘Self Propelled Vehicle,’ but all the railroaders I knew called them ‘Seldom Powered Vehicles.’
These were adapted from the original Budd Metroliner (MP85) car style and in the same family as Amtrak’s Budd-built Amfleet.
For a few years they were routinely assigned to Amtrak’s Springfield, Massachusetts-New Haven, Connecticut shuttle trains.
Silhouette of a Budd SPV2000 at Springfield Station on the morning of September 30, 1984. Exposed on 35mm Kodak Tri-X with a Leica 3A with 21mm lens.On the morning of September 30, 1984, Conrail B23-7s lead eastward freight SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester) through Springfield (Massachusetts) Union Station. A set of SPVs rests in the shadows. Although not the primary subject, I was sure to include the SPV2000s in my photograph. Exposed on Tri-X using a Leica 3A with 21mm lens.
I admit now that I didn’t like the SPVs. I didn’t like them because they were new, and I much preferred the traditional RDCs. Also, at the time, I found the round car style un-photogenic.
Despite my dislike of the SPV’s, I photographed them anyway. While I wish that I’d made more photos of them, I’m very glad that I bothered to put them on film at all.
As it turned out, Amtrak appears to have disliked the SPV’s even more than I did! Their tenure on the Springfield run was short. By 1986, they’d been largely replaced with locomotive hauled consists. Other than my own photographs, I’ve seen very few images of these cars working on Amtrak.
A lone SPV2000 makes a station stop at Windsor Locks, Connecticut in May 1985. From my experience, it was relatively unusual to find single SPVs working in Springfield-Hartford-New Haven shuttle service. Exposed with a Leica 3A fitted with a Canon 50mm lens. Contrast controlled locally in post processing using Photoshop.
Here’s an irony: in retrospect I’ve come to appreciate the SPV’s. They were a rare example of a modern American-built self-propel diesel car, and to my well-traveled eye, I now find them very interesting. So, what seemed new and common, now seems rare and peculiar!
The Amherst Railway Society ‘BIG RAILROAD HOBBY SHOW‘ is on this weekend (January 25 and 26, 2014) at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachusetts.
Conrail C30-7 6608 pauses at Springfield, Massachusetts Union Station on March 31, 1984. Exposed on Panatomic-X ASA 32 (Kodak Safety Film 5060) with Leica 3A fitted with a 50mm Summitar.
I made this photo when I was a senior in high school. Paul Goewey and I’d planned to meet some friends at Springfield Station, and then drive north to photograph Boston & Maine at Deerfield.
While we waited for the others to arrive, I exposed a series of images of Conrail on the former Boston & Albany mainline. At the time, Conrail regularly stored locomotives between runs on track 2A in the station (at right). On the left is a set of light engines led by Conrail 6608, one of ten C30-7s.
More interesting is the locomotive trailing 6608, a relative-rare former Erie-Lackawanna SDP45.
The trip to the B&M was very successful and I exposed two rolls of 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X ASA 32 (Kodak Safety Film 5060) with my Leica 3A, and a couple of rolls of 120 B&W with my dad’s Rolleiflex. I processed all the film in the kitchen sink, using a crude formula of Microdol-X. I sleeved the negs and made 3×5 size proof prints.
The 120 negatives have been in my files for three decades, but the 35mm negatives had vanished. I have a photo album from 1985, with many of these images, but for years was vexed by the loss of the 35mm negatives. As a rule, I don’t throw photographs away.
The other day, I found a carton with school papers and photographs. There, at the bottom was an unlabeled crumpled manila envelope. What’s this? Ah ha!
It was chock full of negatives from 1984-1985. All missing for decades, many of them unprinted.
A raw negative strip from my morning at Springfield Station on March 31, 1984. Although stored in a manila envelop for the better part of three decades, the negatives were processed properly and kept flat in a cool dry place, and so remain in very good condition.
I scanned these negative strip on my Epson V600 scanner. Using Photoshop I cleaned up a few minor defect and made necessary contrast adjustments, then exported a reduced file size for display here. A photo lost for nearly three decades can now be enjoyed in through a medium I couldn’t have foreseen when I exposed it.
The Amherst Railway Society ‘BIG RAILROAD HOBBY SHOW‘ is on this weekend (January 25 and 26, 2014) at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachusetts.
Amtrak 449, in sun and rain; one day and the next. Last week, I was over in East Brookfield visiting the LeBeaus to do some videography for a music video. Dennis LeBeau lives a block from the Boston & Albany (CSXT’s Boston Line).
I said to Dennis, “I’m just going to nip down to the bridge to catch 449. It should be getting close.”
“Passes here every day at one-thirty. I’ll join you in a minute.”
I phoned Amtrak’s Julie (the automated agent: 1-800-USA-RAIL) to find out if 449 as on time out of Worcester. As it turns out, it departed Worcester Union Station 4 minutes late.
Worcester is at CP45, East Brookfield is CP64. It takes 449 about 25-30 minutes to run the 19 miles.
Since it was nice bright afternoon, I opted for a broadside view that shows a few of the houses in town. At 1:39, Dennis shouted to me from the road bridge, “He’s around the bend.” I was poised to made my photograph with my Lumix LX3.
This can be tricky since there’s really only a split second to get the train in the right place. If the camera isn’t cued up, all I’ll get is a photo of the baggage car. But I was ready, and put the train precisely where I wanted it.
Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited at East Brookfield, Massachusetts on January 13, 2014. Exposed with a Lumix LX3 at f4.0 1/1600th of a second. I selected a fast shutter speed to insure I stopped the train. When working broadside, the relative motion of the train to the film plane requires a fast shutter speed than when aiming at tighter three-quarter view.
The train glided through town. I turned to make a few going away views with my Canon, and said to Dennis, “You know that never gets old. I’ve been photographing that train since the 1970s.”
Dennis said to me, “I’ve been watching it since it was the New England States Limited, with New York Central E8s!”
A day later, I was in Palmer (CP83). The word was out that Amtrak 145 (one of the Genesis P42s in heritage paint) was working 449. The weather was foul, but since I was in town anyway, I figured I’d give the train a roll by.
It was stabbed at CP83 by a southward New England Central freight going into the yard, which allowed ample time for photos. Such a contrast in days. Pity the heritage P42 hadn’t worked west a day sooner.
Amtrak has painted P42 145 in its 1970s-era scheme. It leads train 449 which is sitting at CP83 waiting for a southward New England Central freight to clear the diamond on January 14, 2014. Driving rain was the order of the day. Canon EOS 7D with 20mm lens.
Amtrak 449, the Lake Shore Limited with E8As near Palmer.
For my eleventh birthday my father gave me a 1930s-era Leica 3A and a role of film (with more to follow).
Every so often Pop would gather my brother Sean and I into the car and head over the Boston & Albany (then Conrail) to wait for Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited. Back then, the train was still running with heritage equipment and typically hauled by fairly tired E8As.
If we were really lucky we might catch freight too.
Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited roars along on the Boston & Albany near milepost 81, two miles east of the Palmer, Massachusetts’s diamond with Central Vermont. I exposed this image in summer 1978. In a few weeks I’d start 7th grade. Weeks would pass from the time I released the shutter until I would make prints from the 35mm black & white negative.
On this day in summer 1978, we drove to Palmer. I think we’d started up the Quaboag River Valley, but realized we might not have time to reach Warren before the westward Lake Shore came roaring down the valley. So we reversed and picked a spot near milepost 81, not far from the Route 20-67 split (east of town).
We didn’t wait long. I could hear pairs of twin 12-567s working before the headlight a appeared at the bend near the old barn. And then there it was!
“I see it!”
I made several exposures with the Leica. Unfortunately, in my panic to capture the train passing I shook the camera, so the head-on view is a bit blurred.
I processed the negatives from this adventure in the kitchen sink and made prints that I placed in a homemade photo album. The negatives were well processed and have survived in good order. I scanned them a few weeks ago. My notes from the day appear to have gone missing though.
As 449 blitzed by, I made this trailing view looking toward the Route 20 overpass. My old Leica was a chore to use: Loading the camera was tricky; exposures had to be calculated manually with a hand-held photo cell; and focusing require lining up two ghostlike images while staring through a quarter inch auxiliary viewfinder. Processing the film was another unforgiving multi-step process.
Exposed with a Rolleiflex Model T on black & white negative film. Image scanned from a 5×7 print.
When I was growing up in New England, Penn Central was a railroad that everyone loved to hate.
It was hated for representing a decaying industry. It was hated for its unimaginative paint scheme and its Spartan image.
It was hated for not being the sum of its parts and not being the railroads that spawned it. It was hated for its financial debacles.
I didn’t hate Penn Central.
To me it was fascinating, and in my earliest memories, it was the railroad. It was E-units and passenger trains. It was GG1s under wire. It was yards full of freight cars worked by old Alco S-switchers. It was Grand Central Terminal and Boston’s South Station.
But by the time I really become conscious of Penn Central, it had already been melded into Conrail. I have a few true Penn Central photos, but they aren’t very good.
I made this image in 1986, ten years after Penn Central’s operations had been conveyed to Conrail. At the time I often made ‘details’—close up views of railroading.
For me the texture of the image shouts the ‘Penn Central’ of its detractors.
Blue sky and red signals; the old Boston & Maine-era searchlight protects the Bellows Falls diamond. In the steam era an old ball signal protected this crossing, then with Rutland Railroad.
Here, a potpourri of images illuminated the net; covering everything from unit oil trains to obscure eastern European transit. So, looking back, 2013 has been a productive and busy time for Tracking the Light.
My original intention with Tracking the Light was to disseminate detailed information about railway photographic technique. Over time this concept has evolved and I’ve used this as a venue for many of my tens of thousands of images.
Among the themes of the images I post; signaling, EMD 20-cylinder diesels, Irish Railways, photos made in tricky (difficult) lighting, elusive trains, weedy tracks and steam locomotives are my favorites.
Since March, I’ve posted new material daily. I’ve tried to vary the posts while largely sticking to the essential theme of railway images. I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts and will tell your friends about this site! There’s more to come in 2014!
Happy New Year!
Brian Solomon
Southern Pacific 7547 leads a manifest freight timetable east at Brock, California, on SP’s East Valley line on April 28, 1991. This 35mm Kodachome image was scanned with an Epson V600. Minor adjustments were necessary using Photoshop to lighten exposure, correct contrast and color balance. The photo is seen full-frame.Wisconsin Central as viewed from across a cornfield at Byron, Wisconsin on December 3, 1994. Exposed with a Nikon F3T with 28mm wide angle lens on Kodachrome 25 color slide film. Scanned with a Epson V600 scanner. No post processing except as necessary to scale image for internet use and insert byline tag.Bord na Mona trains are loaded with peat. A section of temporary track sits in the foreground. Exposed with a Canon EOS 7D fitted with a 28-135mm lens.New England Central freights 604 and 606 at Palmer, Massachusetts. Lumix LX photo.Exposed with a Nikon F3T with 24mm lens with R2 red filter on Fuji Neopan 400, processed in Agfa Rodinal Special.My known good spot: here a Bluebell train works the bank north of Horsted Keynes. Lumix LX3 photo.
Screamer kicks up snow near Shirley, Massachusetts. Canon EOS 7D with 100mm lens. Contrast adjusted in post processing.This tram was difficult to miss in its iridescent special livery.The National Gallery and Trafalgar Square are among London’s largest tourist attractions. This poster describes Victorian interest in art and places photography in period context. Lumix LX3 photo.In 1989, New York, Susquehanna & Western served as the court appointed operator of Delaware & Hudson. By virtue of the 1976 Conrail merger, D&H had been granted trackage rights on the former Erie Railroad route from Binghamton to Buffalo, New York. On this March morning, a new NYS&W General Electric led an eastward double stack train on the old Erie near West Middlebury, New York, 384 miles from Jersey City.Exposed on 120 Kodachrome transparency film with a Hasselblad 500C with 80mm Zeiss Planar lens
A study in motion: drive wheel, cylinder, valves and valve gear of locomotive 92212 at Kingscote. Canon EAS 7D photo.The former Pennsylvania Railroad Suburban Station as seen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July 2013. Lumix LX3 photo. I made this photograph with my Canon EOS 7D with f2.8 200mm lens, set at ISO 400 f 4.5 at 1/1000th. In post-processing I made minor adjustments to contrast and saturation to match how I perceived the light at the moment of exposure.
A landscape view of Irish Rail’s HOBS at Islandbridge Junction near Heuston Station in Dublin on August 2, 2013. Canon EOS 7D photo.Pan Am 618 roars west at Wisdom Way on November 21, 2013.Distant signal for Nicholastown gates. Nikon F3 with 180mm lens, Fujichrome slide film.Away we go into the sunset hot in pursuit of an oil train. Canon EOS 7D with 100mm lens set at f6.3 1/1000 second at ISO 200.First of four eastward unit oil trains; CSX K040 with a mix of CSX, KCS, and BNSF locomotives.
New England Central’s local freight with locomotive 3015 idles in front of the Palmer Yard (Massachusetts) office. I exposed several images, this one was at about 15 seconds.
The other night in Palmer, Massachusetts an arctic breeze was blowing, but that didn’t stop me from making time exposures to capture the holiday spirit.
I exposed these photos despite numb hands and cold feet. I used my Lumix LX-3 (choice night camera in cold weather) fitted to a large Bogen tripod.
Years ago, I fitted plastic-foam pipe insulation to the tripod legs (as per recommendation by experienced cold-weather photographer Mike Gardner). This makes it easier to handle the tripod when it’s very cold.
My exposures varied from about 1.6 seconds at f2.8 (ISO 200) to 25 seconds at f4.0 (ISO80). I set the camera manually using the histogram from test exposures to gauge my settings.
Christmas lights on dark nights make for exceptionally difficult contrast. If you overexpose to allow good shadow detail the lights get blown out (losing their color[s] as a result). Underexpose to feature the lights and the sky and shadows turn to an inky black.
Somewhere in between is a compromised setting. Rather than ponder the subtleties of the histogram as the blood in my toes congealed, I opted to take a series of images, one after the other, and select the best of the bunch in a warm environment later on.
Palmer’s star railroad themed restaurant is the Steaming Tender; this has been colorfully decorated with holiday lights. I made a series of exposures from several angles. This one was exposed correctly for the lights and looked good in the histogram, but appears too dark in my opinion. I prefer the image below.This is about one stop brighter. While I feel it looks better overall, one noticeable flaw is that the ‘Steaming Tender’ sign is overexposed and the lettering isn’t readable. Ultimately the solution may be to blend two images of different exposures in post processing, but I’ve not bothered to do that yet.New England Central’s 3015 pauses in the yard for a 25 second time exposure. I wonder if the car adds an element of interest to the photo? If not now, maybe in years to come. Lumix LX3 photo.Looking toward CP83 (interlocking at the west end of Palmer) and the old Union Station (now the ever-popular Steaming Tender restaurant). A westward CSX intermodal train from Worcester is gliding through the scene. I exposed this at about 5 seconds at ISO 200. It is about 1.5 stops ‘over exposed’ as per the camera meter, but by using a much lighter exposure I’ve captured the effect of the moonlit high clouds and textures of the snow. On the downside, some of the Christmas lights have blown out (become seriously overexposed).
At 7:00 pm on June 17, 1986, I used my dad’s Rollei T to capture this image of Conrail eastward freight SEBO-B crossing the Quaboag River bridge west of Palmer, Massachusetts.
In early summer 1986, Conrail was weeks away from converting the Boston & Albany route from a traditional directional double track mainline to a single-track line under the control of CTC-style signals with cab-signal. The first section to be cut-over to the new control system was between Palmer to Springfield, Massachusetts.
Among the results of this change was the abandonment and eventual lifting of the old westward main train west of Palmer.
I was well aware of this pending change and had been documenting Conrail’s work in the area over the preceding months.
On the evening of June 17, 1986, I focused on the westward main track at the Quaboag River bridge just west of the Palmer diamond as Conrail’s eastward SEBO-B dropped down the short grade toward the Palmer yard.
While the train adds interest to the scene; my main focus was the track in the foreground that would soon be gone. I made a variety of images in this area on the weeks up to Conrail’s cut-over day.
Photographing directly into the clear summer sun produced a painterly abstraction. I’ve allowed some flare to hit the camera’s lens which obscures shadow detail and makes for a dream-like quality.
Years after I exposed this frame, I moved to California where I met photographers that had perfected this photographic technique. Interestingly, railroad photographers had been using backlighting to good advantage for a long time. In searching through archives I’ve come across fine examples of Fred Jukes’ and Otto Perry’s works with similar backlighting effects.
Boston & Maine 1220 is a locomotive I recall well. The full-sized machine was a regular at East Deerfield Yard in the early 1980s.
Earlier this year, my friend Dan Bigda asked me to make photographs of his magnificent O-scale layout for a feature article in the January 2014 issue of O-Scale Railroading (recently published).
I made several visits and with the help of Dan Bigda and Dylan Lambert, I exposed several hundred digital images with three cameras.
For close ups and macro views I used my Lumix LX 3 and my father’s Lumix LX-7, while for telephoto images, I worked with my Canon EOS 7D.
Most of the scenes were artificially lit with hot lamps. I positioned twin Lowel halogen lights on tripods to emulate natural light. Depending on the scene, I worked with blend of direct light with light diffused with photo umbrellas.
Almost all the photographs required long exposures and most were made with the aid of a tripod.
Dan’s layout features some fascinating structures, and I made a special effort to capture these as well as making images of the trains. Also, Dan has a great collection of O scale freight cars and well weathered locomotives.
The layout recreates the setting of New England industrial railroading as it looked from the late 1960s until the early 1980s.
It’s a look back on the early Penn Central years when GP9s still ruled New England branch lines. Canon EOS 7D photo.Hampden Terminal Railroad blends elements from a variety of New England railroads. Equipment includes Mass-Central’s Whitcomb 44-ton diesel as well as a good variety of Penn-Central, Conrail and Boston & Maine equipment.The layouts main attractions include complex mills, factories and warehouses typical of New England mill towns such as Ware, Holyoke, and Lowell, where I often photographed years ago.I exposed this view of Dan’s model of the Bondsville trestle using my Canon EOS 7D fitted with 100mm telephoto. I’ve set up two Lowel halogen lamps; one with an umbrella for an overall diffused light, the other I’ve focused on the train to simulate afternoon summer sun.Freight cars are an important part of Hampden Terminal, so I staged a variety of images that focused on the cars rather than on the O-scale locomotives. For these extreme close-up views I used my Lumix LX3 and focused the camera manually. I then set the self-timer to minimize vibration during the exposure. I set the aperture manually, and selected the smallest possible sized aperture hole (which confusingly is identified with the largest ‘f-number’), in this case ‘f 8’. In addition to my lamps, this image has caught a bit of daylight from the windows above the railroad.I’m partial to pairs of EMD switchers running with cabs facing out.
Erie Railroad Mallet compound steam locomotives neither fit Dan’s period or location, but since he had one of these locomotives on hand, I included it anyway. I’ll admit, that the Erie 0-8-8-0 Camelback Mallets are among my favorite steam locomotives and I couldn’t resist posing one on the Hampden Terminal!
For this view I opted to emulate the lighting on a bright overcast day. Penn-Central black seemed to photograph well on dull days so I went with what worked best on the prototype.I often use the backlit ‘glint’ effect for my prototype photos, so I thought I’d try this on the O-scale railroad as well. As with the Erie Mallet, Dan’s Boston & Albany tank engine doesn’t exactly fit with the period, but I like it anyway! For this view I surrounded the engine with New Haven Alco road-switchers since these locomotives may have coexisted in Framingham or South Boston.Penn Central makes for a fascinating subject to model. Here I’ve emulated late afternoon sun using the halogen lamps. Canon EOS 7D photo.Dan’s Hampden Terminal is really a big model railway. While many of my photographs are focused on specific scenes, this view gives a sense for the greater railroad with the tracks extending out of the frame at the top right. Lumix LX3 photo.I exposed this image with natural light. Dan’s Warren truss crosses in front of a window making for a nice silhouette.
