On the way toward the interchange in Palmer, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Central’s former Boston & Albany Ware River Branch follows and crosses state Route 181.
So often I have driven this way.
Catching a train here isn’t especially difficult since it runs southbound most weekday afternoons, but making a photo without any highway traffic in the way can be really challenging.
All it takes is one truck or a school bus to pull up to the crossing at the last minute and the whole scene changes, and usually not for the better!
Back in March 1984, I wandered down to Palmer with my dad’s Rolleiflex Model T loaded with Tri-X.
It was a miserable day; typical early of early Spring wet, clammy and dark.
Yet, Conrail was running trains. A westward midday freight (remember those?) was blocked at the diamond for a Central Vermont train.
Using the Rollei’s square format, I composed some interesting images. Conrail’s Boston and Albany was still a directional double-track railroad back then. This was before the modern signals and single tracking that began in 1986.
I took the negatives home and processed the negatives in the sink, as I often did in those days. I was using Microdol-X for developer. I was cheap, and my developer was rather depleted by the time I souped this roll.
The result; unacceptably thin negatives that wouldn’t print well, even when subjected to a number 4 polycontrast filter.
Poor show! These negatives were thin and very hard to print. At the time it wasn’t worth my time to mess about with them. Thankfully I saved them for more than 30 years. Despite under processing, most of the essential information necessary for an acceptible image was retained in the original negatives. This is the unmodified file.
It was a just a dark day in Palmer. Conrail in 1984 was common for me, so I sleeved the negatives, filed them away in an envelope and that was that.
Until a little while ago, when through the improved tools available to me through Lightroom, I was able to finally get the results I desired from these old photos.
A few easy adjustments in Lightroom and I was able to extract most of the detail I saw back on that March 1984 day. Now I have some suitable dramatic images from a favorite period on the railroad.
After nearly 32 years, they are looking pretty good now!
