It was 30 years ago today that I exposed this Kodachrome 25 slide at the east-end of Buffalo’s Frontier Yard.
In this view, there are two westward freights on the former New York Central Water Level Route.
I was fond of Conrail’s six-motor General Electric diesels, and C36-7 6620 caught my eye.
Looking east on the former New York Central on December 3, 1988. Kodachrome 25 slide exposed at f4.5 1/250th of a second.
My notes from the day have gone missing, which is unusual and annoying, because I’ve generally made a habit of keeping detailed note from each trip over the years.
However, I recall that I was traveling with Doug Eisele and Pete Swanson and that we made a tour of Buffalo area freight operations. I exposed this view using my Leica M2 with a 90mm Elmarit.
The day began bright and clear, but by midday clouds had rolled in from Lake Erie.
Tracking the Light Posts Every Day, sometime twice!
The Consolidated Rail Corporation began operations on April 1, 1976.
During the 1980s and 1990s, I made thousands of Kodachrome slides of Conrail operations. Conrail was divided between Norfolk Southern and CSX in Spring 1999.
In August 1988, I exposed this view from Tifft Street in Buffalo of a westward Conrail intermodal train working the Water Level Route.
Tim Doherty and I authored a book on Conrail in 2004.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Leica M2 and 90mm Leitz Elmarit lens. I cross-lit the train in an effort to emphasize the Buffalo skyline and help distinguish the four track line.
This Kodachrome slide has always resonated with me.
In North American practice, cabooses and stack trains were equipment from different eras that just barely overlapped.
During the mid-1980s, most class 1 freight carriers banished cabooses to operational backwaters. True, cabooses held out in rare instances (some can still be found), but they had been made redundant by technological changes and their once-standard operation finally came to an end as a side-effect of deregulation.
Another effect of deregulation was a more progressive environment that favored double-stacked container trains.
So, as cabooses were rapidly sidetracked, stack trains were becoming common on principal trunk lines. Since intermodal operations tended to run from terminal to terminal, these trains were among the first to lose cabooses.
I can count the number of caboose-ended double-stack trains I photographed on one hand.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 90mm Elmarit.
I especially like this view in a snow squall of a Norfolk Southern train carrying an Norfolk & Western caboose on the back of a Maersk stack train that had just come east over the old Nickel Plate route.
The background is the colossal and completely abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal, designed by Fellheimer & Wagner, and constructed by the New York Central during the false optimism of the roaring 1920s, only to open on the eve of the Great Depression.
The other day, I was searching for some images for a book project, and I discovered a long lost yellow box of Kodachrome slides.
In the 1980s, normally, I was pretty good about labeling my slides. This box simply read, “Buffalo unlabled”.
I thought, “uh oh, what’s this . . . ”
Like, pirate’s treasure!
I’d managed to stamp my name on each slide. And, back in the day, I removed a couple of choice images to make Cibachrome prints. But other than that this roll was untouched. These haven’t been projected, or printed.
Conrail light engines at CP FW, Buffalo. Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 200mm Telyt lens using a Visoflex.Conrail unit coal train at CP FW, Buffalo. Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 200mm Telyt lens using a Visoflex.Conrail light engines and a unit coal train CP FW, Buffalo. Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 200mm Telyt lens using a Visoflex.
Unfortunately, my notes from the day also appear to be absent, so some details on railroad operations and exposure data have been lost to time.
The slide mounts are stamped November 1988, but these may have been exposed on October 28th, as I spent the morning making industrial images around Niagara Falls for a class project at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
I’d walked the old Skyway south of downtown Buffalo to make photos of the steel works. At the time I was impressed by the dramatic lighting on Lake Erie.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Leica M2 looking west over Lake Erie from the Skyway.Exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Leica M2 looking west over Lake Erie.
Conrail westward Trailvan (possibly TV79) west of CP 5 on the Waterlevel Route near Lackawanna, New York. Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron on K25.Conrail eastward Trailvan stopped outside of Buffalo waiting for a clear signal. Leica M2 with 200mm Telyt lens.South Buffalo 36, exposed with Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron, K25 film.An old Whitcomb that had seen better days. I wonder what became of this locomotive?
26 years after being misplaced, I’m happy to have these slides back in circulation again!
