On the afternoon of 23 January 2005, I aimed my Nikon F3 with 180mm telephoto at an Irish Rail passenger train approaching Cherryville Junction in Co. Kildare.
A ten-year old Class 201 General Motors diesel led the afternoon Up Waterford that consisted of a set of Cravens. These rolling antiques were steam heated and nearing the end of their regular revenue service.
I captured this once-common scene on Fujichrome. The lush green grass and distant mountains making for a distinctly Irish landscape.
In those days, I regularly paid visits to Cherryville Junction. This offered a great place to picture Irish Rail on the move. I can’t recall the last time I paused at this bridge over the tracks. Much has changed in the last two decades and Cherryville isn’t as interesting to me as it was in those days. Yet, someday, I hope to return and make some comparison photos.
On the evening of February 25, 2013, I was walking along the wall on the St. Johns Road in Dublin. There’s a low spot where a few stones have been dislodged, and it was here I peered over the wall.
A Cork train was heading down road behind 201-class 219. Working with my old Lumix LX3, I exposed this pan photo.
Irish Rail 219 departs Dublin Heuston Station on February 25, 2013.
The original file was a bit dark, so I lightened the camera-RAW file using Lightroom and scaled it for presentation here.
On a day trip to Cork City (Ireland) in April 2002, I made this photo using my Contax G2 rangefinder on Kodak Tri-X.
I had the camera fitted with a 45mm Zeiss lens. Key to the image tonality was an orange filter, which gives the photo a contrasty snap with lots of texture in the sky while lightening the rendiition of the shade of orange paint on the class 201 diesels.
Kent Station, Cork, Ireland, April 2002.
I’d processed the film using a custom mix of Ilfotec HC.
To scan the film, I used my Epson V600 flatbed scanner with Epson Scan 2 driving software. I made nominal adjustments to contrast using Adobe Lightroom.
