In August 1981, my family and I set off to Pennsylvania in our 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser.

Among our holiday adventures was arriving at Enola on a sweltering hot afternoon.

The consensus was to find a place to stay. I wanted to see the famous railroad yard. The solution proved to be a motel called the ‘Summerdale Junction Inn’ (or something like that) which overlooked Conrail’s sprawling former Pennsylvania Railroad yards.

We requested a room trackside.

While the rest of the family relaxed by the pool, I attempted to make photos from the motel window using my father’s Leica M3 fitted to a Visoflex with 200mm Telyt.

At the time I was delighted to see so many locomotives, including a great many former PRR E44 electrics which had been recently stored owning to Conrail’s decision to discontinue its electric freight operations (long complicated story that will be addressed in my upcoming Conrail book).

This isn’t a great photo. There’s too many wires, too many bushes and the hazy light was less than ideal.

Glad I have it though. I may consider it for the book. Unless youhave a better view of all the stored electrics!

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!