This features recent work and exceptional images for display and discussion.
On our travels around Boston two weeks ago, Kris and I changed trains at MBTA’s Government Center station.
40 years ago I photographed MBTA’s PCCs squeeling through these subterranean tunnels. Those cars are largely a memory, as are the Boeing-Vertol ‘LRVs’ that replaced them.
So on the most recent visit to MBTA’s Green Line, I made these photos of more modern trolleys in the arificial light of the subway tunnels using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
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When I was in high-school, the Monson (Mass) Summer Theater group rehearsed and performed the play Brigadoon that is based on a mythical Scottish village that only comes to life once a century.
Near the western extremities of Conway Scenic’s  former Maine Central Mountain Division route is a junction in the forest where the line running northward via Beecher Falls, Vermont to the Province of Quebec had deviated from the main stem to St Johnsbury.
A century ago Quebec Junction was a pretty important place on the Mountain Division.
This year some of our employees took it upon themselves to clear the undergrowth around Quebec Junction, New Hampshire, while the railroad’s Master Carpenter George Small restored the original shanty that had traditional stood here. The shanty had been privately owned and stored off railroad property for many years.
I worked with George and other members of the 470 Club to plan their annual outing over the Conway Scenic, and Quebec Junction was to be one of the highlights of the trip.
Working from photos that George had sent me and carefully gauging sun angles, I helped arrange for the train to arrive when the locomotives at the east end of the consist would be well lit by the sun. I also hoped to amply illuminate the long-disused diverging line to the left of the engines where speeder car TC 470, painted for Maine Central, was carefully positioned.
So for a few minutes, Quebec Junction was like Brigadoon.
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Ten days ago, I presented my Power Point presentation titled ‘Tracking the Light’—named after this blog—to the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts in the Pearl Street Station restaurant in Malden, Massachusetts.
I was allowed to open the back door which faced the Orange Line and former Boston & Maine commuter rail tracks.
Inside the station were paintings depicting how the station used to be.
Dave Brown of the Mass Bay RRE helped me work the computer that projected my pre-recorded program that featured 196 photographs.
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In the late 1980s Kodak introduced its new T-grain T-Max black & white emulsions.
I quickly adopted these new films in place of Kodak Tri-X and Kodak Plus-X.
After about a year of trial and error with the T-Max films, I opted to return to the more traditional non-T-grain emulsions. In the mean time I committed countless unrepeatable scenes to T-Max.
This photo features a freshly-painted (and only recently acquired) Guilford SD45 eastbound at Greenfield, Massachusetts. I exposed it on 120-size TMY (T-Max 400) film using my father’s Rollieflex Model-T.
Part of the difficulty was that I insisted on developing the film in straight Kodak D76 instead of the recommended T-Max developer. I did this to save money; when I was at RIT in Rochester (actually Henrietta), New York, photo students received basic photo chemistry as part of their lab fee, which meant I could get all the D76 I wanted without any additional cost, while T-Max developer had to be purchased.
What I saved in developer, I’ve paid 100-fold in laborious print making and difficult scanning.
However, using Adobe Lightroom I’ve finally been able to get decent tonality out of these 34 year-old photos.
The SD45 has always been a favorite locomotive, and at the time I was quite pleased to catch Guilford’s latest motive power in fresh paint.
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Last Thursday evening, October 21, 2021 (10-21-2021), as we rode north on MBTA’s Orange Line I snapped digital photos from the window of the train looking down on MBTA’s former Boston & Maine lines radiating from Boston’s North Station.
We paced an outward commuter train for about a minute.
This reminded me of similar efforts photographing trains through the glass when I was a teenager.
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Thursday, October 21, 2021, I had my first experience with MBTA’s new Orange Line subway cars built by Chinese firm CRRC in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It was odd for me because the ‘Old’ cars were delivered when I was in High School. I recall going on a Orange Line shop tour in 1983 with my old friend Dan Howard to see the ‘New Cars’ (now the ‘Old’ Cars). This had been organized by the Mystic Valley Railway Society.
Kris and I were on our way to Malden, Massachusetts so that I could give a talk on Tracking the Light to Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at the old Pearl Street Station.
I made these orange line images using my Nikon Z6 mirroless digital camera.
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This day has always been a special one for me!
On this day 36 years ago, I spent the afternoon making photos at Palmer, Massachusetts.
I exposed this image using my father’s Rollei model T loaded with Kodak VPX (Verichrome Pan) 120-size black & white film that I later processed in Kodak D76 developer.
At that time I was attending Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where I was studying photography and music.
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Yesterday, Saturday October 23, 2021, Conway Scenic Railroad hosted 470 Club’s annual autumn trip.
This was led by former Maine Central GP7 573 and former Boston & Maine F7A 4266 with Conway Scenic’s GP35 216 at the back for assistance.
I assisted with planning and executing photo stops. However, I had some other work to do on the way up the mountain, so I rode in the cab of 4266 (trailing westbound).
The 470 Club had arranged to display its other F7A, 4268 on the North Conway turntable. This locomotive rarely sees the light of day. It is a treasured antique that is undergoing a full operational restoration and has spent most of the last year in stall four of the North Conway roundhouse.
As we were departing North Conway, I made this unusual view of 4268 from the cab window of 4266 using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.
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Labor Day weekend 1978: my dad brought my brother and me out to roll by Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited at the route 148 overpass in Brookfield, Massachusetts.
Working with his ‘motorized’ (mechanical wind-up) Leica 3A, I made a rapid fire sequence of the train as it roared west behind E-units.
I processed the film in the kitchen sink and made a few prints, then for the next four decades the negatives rested quietly in the attic.
I used this Epson scan of one of the negatives from that day as one of the opening photos in my program titled ‘Tracking the Light’ that I presented live last night to the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at the Pearl Street Station in Malden, Massachusetts.
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On Tuesday, October 19, 2021, I caught Conway Scenic Railroad’s Mountaineer near the Gateway at Crawford Notch, New Hampshire.
This contrasty scene required a bit of adjustment in post processing to hold detail in the sky and shadow areas.
I like the orange tree at right that hints at the fading autumnal foliage of this supremely scenic area.
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In April 2003, I was traveling on rail-tour returning to Dublin from Belfast, when I made this pacing view of an Irish Rail DART suburban electric train rolling along on an adjacent track.
I was working with my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Zeiss Biogon, and loaded with Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film.
This is among the photos that I intend to present tonight (October 21, 2021) to the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts at Malden, Massachusetts.
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When I photographed Maine Central GP38 255 (and its sister 256) in the Bangor, Maine yard back in 1986, it was just another GP38.
Soon, if all plans come to fruition, it will become a regular sight in North Conway, New Hampshire, where it can again work Maine Central rails.
There’s a certain satisfaction in bringing the old locomotive back to home rails where it can rejoin its sister 252 to entertain legions of visitors on their travels through the Mount Washington Valley.
Bangor Yard and Kodachrome may have both gone the way of the Dodo Bird, but the 255 is still with us. I wonder whatever happened to 256?
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Late October traditionally represented the start of Irish Rail’s sugarbeet season. This was among the most intensive freight operations in Ireland and saw up to seven laden trains daily operated from the beet loading point at Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford to the processing factory near Mallow in Co. Cork.
In November 2005 halfway through the final sugarbeet season, I made this photo of laden and empty trains crossing at Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary.
Standing on the footbridge in the station, I working with a Nikon F3 loaded with Fujichrome. One of my favorite lenses at this time was a manual focus Nikkor f2.8 180mm, which saw good use during beet season.
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The former Maine Central Mountain Division is known for its Willey Brook Bridge that appears to cling to the side the rocks on Crawford Notch in New Hampshire’s White Mountains
This October on two occasions—ten days apart, I photographed Conway Scenic Railroad’s westward Mountaineer on its ascent of Crawford Notch as it crossed this iconic span.
In the first view, I stood line-side just east of milepost 84 and looked back toward Willey Brook.
For the second photo, I took a position well below the bridge, just off Route 302.
I used the same camera-lens combination for both photos: my Canon EOS7D digital camera with a Canon f2.0 100mm telephoto lens.
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Over the last ten days I’ve made several trips over Crawford Notch to capture Conway Scenic Railroad’s Mountaineer with the autumnal leaves.
I exposed this image from atop the Gateway cutting using my Nikon Z6 Mirrorless camera with f4.0 Nikkor Z 24-70mm zoom lens.
Backlit autumn leaves tend to appear more vivid as the sunlight illuminates the leaves like colored bulbs.
The classic Maine Central yellow was based on the yellow-orange color of the autumnal foliage.
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On the afternoon of 15 October 2016, I was poised with my FujiFilm XT1 to capture this westward CD Cargo freight on the roll at Zebreh, Czech Republic.
Fresh blue and gray paint on an antique electric locomotive made for an interesting subject.
Czech mainlines are extremely busy. Zebreh is located on the heavily traveled east-west trunk line that runs east from Prague to Olomouc and beyond. Every few minutes a train passes, including a variety of freights and open access passenger operators.
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Hey, I didn’t make this up.
On October 14, 2016 during our exploration of the Czech Republic, fellow photographer Denis McCabe and I caught this Metrans Container freight rolling through Kralupy.
I exposed this view as part of a sequence using my FujiFilm XT-1 digital camera.
Kralupy is a busy junction to the north of Prague, wear we witnessed a steady parade of freights.
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My late friend Robert A. Buck of Warren, Massachusetts was born on this day in 1929, and died on this day in 2011.
Bob was a great connector of people and introduced me to many of my life-long friends.
I made this photo of Bob holding court at the West Springfield Train Watchers in the summer of 1986. This loosely affiliated group of retired railroaders and enthusiasts would meet at the west end of the West Springfield, Massachusetts yard to watch trains and trade stories.
In the early 1980s, I’d often travel with Bob to West Springfield.
I made this view using my father’s Rollieflex model T with a 645-size insert to obtain the desired aspect ratio.
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The other day I was digging around for some Boston & Albany negatives that I’d exposed back in the 1980s in preparation for a program that I’m putting together for the Mass Bay RRE.
Among the negatives I found was a roll of Kodak TMY (T-Max 100) black & white film that I’d exposed with my father’s Rollei Model-T on December 28, 1987.
I’d followed the Mass-Central freight from Palmer up to Ware in a light snow fall. The train had stalled on Ware Hill, but eventually got where it was going.
In this view Mass-Central’s GP9 7015, a former Conrail unit, was holding the mainline, while Mass-Central’s CF-7 2443 switched at the southend of the yard.
It was a gray day, but well suited to the subtle tonality of the Kodak black & white film. I scanned the negatives using my Epson V600 flatbed scanner powered by Epson Scan 2 software. I made some nominal adjustments to contrast to improve presentation here.
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Yesterday (October 8, 2021), the 470 Club collected its latest acquisition from the New Hampshire Central interchange at Hazens in Whitefield, NH.
The 470 Club had taken possesion of Boston & Maine GP9 1741 (later Springfield Terminal 72). This was collected by the club’s 4266, an active former B&M F7A, which towed the GP9 east.
On its journey to North Conway, New Hampshire, this short train crossed the famous Willey Brook bridge at Crawford Notch at about a quarter to two eastern time
I made this photo for the Conway Scenic Railroad using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera from a vantage point on some rocks high above the bridge.
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Yesterday, I made this image of the Mountaineer descending at the Arethusa Falls grade crossing against a backdrop of autumnal foliage and the famous Frankenstein Cliff in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
A shaft of sun illuminated the front of GP35 216 which made for a tricky exposure.
I’d preset the camera settings in manual mode, anticipating the bright yellow front of the engine catching the wink of sun. Further adjustment of highlight and shadow areas was necessary in post processing.
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Last week I found the most dramatic light of the day on return to North Conway from Crawford.
I made this view at the Golf Course crossings timetable east of the Conway Scenic Station.
This is the unadjusted camera produced JPG, scaled for internet.
Exposed using my Nikon Z6 digital camera.
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On November 8, 2008, Chris Guss lent me his Canon 50D and we explored the greater Chicago rail scene making photos.
It was one of my earliest experiments with digital photography.
I made this photo of Chicago Metra commuter trains tied up at Kenonsha, Wisconsin.
About a year later I finally acquired my first digital camera.
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May 4, 2007, I was just back from England. Not yet over my jet lag, I drove in the Berkshires of Massachusetts to photograph CSX freights on the former Boston & Albany.
I made this view west of the rock cut at milepost 129, on the 1912 line relocation between Chester and Middlefield, Massachusetts.
A westward freight was led by an SD70MAC.
I’d exposed the photo using my Contax G2 rangefinder loaded with Fujichrome Velvia 50.
Although Velvia is an extraordinarily sharp film that offers tremendous dynamic range and deep rich colors, I’ve often found this to be difficult emulsion to expose properly.
The original slide is about 1/2 stop under exposed, which means its a bit too dark.
To correct for this flaw, I scanned the original using an Epson V750 flatbed scanner and imported the scan into Adobe Lightroom where I lightened the midtones, adjusted shadows, and corrected the color balance to compensate for excessive red/magenta in the processed chrome.
Below is the unadjusted scan (for comparison) and two versions of the corrected slide scan.
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In February 1985, my old pal TSH and I made a big adventure of chasing Guilford’s GP40-2 slug set (300-100-301) that was leading a westward empty coal train.
We picked this train up at East Deerfield Yard (near Greenfield, Massachusetts) and followed it west toward the Hoosac Tunnel.
TSH drove, I navigated and when we stopped line side, I made black & white photos using my Leica IIIA loaded with Ilford FP4 that I’d bulk loaded into reusable cassettes from a 100ft roll.
I exposed this view at the Rices interlocking along the Deerfield River near Charlemont, Massachusetts.
Today, this scene is very much overgrown, and the interlocking is long gone. For me the photo invokes the thrill of the chase on a cool stretch of the old Boston & Maine.
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Foliage season has begun in the White Mountains.
On Wednesday, I shadowed Conway Scenic’s Mountaineer on its ascent of Crawford Notch.
Ironically, one of the most dramatic unobstructed views of the line can be obtained directly off Route 302, the road which runs parallel to the railroad in the Mount Washington Valley.
I exposed this photo of the Mountaineer on ‘the Girders’ bridge near the scenic vista pull-off at Crawford Notch using my Nikon Z6 digital camera. I processed the camera’s NEF file using Adobe Lightroom to lighten shadows and correct the color temperature, while nominally boosting saturation.
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I’m not suggesting a fix for Conrail or its aftermath, just a few adjustments to a 24-year old Kodachrome slide.
Two weeks ago, I located this slide in my collection and scanned with with an Epson V750 flatbed scanner driven by Epson Scan 2 software.
This portrays an eastward Conrail freight on the Boston & Albany near West Warren, Massachusetts, where the railroad crosses the Quaboag River. I’d exposed it on May 5, 1997.
In my view the photo is imperfect: The level is seveal degrees off, I’d missed the reflection in the river, the lighting is a bit high and harsh, my exposure was about one half stop too dark, and the processing left the image with a red-magenta tint.
I can’t fix the lack of reflection, but I addressed most of the other imperfections using Adobe Lightroom. In less than ten minutes, I was able to import, correct and export the improved image.
For comparison, I’ve included both the uncorrected scan (scaled for internet) and my corrected photograph.
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When I was at the Rochester Institute of Technology, one of my professors discussed the ‘Ratio of Success’, which defined how many photos you typically took in order to get a really good one.
By one standard this averaged about one per roll of film. Or a ratio of 1 to 36.
For the last three days on Tracking the Light, I’ve been displaying photos from a single roll of Kodak Plus X exposed on Conrail’s former Pennsylvania Railroad lines back in the summer of 1989.
I wouldn’t want to bore everyone by displaying all 36 frames, but lets just say, on this day I was having a better than average ratio of success!
This one portrays a Conrail unit grain train descending ‘The Slide’ east of the tunnels at Gallitzin, Pennsylvania.
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Here’s another frame from a roll of 35mm Plus X exposed on a summer 1989 trip to the old Pennsylvania Railroad with my old pal TSH.
Until today, this picture has not seen the light of day.
I processed the film 32 years ago in Kodak D76, sleeved the negatives, and made a select few prints, of which this image was not one of them.
It was a dull day, and I was working with a tight budget, where I saved my Kodachrome for the best shots. What seemed a bit pedestrian in 1989, really captures my attention now.
I like the photo today because it frames the desceding train in the steam-era PRR signal bridges, features the famous MG Tower (recently demolished by Norfolk Southern), and captures the drama of a heavy train bathed in brake shoe smoke. It is an image from another era, now gone.
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Working with a Leica M3 fitted with a 50mm Summicron, I exposed this photo of Conrail SD45-2 6666 on the wye at Cresson, Pennsylvania in July 1989.
I loaded the camera with Kodak Plus-X (ISO 125). Interestingly, back then I rarely used this once-popular film in the 35mm format as instead I tended to prefer either Kodak’s Tri-X (ISO 400) or Ilford FP4 (ISO 125).
I don’t recall why I opted for Plus-X on this day at Cresson, but reviewing my negatives, I now find that this fllm offered pleasing tonality and I wish I’d tried it more often!
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There was a thrill of listening to an eastward freight ascending the Boston & Albany grade on approach to Warren, Massachusetts and wondering what locomotives would round the corner.
In February 1984, I was in my final term of high school. It was a warm weekend morning when I visited Bob Buck’s Tucker’s Hobbies. Bob advised me of an approaching Conrail freight and I walked briskly to the Route 67 bridge east of the old passenger station, where I made this photo.
The freight was led by an eclectic collection of EMD and GE diesels. It was one of only a very few times that I caught a GP35 leading a freight on the Boston & Albany.
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In February 1984, I made this view of Amtrak RS-3 No. 120 switching a heritage sleeping car in the rain at South Station, Boston using my old Leica IIIA with 50mm Summitar lens.
Virtually nothing of this scene remains today.
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Immediately south of the old Central Vermont Railway yard at Brattleboro, Vermont is a causeway across the Vernon Backwater of the Connecticut River.
This is another old favorite place of mine to picture trains on the move.
Today, brush growing on the causeway poses a visual challenge. Where years ago the causeway offered an unobstructed view of a train, today, careful positioning is necessary to avoid cropping the front of the locomotive as it works its way south over the man-made fill.
The other day Kris and I visited this location, arriving just a few minutes before Amtrak’s southward Vermonter was expected.
I made this photo using my Nikon Z6.
I scaled the in-camera JPG using Lightroom, without making modifications to density, color temperature, contrast, or color balance.
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The other day, Kris and I intercepted Amtrak’s northward Vermonter, train 54, crossing the former Boston & Maine bridge at Cheapside in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
For me the train was the ‘frosting’. The cake is the cool 1920s-era deck truss bridge.
I’ve driven by this structure hundreds of times, but only rarely photographed trains on it.
Catching Amtrak in low afternoon sun made for excellent conditions to make the most of the bridge.
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Friday, September 17, 2021, Kris and I photographed a southward New England Central freight at State Line Crossing on the boundary between Monson, Massachusetts and Stafford, Connecticut.
Later the same day, I located a print of a black & white negative of a southward Central Vermont Railway freight at the same location exposed c1984.
Since I located the black & white photo after making the contemporary view, the modern photos do not represent an effort to recreat the earlier image. Instead they show how my views of trains at this location have evolved over the last 37 years, and how the trees have grown!
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My first photos along the Ware River Line, the former Boston & Albany operated by Massachusetts Central date from about 1981.
Last Thursday, Kris and I were driving south along Route 32 in Hardwick, when I heard the telltail squeal of steel wheels on steel rails.
The tracks were shiny at the grade crossing in Gilbertville, so I surmised that the train was southbound.
We zipped ahead and set up at the grade crossing at Church Street in Ware.
We didn’t wait long before Mass-Central’s southward freight came into view.
I made this digital photo with my Nikon Z6 while Kris captured a video of the train with her phone.
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