On August 5, 1984, my late friend Robert A. Buck gave me an unforgettable tour of the Bangor & Aroostook in central Maine.
Among the stops on our trip was a brief visit to the disused tower at Lagrange. If you look to the right you can see Bob and his famous green van through the weeds.
I exposed this photo on Kodak Plus-X using an old Leica 3A with a Canon f1.8 50mm screw-mount lens. I processed the film in Kodak Microdol-X and stored the negatives for 35 years in an envelope. Last month I scanned the negatives using an Epson V750 scanner.
In January 1994, my father and I paid a visit to Perris, California, where I made some photos of this pair of rebuilt Santa Fe EMD diesels, along with the railroad station before proceeding to the Orange Empire Railway Museum.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Nikkormat FTN with Nikon 28mm AF wide-angle lens.
Santa Fe 2725 was a GP30u, which lost the characteristic semi-streamlined cab roof when rebuilt from a GP30 in the early 1980s.
On September 17, 2019, I exposed this photograph of southward DB IC train 1919 rolling along the left bank of the Rhein near Boppard using a Nikon F3 with 50mm lens and loaded with Fuji Provia 100F.
I scanned the slide with an Epson V750 scanner and made final adjustments using Lightroom.
Pure GP35s are rare in 2019. Pure high hood GP35s are rarer still.
Conway Scenic’s high-hood GP35 216, originally a Norfolk & Western locomotive, basks in the cold morning sun at North Conway, New Hampshire on Saturday, December 7, 2019.
Just imagine the roar! Conrail C30-7 6600 leads three former Erie-Lackawanna 20-cylinder EMDs!
So far as I can remember, this was the only time I caught an SDP45 (second unit) hard at work on the Boston Line.
I made these views of an uphill BAL (Ballast train) at Middlefield, Massachusetts on a day’s photography with my old pal TSH on a beautiful spring evening in June 1984. I was a week away from my high-school graduation.
My only regret is that I didn’t have better photography skills and better equipment.
Yesterday I scanned this 20-year old slide of an eastward CSX freight passing the signals at CPRJ—Rotterdam Junction, New York.
I’d exposed the slide using my first Nikon N90S on Fujichrome Sensia RA slide film.
I made great use of the Nikon N90S, and when I wore out the first one, I bought another.
Oddly, when reviewing my slides, I find that my work with the N90S wasn’t as refined as the photographs that I made with either my Nikon F3 (with which I used the same lens pool as the N90S) nor my Contax G2 rangefinder that had its own lenses.
I can’t really explain this phenomena, but I wish I’d recognized it sooner.
Notice the article ‘a’ rather than ‘the’. For today’s Tracking the Light, I am posting a view literally made from across a pond, rather than taking a metaphorical view from ‘across the pond’ (used as an ironic understated allusion for the North Atlantic Ocean).
You know, just in case there was any confusion!
This photograph was exposed last Tuesday afternoon, on Providence & Worcester’s former Boston & Maine Worcester to Gardner, Mass., route, and features the daily northward freight heading for interchange with Pan Am Railways/Pan Am Southern at Gardner.
Interestingly, I was traveling with Mike Gardner (no relation to the town), and this represented the fourth railroad I’d photographed on that Tuesday, November 26, 2019. Pretty neat! And with a cool pond too!
Yesterday morning (November 26, 2019) was misty with a hint of orange in the sky.
New England November mornings can make for cosmic settings for railroad photos.
I made my way to downtown Stafford Springs to catch New England Central’s 608 winding its way through town.
Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I exposed this 90mm view of the northward freight as it crossed Route 32 in the center of town at 717am. (A little earlier than I expected).
Three GP38s in the classic New England Central blue and yellow (or navy and gold, if you prefer) paint scheme were in the lead.
It was the start of an auspicious and productive day of railroad photography!
Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light Posts Every Day!
November sun and a little elevation is a good start.
I’d spotted CSX’s Q022 rolling across the Palmer diamond as I departed the old union station, where I’d pulled in to see if anything was happening!
(No scanner and poor timing on my part!)
Not a bother. I drove post haste west on Route 20 and Route 67 to West Warren.
CSX’s Q022 had a decent size train, but with nearly 9,000 hp leading in the form of a pair of GE Evolutions, the train made good progress climbing eastward through the Quaboag River Valley.
I had time to park at West Warren, Massachusetts and walk briskly to the South Street Bridge, an old standby vantage point where I’ve made countless railroad photos in the last 35 years.
Two weeks ago when in Dublin, I went to see the motion picture Joker, a dark film in a fictional New York City setting of the early 1980s, portrayed in classic DC Comics fashion as ‘Gotham’.
Story-line and characters aside, the film’s scenes, setting and lighting recreated New York City, especially the Bronx, as I remember it from visits with my grandparents in the 1970s and 1980s. Portions of the Joker were filmed in my father’s old neighborhood. My memories were of that stark gritty dark time when graffiti covered subway cars were the norm.
Since arriving back in the USA, I’ve delved into my collection of early photos from New York City, some of which embody that fascinating apocalyptic darkness conveyed in the film, yet were merely the products of exploration of New York with my family.
However, where the film portrayed misery, mental illness, anger and extreme violence in brilliantly crafted cinema-graphic excellence, my photos were the product of child’s view to capture an exciting, albeit dark place, filled with urban wonders, railways, and visually captivating scenes.
Like a muddy river, the chain link fence was both a feature and a barrier.
Some of my early NYC photos were exposed on color slide film, others were on black & white. Almost all were made with my vintage 1930s Leica 3A.
These views were exposed on a very gray day in 1981, when exploring the former New Haven Railroad lines in the Bronx, my dad drove my brother and me to the NYCTA’s Westchester Yards off the Pelham Bay Line.
This was on the flight path to Laguardia Airport, and as I photographed the subway trains, my brother spotted the planes landing.
I was sifting through some old 120 black & white negatives yesterday and found these photographs from a morning’s photography along the old New Haven Railroad in Connecticut from June 1986.
I started the morning in South Norwalk, then moved down to Westport.
Most of the photos from the morning were exposed on Kodachrome slide film, but I made a few select images on Kodak Tri-X using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T using a 645-size ‘superslide’ insert to obtain a rectangular crop.
Amtrak 904 leads the eastward mail train at Westport at 9:18am on June 25, 1986. Kodak Tri-X with Rollei Model T exposed at f8/11 1/500 sec and processed in Kodak D76 at 68 degrees.
Most interesting to me now are the views of Amtrak’s eastward mail train behind AEM-7 904. This carried a group of baggage cars at the back including some from VIA Rail.
While I have detailed photographic notes from the day, what I don’t have recorded were my thoughts on the experience at the time. This was one of several similar trips I made to former New Haven electrified territory in the summer of 1986.
Amtrak mail train with a VIA Rail baggage car.Catenary masts at Westport draw.
At the end of June 2019, I exposed a few frames of Ilford HP5 using an old Nikkormat FTN with 105mm Nikkor Lens of Conway Scenic’s 0-6-0 7470 working the North Yard at North Conway, New Hampshire.
Following my normal presoak procedure; I processed the film using Ilford ID-11 mixed 1-1 with water for 6 minutes 15 secs at 70F.
I made this telephoto view of a northward Amtrak shuttle (running from New Haven, Connecticut to Springfield, Massachusetts) using a Nikon F3 with a 105mm lens and loaded with Fuji Acros 100 black & white film.
I like the way the Amtrak train glints in the morning sun.
To maximize tonality and detail, I used a split-development process, first soaking the film in a very dilute mixture of Kodak HC110, then using a more concentrated mix of Rodinal for primary development.
Travels have kept me on the move. But last night I finally sat down with the paper copy of December 2019 Trains and read my column on page 13 that talks about New York Central and Conway Scenic.
Cover of Dec 2019 trains.
There I am on page 13!
Here’s the scene I wrote about in the column but didn’t picture in the article. I made a couple of color slides here too.
Stark winter light suits black & white photography.
Back in January (2019), photographer Pat Yough and I made a day of photographing New England Central between White River Junction, Vermont and Leverett, Massachusetts.
Among the trains we photographed was freight 611, the Brattleboro to Palmer turn.
I made these views near Northfield, Massachusetts on Fuji Acros 100 black & white film using a Nikon F3 with 50mm lens.
To maximize tonality and detail, I used a split-development process, first soaking the film in a very dilute mixture of Kodak HC110, then a more concentrated mix of Rodinal.
During October’s Cobh Rambler tour, I made these views at Cork’s Kent Station on Kodak Tri-X black & white film.
The tour was operated by Railway Preservation Society of Ireland in conjunction with Irish Rail.
Kent’s curved Victorian train shed makes for a fascinating venue to photograph a modern railway in action, while the inclement weather on the day translated well with the traditional media.
I processed the film using a customized split development process consisting of Kodak HC110 presoak mixed 1-200 followed by primary development using Ilford ID11 1-1. The negatives were scanned using an Epsom V500 flatbed scanner with some minor final adjustment using Lightroom.
Tuesday last week, my arrival at Sallins, County Kildare by Irish Rail suburban train was merely a jumping off for a much more productive photographic endeavor.
See yesterday’s post, SUBURBAN TRAINS PASS AT SALLINS.
So Tuesday last week, I met fellow photographer Aiden McDonald outside Sallins and traveled by road for another visit to Bord na Mona’s Lanesborough narrow gauge network. This was my fourth foray in 2019 photographing on this wonderful industrial railway, and my second in less than a week.
My first visit to Lanesborough was more than six years ago and of all the Bord na Mona systems, it is my favorite.
We lucked out and met the empty ash train immediately on crossing the line near Derraghan More, County Longford.
It was bright and sunny and followed the train all the way back toward the Lough Ree Generating Station.
This was just the warm up and for the next six hours we were treated to almost non-stop action on one of Ireland’s coolest little railways.
A meet with a pair of empty trains returning to the bog for reloading.
Sadly this is an Indian Summer for the system, both literally and metaphorically. Word to the wise: time is running short.
Photo adjusted with digitally applied ND Grad using Light Room. A bit heavy handed here by my normal standards of adjustment, but possibly necessary for a more successful image. Leading the ash train was one of the last locomotives on the Lanesborough system still working in the older Bord na Mona paint livery. This photo also benefits from wee bit of digital adjustment to the sky.
Most passengers were heading toward Dublin in the morning. I was heading into the country. That was my train at left.
Lumix LX7 photo.Lumix LX7 photo.
Most were undoubtedly heading off to work.
I was heading off to make photos.
But wait, was that work? Not in a conventional sense, but I worked diligently at making the best photos I could. Sallins was just the jumping off point—more soon!
Monday, 28 October 2019 was a bright day in the Irish capital.
Although the main focus of the day was catching Irish Rail’s IWT Liners and the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s Haunted Expresses, the weather was conducive to making captivating photos of the more pedestrian trains.
Photographer Jay Monaghan and I had spent the day traveling around Dublin, grabbing angles of the passing trains.
In the afternoon we made our way to the Claude Road footbridge west of Drumcondra Station and set up for the outbound RPSI train.
While waiting, I made this view of an outbound ICR (intercity railcar) working the afternoon Dublin to Sligo service. In the distance is the Croke Park stadium. Further, are the iconic ‘Chimneys’ or ‘Stacks’ for the Poolbeg Generation Station.
135mm view with a FujiFilm XT1.Wideangle photo exposed with a Lumix LX7.
Last night I processed a roll of Rollei 80S Retro that I exposed last summer.
The timing was apropos.
I made these images using my Nikon F3 with f1.8 105mm lens. My cousin Stella was visiting from the West Coast and we were exploring spooky graveyards in Western Massachusetts.
You may wonder why I waited nearly four months to process the film. Was it an infusion of Irish spirits and pucas that lent inspiration?
No, it was actually simpler than that. My preferred developer for Rollei 80S Retro is Rodinal and in Dublin I keep a healthy volume of this antique solution on hand. So I brought the film with me from America for processing in Dublin. However, distractions and writing have kept me occupied for weeks and I just got to souping the film last night!
I have an adjusted recipe for this very unusual film that yields stunning results.
Rollei 80S Retro will provide superb tonality, super fine grain, and a deep rich black when processed properly.
I’ll be posting more view to my Instagram account over the coming hours and days. See my photos on Instagram at: briansolomon.author
Tracking the Light looks to the Dark Side Tonight!
Last week it was dull and cloudy in Dublin. I was on a quest to find a bag for my vacuum cleaner, and was wandering shops and shopping centres on Dublin’s North Side.
During this quest, I called into the Hugh Lane art gallery on Parnell Square.
Now, I had no illusions of finding a bag for a Henry Hoover there. Instead, I wanted to gaze upon the paintings. You know, as you do.
Entering one of the galleries, a painting of a bridge immediately arrested my gaze. However, rather than merely wandering up to it, I first looked at the selection all around it.
This one painting stood tall among the rest. As it turns out it was a Monet of London’s Waterloo Bridge.
According the description, Monet had rented accommodation near the bridge, and painted this one bridge more than 40 times. Now that impressed me.
Also, in this painting, Monet opted to portray a dull, misty morning, when the combined effluence of smoke, steam, and pollution mixed with the mist to diffuse the light adding depth and mystery.
A few days later, I was in Drogheda, County Louth, where I aimed to picture Irish Rail’s immense Boyne Viaduct.
No mist and smog for me this day. But one bridge image tends to inspire another.
So here we have the down Enterprise Dublin to Belfast. (But that’s not the train I aimed to picture in Drogheda).
Next time in London, I’ll endeavor to photograph Waterloo Bridge. Although I doubt I can do it justice.
Oh, just in case your curious, I never found a bag for my Henry Hoover! These seem to be very elusive items in the Irish Republic, apparently.
Saturday, 26 October 2019, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland ran a series of trips using Great Northern Railway (Ireland) compound 4-4-0 number 85. on old home rails.
This presented ideal opportunities for photography.
Too often steam locomotives are operated mid-day in high light, which present poor conditions for photography. Saturday’s trips benefitted from low late October sun and cool conditions.
I set up at Laytown where late afternoon sun illuminated the viaduct over an Irish Sea estuary.
The clouds were a nuisance, with dark shadows covering the scene until moments before the locomotive charged northward across the bridge toward Drogheda.
I exposed this view using my FujiFilm XT1 with 27mm pancake lens.
Thanks to everyone at Irish Rail and RPSI for making Saturday’s steam trips a success!
Brilliant sunny skies in County Longford made for an auspicious foray into Bord na Mona country.
Finding narrow gauge trains is part of the challenge.
Last week I was traveling with Mark Healy and Aiden McDonald . I was acting as navigator, and worked with my iPhone and my collection of annotated Ordinance Survey maps as we scoured the bog lands looking for movement.
While the first couple of locations were quiet, when we arrived at this overhead bridge near the Lough Ree Power Station in Lanesborough, I spotted a laden train.
Within a minute, we could hear trains coming from both directions and were afforded a running meet! Neat!
I exposed these views using my Lumix LX7. Working in Lightroom, I adjusted contrast and exposure to compensate for the extremes between light and dark.
Years ago I lived a few blocks from the Grand Canal in Portabello, Dublin.
In more than five years there, I never once saw a boat traverse the locks.
Last month during a walk along the old canal with some friends, I watched a floating restaurant navigate one of the locks, which made for some 18th century entertainment.
I was driving from Madison, Wisconsin to Roanoke, Virginia on October 25, 2002.
I stopped at Cincinnati to make photographs of Fellheimer & Wagner’s art deco masterpiece: Cincinnati Union Station, a railway station inspired by Helsinki’s Main Station.
This was among the photos I made on Fuji Acros 100 using my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with the super wide-angle flat-field 16mm Hologon. I featured this station in my book Depots, Stations & Terminals, published by Voyageur Press.
Twenty eight years ago on this day, my brother Sean and I made a survey of the former PRR electrified mainline south (timetable west) of Philadelphia.
Rather than literal interpretations, I was aiming for something more interpretive.
I’d bought a roll of Kodak Ektachrome 160 slide film. This featured a ‘tungsten balance’ designed to work with incandescent lamps and so featured a very cool color temperature, which accentuates the effect of dusk.
My notes from the day are nearly 4,000 miles away, so I can’t tell you which suburban platform on which we were standing when I made this time exposure of a rapidly approaching Amtrak train in the blue glow of the evening.
What I remember most from that evening was a sky filled with migratory birds, chirping, singing and squawking as they flew by.
Tracking the Light Posts Everyday, sometimes more than once!
Last week during my exploration of Irish Rail’s Cobh Branch with Ken Fox, I made this photo looking across the water toward Marino Point as a 2600 railcar made its way toward Cork.
I was working my FujiFilm XT1 with 18-135mm zoom lens extended to its maximum.
In the rain we approached the ruins of the 17th century mansion house known as Kanturk Castle in rural north Co. Cork.
This spooky hollow of century old stones hints at ambitions long forgotten, banquets feasted upon, and a way of life long past. In truth, except for the brief description of the structure posted in front of it, I know virtually nothing about it.
Yet the ruins make for compelling photographs. I made these colour photos with my Fujifilm XT1, whie simultaneously working with a Nikon F3 and Tri-X black & white film. When I finish my current book project, I’ll process that film and begin scanning.
What do these photos have to do with railroads? Well, Ken Fox, Donncha Cronin and I came across the castle while we were following the abandoned branch that ran from Banteer via Kanturk to Newmarket. The branch ran nearby the old castle.
Ironically, while the castle ruin is centuries old and the railway was only abandoned in 1963, there’s precious little left of the railway line, and in some places we were unable to find tangible evidence of the line to photograph!
Last June, while working with the Conway Scenic Railroad I exposed this view of fresh green foliage at the Frankenstein Trestle on the line over New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch.
I was working with an antique Nikon FTN Nikkormat with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens.
I like the ‘fast’ 105 because it allows for very shallow depth of field at its widest aperture, while offering exceptional sharpness on the area of focus.
This effect is especially appealing as a contrast to many modern digital systems that offer razor sharp images with great depth of field in most circumstances. Focus, like other qualities, may be most effective when applied judiciously.
I exposed this image on Ilford HP5 400ISO 35mm black & white film. I hand processed the film. After a presoak with very dilute HC110 for about 5 minutes, I introduced my primary developer, Ilford ID11 developer mixed 1 to 1 with water, for 6 minutes and 15 seconds at 70F. By raising the temperature slightly and using a relatively dilute solution I controlled contrast while increasing shadow detail.
