Working with a Leica and Visoflex reflex-viewing attachment mounted on a tripod, I exposed this Kodak Kodachrome 64 slide with a 200mm Leitz Telyt telephoto lens.
Looking toward the skylights of New York Central’s architectural masterpiece.
I calculated the exposure using an old GE handheld light meter, which I promptly dropped on the floor of the famous New York City terminal, destroying the device’s sensitive electro-mechanical photocell and needle.
That was back in 1986.
It turned out that my meter had been giving me hot readings. After I bought a new meter a couple of days later, I began obtaining more accurate daylight readings and better overall Kodachrome exposures.
However, because the meter had been encouraging me to ‘over-expose’ (allow more light to reach the film than I intended), I actually produced a better color slide here at Grand Central Terminal, because slight over-exposure was necessary to balance the lighting and bring out the grandeur of the architecture.
If I’d exposed as I intended, my photo would have appeared darker. So, what makes this photo effective was the result of accidental relative over-exposure. How about that?
On Thursday December 10, 2015, my father and I traveled on Metro-North to Grand Central Terminal.
West Haven, Connecticut is a modern station with long high-level platforms that opened just a few years ago.
Grand Central remains as impressive as always.
Our train was well-patronized and nearly at standing room by the time we departed Stamford.
This is impressive ridership, considering Metro-North operates a half-hourly inbound service from New Haven, with even more frequent rush-hour service from Bridgeport, and additional trains from Stamford. Not to mention Amtrak’s long distance trains to Penn-Station.
As always, there’s always opportunities for photography
I exposed these photos using my Lumix LX7 digital camera.
The sky was clearing when we arrived at West Haven. Check yesterday’s post for views of a train of antique Metropolitan cars.Amtrak ACS-64 618 leads an eastward Regional train at West Haven.My MetroCard that was good on Metro-North, the New York City Subway and PATH.Metro North train 1541 glides to a stop at West Haven. A good few passengers were ready to board.In the bowels of Grand Central.America’s most famous railway terminal!New Haven Line departure boards.
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Print of George W. Kowanski made by Richard Jay Solomon from a digital file that I exposed one year earlier to the day.
On the first anniversary of his final run, retired locomotive engineer George W. Kowanski holds a photo that I made of him in front of his locomotive at Grand Central Terminal minutes before he took the throttle for the last time.
George holds a copy of my latest book, ‘The Twilight of Steam.’
America’s most famous station, New York Central’s crown jewel, and in 2014, a great place to photograph; that’s Grand Central Terminal. It was also my gateway to Manhattan in late June.
I’d taken Metro-North from New Haven.
When I arrived, I had a few minutes to re-explore the station and make a few photographs. I wasn’t alone in that regard. It seemed like everywhere I turned there were people aiming iPhones, or staring through the viewfinder of cameras.
The vast space of Grand Central’s main concourse with its trademark information desk and celestial ceiling makes for a compelling urban scene. It’s makes for complete contrast to New York Penn-Station’s maze of uninspired passageways that looks more like a run-down 1970s-era shopping mall or bus terminal. I was heading there next, by subway.
Grand Central’s colossal architecture exudes magnificence. Lumix LX3 photo.
New York City’s Grand Central Terminal is unquestionably America’s best known railway station. This year it celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The station is also probably the most photographed in the USA. At any given time tourists and visitors are actively making images of its awe inspiring interior.
On the evening of June 29, 2013, I joined the masses in their image making crusade.
I also took a spin up the Hudson Line to Tarrytown, where I made some twilight views of Metro-North.
Grand Central’s most memorable feature is its grand concourse, a vast interior space intended to accommodate tens of thousands pedestrians daily.
Working with both my Lumix LX3 and Canon EOS7D, I made a variety of digital images. These may soon augment my older images of Grand Central and Metro-North.
Metro-North at Tarrytown, New York on June 29, 2013. Lumix LX3 photo.Metro-North M7 multiple unit glides into Tarrytown, New York. Canon EOS7D with 40mm pancake lens.Passengers flood from a Hudson Line train on Grand Central’s upper level. Lumix LX3 photo.MTA Metro-North Railroad.Grand Central’s exterior is faced with a blend Bedford limestone and Stony Creek granite. Atop this façade is an enormous neo-classical sculpture of Mercury, Minerva and Hercules that incorporates a huge clock—Time keeping, is of course, integral with railway travel. Canon 7D with 40mm Pancake lens.Grand Central ceiling features a unique depiction of the Mediterranean Zodiac as interpreted by French painter Paul Helleu. Lumix LX3 photo.The ghost of an early twentieth century bicycle crosses Grand Central’s concourse. Lumix LX3.
Between the 1960s and the 1980s, Northeastern commuter rail operations made the transition from private to public operation.
In 1983, after more than a decade of various forms of subsidy, operation of commuter rail service radiating from Grand Central Terminal on former New Haven and New York Central Railroad routes was conveyed to Metro-North (an affiliate of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority).
Thirty years later, Metro-North is one of America’s busiest commuter railways.
New Haven, Connecticut’s railroad station. I remember in the early 1980s when this waiting room was closed and the old station was a rotting relic of an earlier age. Exposed with a Lumix LX3 on June 29, 2013.
It embodies a curious aesthetic by blending infrastructure and classic architecture from the golden age of railroading with utilitarian modern railway equipment, while offering convenient no-frills public transport.
The days of boarding a well appointed parlor car on New Haven Railroad’s exclusive, luxurious Merchants Limited at Grand Central Terminal for the run to Boston ended long ago. Likewise, New York Central’s New York-Chicago all-sleeper extra-fare Twentieth Century Limited is now the stuff of legend.
Solari arrivals-departure board at New Haven, Connecticut, June 29, 2013. Lumix LX3 photo.
When the new Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913, it was the grandest and most opulent railway station in the world. It represented the power of private capital, and was New York Central’s gift to New York City.
On June 29, 2013, I made a foray in to Metro-North territory. Since I’m not a regular commuter, I have the privilege of enjoying my travels on Metro-North trains, which included my first spin on a new M-8 electric multiple unit.
Lumix LX-3 photo.A 1970s-era Metro North ‘M2CSR’ multiple unit at New Haven, June 29, 2013. Lumix LX3 photo.Destination board on a new M8 multiple unit. Lumix LX3 photo.Brian’s seat check on a nicely air conditioned M8 heading toward New York City. Lumix LX3 photo.M8 interior. Lumix LX3 photo.Metro-North M8 passes Noroton Heights, Connecticut. June 29, 2013. Exposed with Canon EOS 7D with 40mm Pancake lens. 1/60th second.Grand Central Terminal’s 42nd Street Façade, New York City. Lumix LX3 photo.
See: Tracking the Light on July 3, 2013 for Metro-North Anniversaries Part 2!
Please share Tracking the Light with anyone who might enjoy it!
Conrail C39-8 6005 leads a westward freight on the former New York Central ‘Water Level Route,’ approaching School Road in Batavia, New York on April 12, 1989. A thin layer of high cloud has lightly diffused the morning sunlight which has also cooled the color temperature—an effect exaggerated by the blue sensitivity and saturation characteristics of Kodachrome 25 film.
This day, twenty four years ago, April 12, 1989, I sat in the morning sun at School Road in Batavia, New York, 399 miles from Grand Central Terminal. This was a favorite location to watch the Water Level Route on a weekend morning. At the time I was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I lived south of Rochester at Scottsville, New York, and it was about a half and hour drive to this lightly used crossing. Here I’d read, write in my notebook, and document the passing parade of Conrail freights and the occasional Amtrak train. A talking equipment detector a few miles to the west would alert me to approaching eastward trains, but westward trains might creep up on me. These tended to be crawling, as there is a slight grade up the Niagara Escarpment known local as Byron Hill. ‘Hill’ is a relative term, since this grade seemed almost invisible to the eye. However, freights powered for the low-grade run from Selkirk to Buffalo would stagger up this nominal rise. On this morning, the distinctive chug of General Electric 7FDL diesel engines caught me ear above the twittering birds and the rush of a light breeze. Before I knew it the gates were motoring down and lo and behold, a westbound was coming down the hill.
My Leica M2 was fitted to an f4.0 200mm Leitz Telyt using the awkward Visoflex II attachment, which effectively transformed my rangefinder into a single-lens reflex. This entire contraption was positioned on my recently acquired Bogen 3021 tripod with ball-head. (The ball arrangement seemed like a good idea when I bought it, but I was forever fighting it to make fine adjustments with long lenses.) This morning, I had everything all set up and pre-focused; I exposed a couple frame of Kodachrome 25. Leading the train was one of Conrail’s unusual GE-built C39-8s, a favorite model because of its angular cab-arrangement.
Six weeks after I made this image, I graduated from R.I.T. and by end of September that year, I was on my way to California. The old crossing at School Road closed a number of years ago as part of a grade crossing elimination scheme. Last summer, I unexpectedly found a former Conrail C39-8s at Lansdale, Pennsylvania along with a few of its ilk in black Norfolk Southern paint, but that’s a story for another post.
