Tag Archives: #Kodachrome 25

photography

Stacks on the old Erie Railroad—36 Years ago

3:36pm, May 14, 1988; milepost 309 (as measured west from Jersey City) near Cameron Mills, N.Y., Conrail intermodal train TV-301.

I exposed this photo in the reverse curves along Conrail’s former Erie Railroad mainline in New York’s scenic Canisteo River Valley east of Cameron Mills.

In the late 1980s, this valley was a favorite place of mine for photographing trains, and I made dozens of trips along the old Erie Railroad during those years.

This image was exposed on Professional Kodachrome 25 using my Leica M2 rangefinder fitted with a Leitz Wetzlar Elmarit 135mm lens.

My exposure was f4.5 1.250th second. While this was my standard ‘full sun’ daylight setting, the resulting slide was about 1/2 stop too dark. This was in part because of the reduced reflective light within the confines of the valley combined with slight backlighting of the train.

After scanning using a Nikon LS-5000 (Supe Coolscan5000) slide scanner, I made a variety of small adjustments to TIF file in regards to color balance/color temperature, exposure and constrast using Lightroom to produce a more pleasing photograph.

One element of this image that’s always annoyed me is the automobile peaking out on the left side of the leading locomotive. It would be a better photo if the automobile was further ahead of the train or totally conceiled by it.

This is a small defect, considering that Conrail (as a class 1 railroad) has been gone nearly 25 years.

This is the un-modified TIF file that reflects the overall appearance of the original PKM color slide. Below is the adjusted scan.
This is the same scan following adjustments to color, exposure and contrast.

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SP Donner Pass

In honor of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, I present this photo I made of a westward SP freight ascending Donner Pass in May 1994.

The train is near the Nevada-California state line rolling approaching a narrow cleft of the Truckee River Canyon that is shared with Interstate-80.

I made the photo using Kodachrome 25 slide film with my Nikon F3T. The train was led by an unusual combination of locomotives, an SP SD45, followed by Conrail SD40-2 6354, another SP SD45, and Cotton Belt DASH8-40B 8047.

Having made dozens of trips over Donner Pass, I’d long eyed this vantage point from the eastward lanes of I-80.

On this day, once I knew the train was on its way up ‘The Hill’ from Reno, I drove west on I-80 from Verdi, then reversed direction at Floriston, California, and carefully timing my arrival at this location, so I could set up from the eastward breakdown lane and catch the train running along the river. (I seem to have neglected this level detail in my notes!)

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Hojack Swing Bridge, Jan 10, 1988.

Thirty-five years ago, I made this view of a Conrail coal train working the Charlotte Running track at Charlotte, Rochester, New York. At that time, a short vestige of the old Hojack Line (Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg) still crossed the Genesee River.

This was exposed on Kodachrome 25 slide film using my Leica M2 rangefinder fitted with a 50mm Leitz Summicron lens.

It was among the images featured in my 1989 article on the railroads of Rochester published in Railpace Newsmagazine.

Looking at Google Earth last night, I gather there’s very little left of this scene today!

On January 10, 1988, I made this Kodachrome slide of Conrail SD50 6779 leading a coal train at Charlotte, NY.

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Classic Chrome: Gassetts, Vermont 1992

Green Moutain Railroad GP9 1850 leads the railroads freight XR1 through a rock cut on the former Rutland Railroad near Gassetts, Vermont on November 19, 1992.

I was interested in featuring the use of old rails to support stones in the cut and had followed this freight since its engines left the railroad’s round house at North Walpole, NH, earlier that morning. The recent installation of an oscillating headlight on th GP9 also caught my attention

First round of adjustments to correct for color temperature and adjust shadow detail.
In this version, I increased local contrast and lightened the overall scan while adjusting the highlights and shadows to retain detail and black point.

Working with my old Nikon F3T and Nikkor f1.8 105mm, I exposed this slide on Kodachrome 25 at f5.6 at 1/125 second.

Slide scanned with a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner at 4000 dp, adjusted and scaled using Lightroom.

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