Tag Archives: #Lackawanna

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Parallel Bridges at Rupert—four stages of correction

Last week Kris and I visited Rupert, Pa. where, at one time, the Lackawanna interchanged with Reading Company.

Here, parallel railroad bridges cross Fishing Creek.

The old Reading truss bridge is long abandoned, while the former Lackawanna plate girder bridge is now used by the North Shore Railroad short line.

Working with my FujiFilm XT1, I exposed this view as a RAF (RAW) image. Below are four variations of the same file that aim to show steps toward achieving a final image.

First I converted the RAF file into DNG format using Iridient X-Transformer. Then I made some nominal corrections with Lightroom.

Out of curiousity, I then returned to the original RAF file and converted it DNG using DxO PureRaw, a program with which I’ve been experiementing recently.

Note: in this excercise I made two distinct conversions from the RAF (RAW) image to the DNG format using the two different conversion programs. I did not re-convert the already converted image.

Working with the PureRaw DNG in Lightroom, I found that this conversion gave me much greater latitude to improve detail and color in the sky. While the sky appears nearly white in the unadjusted files, using the highlights slider in Lightroom I was able to draw in considerable detail.

Overall, I found that the PureRaw-created DNG file was easier to adjust in Lightroom and allowed me to create a better end-result.

I plan to continue these experiments.

Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment.
Iridient X-Transformer created DNG file, scaled following adjustments to shadow-areas, highlights and color balance. Note the sky.
PureRaw created DNG file, scaled without cosmetic adjustment. This software corrected for a variety of lens defects among other transformations.
PureRaw created DNG file, scaled following significant cosmetic adjustment, including nominal cropping. Notice the differences in the sky detail compared with the other variations.

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Announcements, photography, Tips and Technique

Ghost of Phoebe Snow—Fortuity at New Milford

Last Sunday, we exited Interstate 81 at New Milford, PA to get gas. This was the last leg in our big move, and our third drive from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania in the last month,

My plan was to follow old Route 11 toward Clark’s Summit. This avoids the traffic on I-81 and largely follows the old alignment of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. In fact in many places Route 11 is built on the old right-of-way.

We had Boomer-the-Dog with us and this was his first trip to Pennsylvania.

As I was fueling the car, I heard the unmistakable roar of modern EMD diesels. It was a southward freight on the Lackawanna!

I concluded pumping gas before the tank was filled, and we headed south after the train.

Several miles south of New Milford, Route 11 runs adjacent to the Lackawanna, now operated by Norfolk Southern. We pulled over to roll the train by at milepost 637.

Here, Kris made a video with her phone, Boomer got to witness his first BIG freight train, and I exposed this sequence of digital photos.

Milepost 637 as measured from Mattawamkeag, Maine, dating from the brief period in the 1980s, when Guilford Transportation controlled the Delaware & Hudson, which then own this section of DL&W line.
A wink of sun at just the right moment made for an even better image.
NS 1021 is an EMD SD70ACe.

Soon we were off after an even bigger prize . . . (stay tuned).

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photography, Tips and Technique

DL&W’s Nicholson Station

Yesterday on our drive to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, used highway 11 from Milford to Clarks Summit. Much of this route is on the old Delaware, Lackawanna & Western right-of-way, a line that was largely abandoned after the Nicholson Cut-off was completed.

At Nicholson, PA we paused so that I could make a few photos of the old DL&W station that remains located adjacent to the former railroad bed. In the distance the massive Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct rises above the town.

I wrote about this bridge in my book Railway Masterpieces published in 2002 Krause Publications.

” . . . the colossal neo-Roman Tunkhannock Viaduct [is a] great bridge, named for the Tunkhannock Creek Valley. . . completed in 1915. This gargantuan bridge seems out of proportion with its surroundings. It is nearly one half mile long (2,375 feet) and rises 240 feet over the valley floor, towering over the houses and shops in the village. “

Highway traffic rolls along the olf DL&W right-of-way with the famous Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct on the relocated 1915-era line looming in the distance. An old DL&W building is preserved along Route 11. Photo exposed using a Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm lens set to 190mm.

Thick haze, partially attributed to high-level smoke from Canadian wildfires, made the enormous viaduct appear ethereal and more mystical than it would on a very clear day.

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photography

Hoboken Terminal—1982

In December 1982, my father and I visited the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Hoboken Terminal on the Hudson River waterfront opposite Manhattan.

I thought this ancient decaying relic of the Golden Age of American railways was just about the most fascinating place on the planet.

Rotten, yet grand, elusive, yet filled with intrigue. I exposed a series of Kodachrome slides using my 1930s era Leica 3A with Sumitar lens.

There’s no doubt; I was born in the wrong era. At age 16, my interests lay in the world decades before my birth.

Lackawanna Terminal has been tidied up since that day. Today, one of the old DL&W electric multiple unit cars serves as Conway Scenic Railroad’s dining car Chocorua, while another former DL&W car is coach 3202 Hurricane Mountain. Oddly enough, I write this in the shadow of Hurricane Mountain in North Conway, New Hampshire.

I scanned the slide portrayed here just a little while ago. I offer two versions. One is a scaled RAW scan without interpretation, the other is an ‘improved’ version of the same scan. I lightened this, adjusted the contrast and color temperature.

Modified version of the above scan.

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