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Daily Post: Southern Pacific 4449 at Redding, California.

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On Assignment with Southern Pacific, Part 2.

August 31, 1991. I’ll put this in the ‘forgotten images’ category! I remember the trip, I remember the day, but until I scanned it, I’d completely forgotten that I’d made this photo on black & white film.

SP Daylight 4449 crosses the curved tower-supported plate girder viaduct at Redding, California on August 31, 1991. Exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens.
SP Daylight 4449 crosses the curved tower-supported plate girder viaduct at Redding, California on August 31, 1991. Exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens.

As I’ve describe in my previous post, Daylight Beauty at Hooker Creek. Southern Pacific had organized the streamlined engine to make a public appearances in the Sacramento River Canyon as a goodwill gesture following a serious derailment at the Cantara Loop (which spilled toxins into the river above Dunsmuir), and the railroad had hired me for two days to make photographs of the PR event. Brian Jennison provided transport, and the two of us spent a long weekend making numerous images of SP 4449 with Daylight train.

 

I exposed this image on the first day of excursions using my Leica M2 with 50mm lens. I’ve published many of the color slides I exposed from the same trip, including views I made on Kodachrome with my Nikon F3T at this bridge.

 

Some can be found in my book The American Steam Locomotive published by MBI in 1998, Steam Power published by Voyageur Press in 2009. Also, Audio Visual Designs used my photo of SP 4449 at Redding on a picture postcard back in the 1990s.

 

Finding this picture was a pleasant surprise. Compared with earlier years, I have relatively few black & white images from the 1990s in California, although I went through a phase where I’d use the Leica loaded B&W during the ‘high light’ when Kodachrome yielded substandard results.

 

In this case, I made the most of the situation by using two cameras and different types of film, I obtained a variety of photos from location. Also, the locomotive repeated the exercise the following day. By then, I’d re-loaded the Leica with Kodachrome 25.

Tight crop on the locomotive from the same b&w negative. SP Daylight 4449 crosses the curved tower-supported plate girder viaduct at Redding, California on August 31, 1991. Exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens.
Tight crop on the locomotive from the same b&w negative. SP Daylight 4449
crosses the curved tower-supported plate girder viaduct at Redding, California on August 31, 1991. Exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron lens.

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Tomorrow: Alcos in the snow!

 

 

 

 

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Special Post: Happy Birthday Richard Solomon!

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Featuring Rare Photos!

Today is my father’s birthday.

Richard has been photographing railways for decades and brought me on many of my earliest railway excursions, including a trip on the Flushing Line in Queens way back in the day.

Richard has worked with Leicas, a Rolleiflex, and a Linhof 4×5 view camera. Today has also a few digital cameras to play with including a Lumix LX7.

Many years ago he gave me my first camera, and after I wrecked that one, he gave me another, and finally a Leica model 3A. I continue to wear them out.

Regular viewers of Tracking the Light will recognize the subjects and locations. Together, Richard and I have years of continuous photographic record of railways in the United States and around the world. His photographs have appeared in many of my books.

Richard in eastern Pennsylvania in October 1964. He's sporting two Leica Ms, including one with 135mm telephoto, and a Rollieflex Model T (Which I wore out, but eventually replaced).
Richard in eastern Pennsylvania in October 1964. He’s sporting two Leica Ms, including one with 135mm telephoto, and a Rollieflex Model T (Which I wore out, but eventually replaced).
Last October my father an I photographed New England Central's southbound freight (Job 610) passing Stafford Springs, Connecticut. Photo by Brian Solomon
Last October my father an I photographed New England Central’s southbound freight (Job 610) passing Stafford Springs, Connecticut. Photo by Brian Solomon
Richard goes for a spin at the Railroad Museum of New England. Photo by Brian Solomon with Canon EOS 7D.
Richard goes for a spin at the Railroad Museum of New England. Photo by Brian Solomon with Canon EOS 7D.
A brand new Pennsylvania Railroad Budd Silverliner rolls through North Philadelphia. Richard was panning with his Rolleiflex Model T. He exposed this on Kodacolor negative film, which I scanned using an Epson V600.
A brand new Pennsylvania Railroad Budd Silverliner rolls through North Philadelphia in 1963. Richard was panning with his Rolleiflex Model T. He exposed this on Kodacolor negative film, which I scanned using an Epson V600.
Richard has made good use of his Rolleflex cameras. He bought the first on a trip to Germany in 1960, and used it to expose this classic image of the North Shore Electroliner on the streets of Milwaukee in June 1961. Richard's North Shore photos have been published by David P. Morgan in TRAINS Magazine and by William D. Middleton in his books.
Richard has made good use of his Rolleflex cameras. He bought the first on a trip to Germany in 1960, and used it to expose this classic image of the North Shore Electroliner on the streets of Milwaukee in June 1961. Richard’s North Shore photos have been published by David P. Morgan in TRAINS Magazine and by William D. Middleton in his books.
On August 20, 1960, Richard exposed a Kodachrome slide of this American-style PCC car on the streets of Charleroi, Belgium using a Kodak Retina 3C. See comparison photo below.
On August 20, 1960, Richard exposed a Kodachrome slide of this American-style PCC car on the streets of Charleroi, Belgium using a Kodak Retina 3C. See comparison photos below.

I returned to the same street in Charleroi last month and made similar views of trams. I actually went to almost the same spot as the above photo, but exposed a couple of colour slides, which remain latent. Perhaps at some point I’ll do a ‘now and then’ comparison. (Film and film).

LX7 view in Charleroi, Aug 2014. Photo by Brian Solomon.
LX7 view in Charleroi, Aug 2014. Photo by Brian Solomon.
Canon 7D view in Charleroi, Aug 2014. Photo by Brian Solomon.
Canon 7D view in Charleroi, Aug 2014. Photo by Brian Solomon.
Richard on a recent visit to New Haven, Connecticut. Lumix LX3 photo.
Richard on a recent visit to New Haven, Connecticut. Lumix LX3 photo.

Happy Birthday Pop!

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A View From The Bronx, summer 1978.

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 I don’t have a lot of bus photos, but . . .

It was probably the first week of August. It was hot, humid, and stinky in New York City. The bus carried an aroma of garbage, sweat and diesel exhaust.

My grandmother, my brother Sean and I took a cross town bus from Coop City to Forham Road to go shopping.

My grandmother paid our fare, and we went to the back. As we stopped to collect passengers, I made a series of photos with my Leica, as you do. Right?

riding-a-NY-city-bus-circa-This was one of several photos I exposed with my Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar on black & white film.

The bus was ok, but I preferred our excursions on the subway.

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Kid with a Camera: Chicopee, c1978.

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Reviewing an Old Roll of Black & White Film.

Memory is an indefinite media: I remember making these photos, I just don’t remember exactly when. I think it was the summer of 1978 . . .

My father had a meeting with someone in an office in or near the old mills occupied by the Lyman Outlet in Chicopee. To get away from the monotony of a kid’s life in Monson, I traveled with him.

He spent about an hour in the meeting. I wandered around the old mills making photos with my Leica 3A, mostly using a 21mm Super Angulon, but also with a 50mm collapsible Summitar that was my stable lens of the period.

To calculate exposure I used an old Weston Master III, which by modern standards wasn’t especially accurate, especially in the hands of an eleven year old.

The sidings along the side of the old mills interested me, although there was no sign of activity that day. I was equally intrigued by the brick smokestack and made a number of photographs of this, many of them using a skyward vertigo-inducing perspective.

Chicopee2_c1978_Brian_Solom Chicopee3_c1978_Brian_Solom Chicopee4_c1978_4Mod1_Brian Chicopee6_c1978_3_mod1_Bria Chicopee_c1978_5_w_tracks_m Chicopee_c1978_Brian_Solomo Lyman-Mill_Outlet_Chicopee_

While 1978, it seemed like completely normal activity for an 11 year old to wander around alone photographing century-old mill buildings with a Leica, now I’m not so sure.

These photos, like many from my early years, remained latent for more than three decades. It wasn’t until 2012 that I finally got around to processing this film. By then, I’d developed a complicated multiple step chemical process to get decent negatives from old film.

Ironically, I probably ended up with better negatives than if I’d tried to process these at the time. My processing abilities from the 1970s were handicapped by inadequate understanding of the chemical processes and a tendency to keep using chemistry even after it was exhausted. My resulting negatives were often too thin to print.

I scanned these using my Epson V600 scanner. Until now, no one except me has ever seen them.

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Amtrak Clocker Blitzes Linden, New Jersey—Daily Post.

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August 1, 1986.

Exposed on Kodachrome 64 slide film with a Leica 3A fitted with 200mm Telyt lens via a Visoflex attachment and mounted on a Linhof tripod. Metered manually with a Sekonic Studio Deluxe hand held photocell.
Exposed on Kodachrome 64 slide film with a Leica 3A fitted with 200mm Telyt lens via a Visoflex attachment and mounted on a Linhof tripod. Metered manually with a Sekonic Studio Deluxe hand held photocell.

On this hot and humid evening, fellow photographer Bob Karambelas and I were poised to catch the parade of rush hour trains that raced the former Pennsylvania Railroad at Linden, New Jersey.

Here six main tracks and high voltage overhead make for an impressive right of way.

At that time, the New York-Philadelphia Clockers were still run with heritage fleet cars, while the AEM7 in the lead was only a few years old.

Today, the AEM7 fleet still work for Amtrak, but will soon be running their final miles for the national passenger carrier as their replacements come on-line.

For more than 25 years this slide sat unattended in my files. For so many years, it just didn’t seem noteworthy. I see it now with fresh eyes.

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Tomorrow: Exploring a New Line!

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Glinty Sunrise, Niagara Falls, New York, April 1989.

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Rays of Sun Above the Storm—Daily Post.

The Great Lakes can produce dramatic climatic effects, especially at dawn and dusk.

On this day, I drove west from Rochester through torrential Spring rains. However, it was dry when I reached Niagara Falls, the line of showers having stayed well south of Lake Ontario.

I made this image of Amtrak trains laying over in the Niagara Falls yard as the sun was rising above a dark and stormy sky. The lighting was totally surreal, like a scene from the cover of a science fiction novel.

Exposed on Kodachrome using a Leica M2 fitted with a 200mm Leitz Telyt lens using a Visoflex (through the lens viewing attachment for Leica rangefinders) and bellows arrangement mounted on a Bogen 3021 tripod with ball head. Although a peculiar selection of equipment, this had less to do with capturing the image than my exposure and flare control techniques.
Exposed on Kodachrome using a Leica M2 fitted with a 200mm Leitz Telyt lens using a Visoflex (through the lens viewing attachment for Leica rangefinders) with bellows arrangement mounted on a Bogen 3021 tripod with ball head. Although a peculiar selection of equipment, this had less to do with capturing the image than my exposure and flare control techniques (see main text below).

In the distance, in what I believe was the former Lehigh Valley yard, was hundreds of stored 50 foot box cars lettered in the blue and white “I Love NY” scheme.

Here’s my trick: to reduce undesirable flare, I shaded the front element of the lens using the extendable lens shade and my notebook, while I calculated exposure manually, using a handheld Sekonic Studio Deluxe photocell in its ‘reflected light’ mode. I made several exposures before the light changed.

I used the light meter to carefully gauge the amount of light reflecting off the Amfleet passenger cars to avoid loss of highlight detail, while allowing the shadow areas to appear comparatively dark. This was a judgment call on my part that resulted in a more dramatic image.

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Tomorrow: 40 years ago!

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Daily Post: Old Type 5 on both Film and Digital

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On October 20, 2013, I stopped by the Connecticut Trolley Museum near East Windsor and made a variety of photos. The day was perfect; warm and sunny with a cloudless clear sky. A bit of autumn color clung to the trees.

This was an opportunity to experiment with my cameras and I’ve displayed here three images of former a Boston Type 5 streetcar that was working the line.

I exposed the top image on Fuji Velvia 50 color slide film with my father’s Leica M4 fitted with a 35mm Summicron. The bottom images were simultaneous files made with my Lumix LX3 (which features a Leica Vario-Summicron lens).

Connecticut Trolley Museum
MTA type 5 streetcar photographed at East Windsor, Connecticut on October 20, 2013 using a Leica M4 with 35mm Summicron and Fuji Velvia 50 slide film.
Lumix photograph; Camera RAW converted to a scaled JPG in two step post processing for internet display.
Lumix photograph; Camera RAW converted to a scaled JPG in two step post processing for internet display.
In-camera Lumix JPG exposed using the 'Standard' color profile. File scaled for internet display.
In-camera Lumix JPG exposed using the ‘Standard’ color profile. File scaled for internet display.

The Lumix allows me to make both a camera RAW file and a JPG at the same time. The Lumix software has a variety of color profiles for the JPG files that alter the appearance of the image. Typically, I use the “Standard” profile such as displayed here.

Although I’ve scaled all of the files and processed them for internet display, I’ve not made major changes to contrast, exposure or content. The color slide required a nominal color balance adjustment to remove the inherent bias associated with this film.

I scanned the slide using my Epson V600 scanner.

My father has some nice views of Boston’s Type 5s in revenue service exposed on Kodachrome in the 1950s.

All things being equal, I wonder which photographs will survive the longest? The 50+ year old Kodachromes? My Velvia slides exposed in October? Or the digital files exposed the same day? All the digital files (including scans) are preserved on at least three hard drives. While the slides are stored in a dark, cool dry place.

Any bets?

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Tomorrow: refining snow exposure.

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DAILY POST: When the Common is Uncommon.

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Remembering the SPVs!

They were Budd’s follow up to its successful stainless steel rail diesel cars built in the 1950s. But where Budd’s RDCs had established standards for self propelled diesel cars, Budd’s SPV-2000 didn’t measure up.

I think ‘SPV’ was supposed to mean ‘Self Propelled Vehicle,’ but all the railroaders I knew called them ‘Seldom Powered Vehicles.’

These were adapted from the original Budd Metroliner (MP85) car style and in the same family as Amtrak’s Budd-built Amfleet.

For a few years they were routinely assigned to Amtrak’s Springfield, Massachusetts-New Haven, Connecticut shuttle trains.

Amtrak at Springfield Station.
Silhouette of a Budd SPV2000 at Springfield Station on the morning of September 30, 1984. Exposed on 35mm Kodak Tri-X with a Leica 3A with 21mm lens.
On the morning of September 30, 1984, Conrail B23-7s lead eastward freight SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester) through Springfield (Massachusetts) Union Station. A set of SPVs rests in the shadows. Although not the primary subject, I was sure to include the SPV2000s in my photograph. Exposed on Tri-X using a Leica 3A with 21mm lens.
On the morning of September 30, 1984, Conrail B23-7s lead eastward freight SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester) through Springfield (Massachusetts) Union Station. A set of SPVs rests in the shadows. Although not the primary subject, I was sure to include the SPV2000s in my photograph. Exposed on Tri-X using a Leica 3A with 21mm lens.

I admit now that I didn’t like the SPVs. I didn’t like them because they were new, and I much preferred the traditional RDCs. Also, at the time, I found the round car style un-photogenic.

Despite my dislike of the SPV’s, I photographed them anyway. While I wish that I’d made more photos of them, I’m very glad that I bothered to put them on film at all.

As it turned out, Amtrak appears to have disliked the SPV’s even more than I did! Their tenure on the Springfield run was short. By 1986, they’d been largely replaced with locomotive hauled consists. Other than my own photographs, I’ve seen very few images of these cars working on Amtrak.

A lone SPV2000 makes a station stop at Windsor Locks, Connecticut in May 1985. From my experience, it was relatively unusual to find single SPVs working in Springfield-Hartford-New Haven shuttle service. Exposed with a Leica 3A fitted with a Canon 50mm lens. Contrast controlled locally in post processing using Photoshop.
A lone SPV2000 makes a station stop at Windsor Locks, Connecticut in May 1985. From my experience, it was relatively unusual to find single SPVs working in Springfield-Hartford-New Haven shuttle service. Exposed with a Leica 3A fitted with a Canon 50mm lens. Contrast controlled locally in post processing using Photoshop.

Here’s an irony: in retrospect I’ve come to appreciate the SPV’s. They were a rare example of a modern American-built self-propel diesel car, and to my well-traveled eye, I now find them very interesting. So, what seemed new and common, now seems rare and peculiar!

Tracking the Light posts new material every morning.

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Also see: Old Pointless Arrow and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

and: Springfield Station, March 31, 1984

The Amherst Railway Society ‘BIG RAILROAD HOBBY SHOW‘ is on this weekend (January 25 and 26, 2014) at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

See: http://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/

Brian Solomon will cover the train show in Tracking the Light.

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DAILY POST: Springfield Station, March 31, 1984

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From Brian’s Lost Archive.

Conrail, Springfield, Mass.
Conrail C30-7 6608 pauses at Springfield, Massachusetts Union Station on March 31, 1984. Exposed on Panatomic-X ASA 32 (Kodak Safety Film 5060) with Leica 3A fitted with a 50mm Summitar.

I made this photo when I was a senior in high school. Paul Goewey and I’d planned to meet some friends at Springfield Station, and then drive north to photograph Boston & Maine at Deerfield.

While we waited for the others to arrive, I exposed a series of images of Conrail on the former Boston & Albany mainline. At the time, Conrail regularly stored locomotives between runs on track 2A in the station (at right). On the left is a set of light engines led by Conrail 6608, one of ten C30-7s.

More interesting is the locomotive trailing 6608, a relative-rare former Erie-Lackawanna SDP45.

The trip to the B&M was very successful and I exposed two rolls of 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X ASA 32 (Kodak Safety Film 5060) with my Leica 3A, and a couple of rolls of 120 B&W with my dad’s Rolleiflex. I processed all the film in the kitchen sink, using a crude formula of Microdol-X. I sleeved the negs and made 3×5 size proof prints.

The 120 negatives have been in my files for three decades, but the 35mm negatives had vanished. I have a photo album from 1985, with many of these images, but for years was vexed by the loss of the 35mm negatives. As a rule, I don’t throw photographs away.

The other day, I found a carton with school papers and photographs. There, at the bottom was an unlabeled crumpled manila envelope. What’s this? Ah ha!

It was chock full of negatives from 1984-1985. All missing for decades, many of them unprinted.

A raw negative strip from my morning at Springfield Station on March 31, 1984. Although stored in a manila envelop for the better part of three decades, the negatives were processed properly and kept flat in a cool dry place, and so remain in very good condition.
A raw negative strip from my morning at Springfield Station on March 31, 1984. Although stored in a manila envelop for the better part of three decades, the negatives were processed properly and kept flat in a cool dry place, and so remain in very good condition.

I scanned these negative strip on my Epson V600 scanner. Using Photoshop I cleaned up a few minor defect and made necessary contrast adjustments, then exported a reduced file size for display here. A photo lost for nearly three decades can now be enjoyed in through a medium I couldn’t have foreseen when I exposed it.

Also see: Old Pointless Arrow and the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Amherst Railway Society ‘BIG RAILROAD HOBBY SHOW‘ is on this weekend (January 25 and 26, 2014) at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

See: http://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/

Brian Solomon will cover the train show in Tracking the Light.

Tracking the Light posts new material every morning.

Please spread the word and share Tracking the Light with anyone who may enjoy seeing it!

http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/

Conrail, Springfield, Mass.
Conrail C30-7 6608 at Springfield Union Station on March 31, 1984.
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DAILY POST: Kid with a Camera 1978

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Amtrak 449, the Lake Shore Limited with E8As near Palmer.

For my eleventh birthday my father gave me a 1930s-era Leica 3A and a role of film (with more to follow).

Every so often Pop would gather my brother Sean and I into the car and head over the Boston & Albany (then Conrail) to wait for Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited. Back then, the train was still running with heritage equipment and typically hauled by fairly tired E8As.

If we were really lucky we might catch freight too.

Lake Shore Limited
Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited roars along on the Boston & Albany near milepost 81, two miles east of the Palmer, Massachusetts’s diamond with Central Vermont. I exposed this image in summer 1978. In a few weeks I’d start 7th grade. Weeks would pass from the time I released the shutter until I would make prints from the 35mm black & white negative.

On this day in summer 1978, we drove to Palmer. I think we’d started up the Quaboag River Valley, but realized we might not have time to reach Warren before the westward Lake Shore came roaring down the valley. So we reversed and picked a spot near milepost 81, not far from the Route 20-67 split (east of town).

We didn’t wait long. I could hear pairs of twin 12-567s working before the headlight a appeared at the bend near the old barn. And then there it was!

“I see it!”

I made several exposures with the Leica. Unfortunately, in my panic to capture the train passing I shook the camera, so the head-on view is a bit blurred.

I processed the negatives from this adventure in the kitchen sink and made prints that I placed in a homemade photo album. The negatives were well processed and have survived in good order. I scanned them a few weeks ago. My notes from the day appear to have gone missing though.

As 449 blitzed by, I made this trailing view looking toward the Route 20 overpass. My old Leica was a chore to use: Loading the camera was tricky; exposures had to be calculated manually with a hand-held photo cell; and focusing require lining up two ghostlike images while staring through a quarter inch auxiliary viewfinder. Processing the film was another unforgiving multi-step process.
As 449 blitzed by, I made this trailing view looking toward the Route 20 overpass. My old Leica was a chore to use: Loading the camera was tricky; exposures had to be calculated manually with a hand-held photo cell; and focusing require lining up two ghostlike images while staring through a quarter inch auxiliary viewfinder. Processing the film was another unforgiving multi-step process.

Click to see:

Kid with a Camera: Gun Hill Road, the Bronx, New York Summer 1980

Kid with a Camera, Framingham, Massachusetts, 1982.

Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited catches the glint at Palmer, May 28, 1986.

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MBTA at Walpole, Massachusetts, March 2, 1988

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New EMD F40PH-2C with Classic Semaphore.

In the late 1980s only a few active semaphores remained in New England. One of the best places to see them was at the crossing of former New Haven Railroad lines in Walpole, Massachusetts.

Walpole, Massachusetts.
MBTA F40PH-2C crosses the diamond at Walpole. In 1988 this was still protected by New Haven-era semaphores. Exposed on Koadchrome 25 film using a Leica M@ and 35mm Summicron lens.

I made this photo of a new Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority F40PH-2 leading an outward train on the Franklin Line on the afternoon of March 2, 1988. The attraction for me was the contrast between the new locomotive and the ancient signal.

A variation of this image appeared in TRAINS Magazine some years ago. I exposed it on Kodachrome 25 using my Leica M2 with a f2.0 35mm Summicron.The combination of clear New England light, Leica optics, and K25 film enhanced the scene.

 

 

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Central Vermont Railway, Three Rivers, Massachusetts May 1984

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My Rare Photo of a CV Switcher. 

 

Central Vermont 1510
Central Vermont SW1200 1510 works the Tampax Factory spur at Bridge Street in Three Rivers, Massachusetts back in May 1984. Exposed on Ektachrome 200 with a Leica 3A and 50mm Summitar lens. Scan modified in post processing to improve contrast and exposure and minimize dust spots.

The other day, I was showing Tim Doherty some photo locations around Three Rivers, Massachusetts. I described to him how the railroad once had a spur into the old Tampax factory.

The spur (siding) had a switch off the mainline near the station (demolished many years ago), then crossed Main Street and made  a sharp curve behind the liquor store before crossing Bridge Street. There’s still vestiges of this track today.

Back in 1984, Dan Howard was visiting from Needham and he and I drove around the Palmer area making railway photos (as you do). The prize of the day, was this photo of CV’s SW1200 1510 working the Tampax factory spur on the Bridge Street Crossing.

It is one of the few photos I have of a CV switcher working in the Palmer area, and one of the few times I caught a rail movement on the Tampax spur. (Might creative minds develop some accompanying humor  ??)

This photo was exposed on Kodak Ektachrome 200 slide film with my Leica 3A using my 50mm Summitar lens. It was a sultry dull day, and not the best for photography. While this is not a world class image, it captures a scene never to be repeated.

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South Station, Boston, January 1982.

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Monochrome exposed with a Leica 3A.

Boston
Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens.

Here’s an image from my early archives. I was wandering around Boston on a snowy day in January 1982. Among the other photos I made were views along the Green Line on Huntington Avenue. This one caught my eye the other day when I was reviewing my early work. It require a nominal crop. Many of my early photos tend to be off-level. This problem is easily fixed today.

South Station was the main passenger terminal for Boston & Albany and New Haven Railroads, and in the early years of the twentieth century was the busiest passenger station in the world (as measured in the number of daily train movements).

 

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Kid with a Camera, Framingham, Massachusetts, 1982.

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Lacking Skill but Enthusiastic

In1982, I was visiting my friend Dan Howard in Needham, Massachusetts. We’d made a day of riding bicycles to Framingham and back to photograph trains. (Neither of us were old enough to hold a valid driving license).

At the time, I was very enthusiastic about the railroad, and eager to capture it on film. Yet, I had very little conception of how to make photos. Furthermore, while I had a reasonably high quality camera, this was entirely dependant on my ability to set it properly (aperture, shutter speed, and focus)

I was using a 1930s-era Leica 3A with an f2.0 Summitar lens. This didn’t have the crutches provided with most cameras today: no auto focus, no auto exposure, no zoom-lens, and no instant response digital display window.

Simply getting film in the camera required the aid of a Swiss Army knife. While focusing the Leica using the rangefinder was a bit abstract. To gauge exposure, I used at Weston Master III light meter. With this camera I exposed  Kodachome slides, and black & white 35mm film that I processed in the kitchen sink.

Framinham, Mass.
Exposed with a Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens on Kodak black & white negative film; scanned with an Epson V600, and processed digitally using PhotoShop (to enhance contrast, and remove blemishes.

To simply get a photo of any kind, I had base level camera-operating skills,  but no sense for how to make real railroad photos. I didn’t appreciate conventional angles, nor did I know what to crop out or what  to feature. I knew precious little about working with light or how to make optimum use of the film media. My chemical processing skills were rudimentary, at best.

I just really wanted to make railway pictures! And, honestly, it’s a miracle that I got any results at all.

Thankfully on that day, Dan & I met a friendly and helpful grade crossing gate keeper, who manually worked the gates where former Boston & Albany and New Haven Railroad lines crossed the main street. He chatted with us and shared knowledge about when trains were coming. (Incidentally, I made a color slide or two of him working the gates, which seemed like the thing to do).

Toward the end of the day, a Conrail local departed Framingham’s North Yard, heading across the street and over the diamonds with the B&A on its way toward the Attleboro and beyond. I made this image ‘against the light’ looking into the setting sun, with a GP15-1 leading the local (which is about to cross the street) and some MBTA Budd cars in front of the old station.

Sometimes raw and unchecked enthusiasm produces a more interesting image than one crafted by skill, but hampered by ambivalence (or over thinking the photographic process.) Modern photographic scanners allow for me to interpret what I captured more than 30 years ago on film, and compensate for my lack of technical skill.

 

 

 

 

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Boston & Maine Slug Set at Rices, near Charlemont, Massachusetts; June 26, 1986.

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A Kodachrome View of Boston & Maine’s West End

Yesterday, April 13, 2013, Pan Am Railways hosted a passenger excursion over the historic Boston & Maine route from Boston to Mechanicville. My father, Richard Jay Solomon, was among the passengers, and he sent me regular updates on his progress. This inspired me to revisit images such as this one.

Boston & Maine railroad along the Deerfield River.
Exposed on Kodachrome using a Leica 3A fitted with a 65mm Elmar and Visoflex.

Scouring the archives, I found this Kodachrome slide from the 1980s. It shows Guilford’s Boston & Maine mainline at Rices, near Charlemont, Massachusetts at 11:05 am on June 26, 1986. A westward freight led by B&M’s lone GP40-2 slug set (on left) is holding at the signals for an eastward train coming from Mechanicville, New York.

This image was never among my best photographs. At the time, I was using my old Leica 3A fitted with a 65mm Elmar using a Visoflex reflex arrangement. To gauge exposure, I used an antique hand-held General Electric photo cell. The camera arrangement allowed for a sharp image but was awkward to use. More to the point, the meter wasn’t very accurate and my sense for exposure wasn’t highly tuned. As a result, this slide was overexposed, as were most of my efforts from the day.

Thankfully, my choice of film at the time was Kodachrome 64, which was relatively tolerant of inaccurate exposure. So while, this slide appears too bright when projected on screen, the emulsion retained sufficient detail to be recovered digitally. I scanned the slide using my Epson V600 scanner, then corrected for my flawed exposure with Adobe Photoshop by manipulating the ‘Curves’ function. The end result isn’t objectionable.

 

 

Exposed on Kodachrome using a Leica 3A fitted with a 65mm Elmar via a Visoflex.

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