In July 1983, I was on an early solo adventure by automobile, and was driving my family’s gray 1978 Ford Grenada. On the advice of my friend Bob Buck, I called into Bangor & Aroostook’s yard and shop at Northern Maine Junction, where the railroad was happy to give me permission to wander around and make photos.
I had several cameras with me, including my venerable Leica IIIa with 50mm, that I’d loaded with Kodak 5063—Tri-X (ASA 400).
I made a variety of studies of the locomotives and equipment, including this unusual angle of an EMD BL2, F3A and GP38. Rarely have I seen images that clearly focus on the back-end of a BL2 and I’m glad I used the light that day to make this view.
On our recent visit to New England, Kris and I collected another batch of my older photographs from my parents attic.
Among these were a box labeled, ‘Maine Central-Seconds’.
Not to brag, but these were of the Maine Central before Guilford. Most of the images were of marginal quality, but of great interest.
I exposed these three Kodachrome 64 slides on the Rockland Branch at Bath, Maine on June 1980 trip to visit my grandparents. Traffic on Route 1 was pretty bad, so we got off the road for a little while to relax.
At the time, I was using a 1937-8 vintage Leica 3A 35mm rangefinder. Based on the angle of view, I guess I was working with a Nikkor 35mm lens, which was one of my favorites at the time. It was a very sharp piece of glass. To gauge my exposure I had a handheld Weston Master III light meter.
While visiting the Seashore Trolley Museum at Kennebunkport, Maine, Kris and I went for a spin on car 1160, a 117-year old New England Classic. When this car was new, electricity was still a novelty and many homes across the region were without it.
Old 1160 is wooden-bodied car that served the Connecticut Company in the New Haven-area until the 1940s. Today, it is a reminder of another era in rail-transport.
On our trip, there were 29 passengers on board.
I made these photos using my Lumix LX7 and a Nikon Z6 with 70-200mm Z-series zoom lens. All images were exposed digitally and adjusted in Lightroom for color, contrast and exposure.
On Wednesday (June 7, 2022), I walked from our lake-side cabin at Moosehead, Maine to Canadian Pacific’s East Outlet Bridge with the hope of catching the eastward 132 freight.
Not long after I arrived, the skies opened to a light drizzle. Gradually drizzle turned to a steady rain. The rain stirred up Maine’s famous mosquitoes. So after more than an hour of waiting under a tree, I was beginning to question my intentions. Yet having stood out in the elements, I decided to wait a while longer.
Finally, off to the west, I heard a distant train whistle! Hooray, it had to be CP’s 132! (Normally the railroad only operates one train east and one west every 24 hours.)
After another seven minutes, the sky brightened and a headlight came into view. By the time the train reached the East Outlet Bridge at Moosehead, the sun was out and shining brightly!
My perseverance was rewarded! Walking back to the cabin, I claimed this effort as a success.
In the woods of Maine, along the river that flows south from the Rockwood Dam at the West Outlet of Moosehead Lake is the site of a remote railway junction where the old Maine Central line to Kineo Dock crossed beneath Canadian Pacific’s Moosehead Subdivision.
Tracking the Light reader Wayne Duffett recommended that I inspect and photograph this virtually unvisited railroad confluence. Maine Central’s line has been abandoned for decades and now serves as a well maintained gravel road.
So feeling a little adventurous, the other morning Kris and I made the pilgrimage to see the unusual and rarely photographed bridges at the old Somerset Junction.
All photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm lens.
Looking north on the gravel road that was once Maine Central’s line to Kineo Docks.Looking north on the gravel road that was once Maine Central’s line to Kineo Docks. Somerset Junction looking west
On Monday (June 6, 2022), driving west on Maine Route 6, we had just passed Greenville Junction, Maine on our way to Moosehead.
Kris said, ‘hey, I hear a train!’
I suspected the eastward 132 might be close, so I quickly turned around and drove east on Rt 6 back to the bridge at Kellys Landing, immediately east of the old CP station at Greenville Junction. At one time Bangor & Aroostook lines connected with CP here, while a spur went below CP to serve docks on Moosehead Lake.
We had just a few moments to get ready. I grabbed my Lumix LX7 and framed up the eastward freight on the bridge and exposed a series of digital photos. My first CP Moosehead Subdivision photos since June 2021!
The railroads that once served Maine’s Rangely Lake region are long off the map.
At the end of July, Kris & I went for a day-long leisurely drive north from North Conway, New Hampshire to Rangeley where we made some evening photographs of the beautiful lakes there.
Although we inspected evidence of the narrow gauge and standard gauge lines that served this resort so long ago, there was little of interest to photograph on this visit. So instead I’m presenting my lake photos exposed using my Nikon Z6 mirror-less digital camera.
All the photos were adjusted using Adobe Lightroom. I’ve gradually been formulating color-contrast profiles to make the most of the camera’s NEF RAW files.
My first visit to Canadian Pacific Railway’s Moosehead Subdivision was in the summer of 1972, when my family rented a cabin on Moosehead Lake near the East Outlet of the Kennebec River.
In the 1980s and 1990s, I made several excursions to this beautiful and sometime elusive railroad line.
Over the years this line has changed ownership several times, and CP Rail has recently re-acquired the historic route, and since then I’d been itching to get back up there.
Over this last weekend, my Fiancé, Kris Sabbatino and I made the drive from Center Conway, NH to Moosehead, Maine where we stayed at the very same campground that I had visited as a child back in 1972.
Train operations are sparse and I wanted to make the most of trains if and when we caught them on the move. So first we investigated locations near our cabin.
Here are a few photos exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 of the East Outlet Bridge of the Kennebec River at Moosehead, Maine.
More photos of the Moosehead Sub to come over the coming days!
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw last month when Kris Sabbatino and I re-visited Belfast, Maine.
In 1980, my father and I paid two visits to Belfast, one of which involved a train ride to Burnham Junction and back on the Belfast & Moosehead Lake freight. On those trips I made photos of B&ML’s yard and roundhouse on black & white film using my Leica IIIA.
In August 1997, I revisited Belfast, and found the B&ML yard intact, but ghostly quiet.
I’d read that the good citizens of Belfast despised the railroad yard and its environment and that they had evicted the railroad that the city had once owned.
I was shocked of how completely this quaint delightful compact railroad yard along the Belfast waterfront had been so totally erased from the scene. It has been replaced with a sandy parking lot.
I was unprepared because I had not brought with me the photos from my earlier visits. I found it very difficult to recall exactly where I had stood. The landmarks I knew existed only in my head.
The tracks, the structures, the trains and the character of the environment that I seen in my earlier visits were now gone.
Sadly, I’ll need to return again with my earlier photos in hand and attempt a more accurate series of ‘then and now’ images.
The views below are looking north. My attempts to recreate the roundhouse scenes looking west are not good enough to reproduce here.
August 1980August 1997September 2020September 2020
Since 1983, I’ve been photographing EMD GP’s in the Guilford gray, white and orange.
A few weeks ago, when Kris Sabbatino and I went to chase Pan Am’s SAPPI locals on the old Maine Central Hinckley Branch, I was looking forward to catching Pan Am blue locomotives in Maine.
Yet, at this late date, finding a vintage Guilford engine on the move is a novelty. How many remain?
I made this view using my FujiFilm XT1 with 12mm Zeiss Touit at Shawmut, Maine. I converted the Fuji Raw file using Iridient software, which does a superior job of interpreting the Fuji data. I then imported into Lightroom for final processing.
Today, I am posting three variations of the same image file.
This is from Sunday’s chase of Pan Am Railway’s SAPPI-3 and pictures the freight crossing Martin Stream near Hinckley, Maine.
The bucolic setting was side lit–a condition that presents a contrast challenge. I made the image using my FujiFilm XT1 with 28mm pancake lens.
Recently, and on the advice of my old pal TSH, I purchased Iridient software, which offers a different interpretation of the FujiFilm RAW files.
Below are examples of the in-camera FujiFilm JPG (using Velvia color profile), a DNG file converted from the Fuji RAW by Adobe Lightroom, and a comparison DNG file converted from RAW using the Iridient software.
All were then scaled and exported using Lightroom. I made identical color and contrast corrections to the two DNG files. (My interpretation, not Fuji’s)
My intent is to compare the Iridient processing with Adobe’s. The Camera JPG is a third reference.
Since this is one of my first experiments with the Iridient software, I cannot claim to be a master of working with it.
I’ve labeled each image below.
FujiFilm in-camera JPG using Velvia color profile. This was scaled for internet presentation with no alternations to color balance, color temperature or contrast.Fuji Camera Raw converted to DNG by Adobe Lightroom and adjusted for color balance, color temperature and contrast.Fuji Camera Raw converted to DNG by Iridient and then imported to Adobe Lightroom for color balance, color temperature and contrast correction (same settings as above).
Following up on yesterday’s Tracking the Light Post . . . Kris Sabbatino and I had found the tracks of the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes two-foot gauge tourist railroad recreation and decided to investigate!
A covered bridge once carried tracks over this river at Philips—Lumix LX7 photo.
Using the powers of the internet we learned there was more to see than the small station at Sanders; so we drove toward the village of Phililps, Maine and down the appropriate side street. A sign advising hikers and railfans provided the needed clues.
Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes must be one of these Brigadoon Railways that comes to life at infrequent intervals but spends most of the time secluded deep in a forest.
We met no one. We saw nothing on the move. We took only pictures. And left without a trace.
The historic Sandy River & Rangely Lakes gave up the ghost in 1935. This is relic from the original operation.Some wee diesel disguised as a Forney. Lumix LX7 photo.The original SR&RL roundhouse burned to the ground in 1923 destroy three fine locomotives in the process. This is a recreation. Lumix LX7 photo.You just never know what lurks among the trees! Lumix LX7 photo.
We were aware that there was a contemporary two-foot gauge tourist railroad on a portion of the historic Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes—a once extensive line that succumbed during the Great Depression.
So, on a recent drive around rural western Maine, Kris Sabbatino and I visited Philips, Maine and were delighted to find the small station at Sanders, where two-foot gauge tracks met the road.
The sign on the station read ‘Trains will run in 2021’.
After making a few photos, we decided to explore further . . .
In October 1999, I made this view of a meet between the Great Train Escapes tour train and a St Lawrence & Atlantic freight. Both trains were led by MLW-built M-420 diesels.
Eastbound at Danville Junction in October 1999.
Since that photo 21 years ago, much has changed at Danville Junction,
The trees have grown; the track arrangement was simplified, the St Lawrence & Atlantic was amalgamated into the Genesee & Wyoming network, the MLW diesels have vanished from the scene, and the tour train doesn’t operate any more.
Looking east at Danville Junction in June 2020. Former St Lawrence & Atlantic alignment at Danville Junction in June 2020.
In June, Kris Sabbatino and I paid a brief visit to Danville Junction, my first since 1999. It was a surreal experience for me. So little of it seem familiar.
Last week, Kris Sabbatino and I drove east along the old Grand Trunk and paid a visit to Genesee & Wyoming’s small yard at Lewiston Junction, Maine.
Shortly after we arrived, a pair of EMD SW1500 switchers lettered for G&W’s Quebec Gatineau pulled into the engine facility and tied down.
Pretty neat to catch these antiques working in bright afternoon sun!
Later I looked up the details of these locomotives and was pleased to learn that they were both former Conrail, originally Penn Central locomotives. I’ll need to see if I have them in blue or black! Stay tuned.
Exposed with my FujiFilm XT1 fitted with an 18-135 Fujinon zoom lens.
The other day I wrote of our adventure following the former Grand Trunk Railway line north through New Hampshire and Vermont to the Canadian border but not finding anything on the move.
Friday, June 5, 2020, Kris Sabbatino and I made another go of finding the ‘SLR’ as Genesee & Wyoming’s St Lawrence & Atlantic is known.
(Just for point of reference in this instance ‘SLR’ represents the railroads official reporting marks. However, to avoid unnecessary confusion or gratuitous irony, I did not make these photos using a single lens reflex, but rather a mirror-less Lumix LX7 digital camera.)
Thanks to Andrew Dale—who supplied helpful schedule information and sighting details—we were able to intercept the SLR’s westward freight. Driving east from Gorham, Kris and I waited for the train at Locke’s Mills, Maine.
Finally we could hear its EMD-roar to the east.
We then followed the heavy freight on its westward prowl toward Canada. We were among several other photographers with similar approaches.
A full moon and solid tripod aided my photographic efforts.
Locke’s Mills, Maine.Barker Road west of Bethel, Maine.Full moon rising at Ferry Road.Gilead, Maine.Reflection Pond near Gorham, NH. Gorham with full moon rising over the former Grand Trunk Railway station.
On the evening of August 22, 1986, I exposed this pair of Kodachrome 25 slides on the Maine Central’s Rockland Branch at Wiscasset, Maine.
At the time traffic on the branch was almost nil.
I used a 21mm Leica Super Angulon lens which offered a distinct perspective of this rustic scene. My interest was drawn to the two rotting schooners in the westward view, while in the eastward view I was aiming to show the vestiges of the piers for the long defunct Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington 2-foot gauge.
The common-carrier Maine two-foot gauge railroads vanished from the scene many moons ago.
A couple of months back, Dwight Smith pointed me to photo hanging on the wall of the North Conway ticket office that shows himself on a Bridgton & Harrison train. “That was taken of me eighty years ago when I was 15.” Well that sort of puts things in perspective!
So on a recent photography adventure with Kris Sabbatino, we paused at Harrison, Maine, the most northerly point on the defunct Bridgton & Harrison. Using my smart phone, I summoned a vintage USGS topographical map from the University of New Hampshire collection and used this to locate where the railroad had been.
We checked a few locations, before I spotted this old causeway and bridge abutments.
Here’s another view from the amazing winter photography trip sponsored by Maine’s Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in conjunction with Portland’s Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company & Museum.
Sometimes conditions practically photograph themselves, all you have to do is point the camera!
Exposed digitally using a FujiFilm XT1 with 18-135mm zoom lens. Arctic conditions produced some stunning steam effects.
Last weekend the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in conjunction with Portland’s Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company & Museum invited me to a magical event featuring three steam locomotives under steam.
Arctic conditions were tough on fingers and toes, but made for spectacular displays of steam and condensation.
Among the stars of the event was former Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington number 9, a legendary machine that had been saved from scrapping many years ago and then stored for decades in a Connecticut barn.
This was my first visit with old number 9.
I exposed these photos digitally but I also made use of an old Nikon F3 to exposed both black& white and color film so that future generations may be able to appreciate the cosmic even of January 18-19, 2020.
