Tag Archives: Olean

photography, Tips and Technique

Conrail at Olean—November 6, 1988.

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Yesterday I scanned this 30 year Kodachrome  25 slide using a Nikon Coolscan5000 operated with VueScan 9.6.09 scanning software.. 

The unmodified scan is a bit on the dark side. I’d been chasing Conrail ELOI (Elkhart to Oak Island) eastbound on the former Erie Railroad on typically dull western New York November day.

Many of my photos from that chase were exposed on black & white film using my father’s old Rollei Model T. At least one of those appeared in CTC Board as a Conrail new illustration back in the day.

When I reached Olean, I wanted to feature the crossing with the former PRR route to Buffalo, which was then also a Conrail secondary main line, and I made this panned view of ELOI’s lead locomotive crossing the diamonds.

I exposed this at f5.6 1/30 second to capture the motion of the locomotive.

Unmodified scan, except for scaling for internet presentation (the original is about 110MB).

After scanning, I imported the slide into Lightroom and made a variety of corrections to improve the appearance of the image. This included slight cropping to improve the level; color correction, lightening of the shadow areas and over-all contrast control.

I’ve include both the unmodified scan and corrected image here.

Corrected scan outputted as a JPG file for internet.

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Locomotive Geometry: Alco C-430

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Finding an interesting locomotive is always an opportunity for photography. Finding a rare locomotive in crisp October sunshine is a great opportunity!

In October 2008, Pat Yough, Tim Doherty and I found Western New York & Pennsylvania Alco C-430 number 430 at the Olean Yard in Allegany, New York.

I think this locomotive has had more owners than I’ve had automobiles. It began as one of ten C-430s on New York Central, giving that railroad more of this rare model than all the other buyers of the type put together.

The C-430 is an attractive machine and I used the sunshine to good advantage. Here are a few of the studies I made of 430 on that bright morning.

Exposed on Fujichrome with a Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm zoom lens.
Exposed on Fujichrome with a Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm zoom lens.

WNY&PA_430_Allegheny_Yard_Olean_NY_11Oct2008_Brian_Solomon_193240
430 retains its classification lamps, a vestige of train-order rules that no longer have relevance to operations.

WNY&PA_430_Allegheny_Yard_Olean_NY_11Oct2008_Brian_Solomon_193241

WNY&PA_430_Allegheny_Yard_Olean_NY_11Oct2008_Brian_Solomon_193239

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