Tag Archives: #Palmer

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Time and the Diamond

In the summer of 1984, I played with a variety of lenses. I’d dropped my stalwart 50mm Leitz Sumitar , and so tended to prefer either an f1.8 Canon 50mm or my dad’s prized 21mm Leitz Super Angulon.

In August of that year, I was poised at the Palmer Diamond (where Conrail’s Boston Line crossed the Central Vermont Railway in Palmer, Massachusetts) to photograph a westward set of light engines running ‘cab hop’ toward West Springfield Yard.

The sun was partially obscured by a cloud, but the air was crisp.

I made this photo with my Leica 3A rangefinder fitted with the Super Angulon. Among the advantages of this lens was the external viewfinder which allowed for a larger and more precise means of composing photos than the tiny in-camera viewfinder that was designed strictly for a 50mm.

Palmer has changed greatly since 1984. For point of comparison, I’ve included a view of the diamond that I exposed in September 2023.

Conrail single-tracked the Boston Line in July 1986, and the trees have come up obscuring the view that I was once afforded there.

Please activate the time machine and set it to August 1984!

Looking west at Palmer, Mass. New Conrail C30-7As roll west on the old Boston & Albany. August 1984.
Looking west at Palmer, Mass., September 9, 2023.

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The SD50—my first glimpse

In January 1984, I’d driven my parent’s 1978 gray Ford Grenada to Palmer, Massachusetts.

A set of Conrail light engines blitzed past me, and I chased after them.

In consist was a couple of brand-new EMD SD50s and a few new GE B36-7s.

This was pretty exciting stuff! I was 17 at the time.

I chased east on Routes 20 and 67. At Kings Bridge Road east of Palmer I turned toward Conrail’s Boston & Albany line, but the Conrail engines were too close for me to get a lineside photo. So, I stopped the car in the middle of the road, raised my 1930s-era Leica IIIA and shot through the windshield of the Ford.

My camera was loaded with Kodak Tri-X— film that I later processed in Kodak Microdol-X developer.

Conrail GP40 number 3214 leads a set of eastbound light engines at Kings Bridge Road. This is near the location that later became Conrail’s CP79, about three miles east of the Palmer, Massachusetts yard. Kodak Tri-X with Leica IIIA.
I was very excited to catch a glimpse of Conrail 6703, a brand new EMD SD50!
I was very impressed by the length of the SD50s compared with Conrail’s older EMD diesels, including SD40 6268 seen trailing SD50 6718.
At the rear of the set of light engines were these three B36-7s.

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Ware River—May 3, 1999.

It was an overcast morning at Thorndike, Massachusetts, when I set up along Massachusetts Central’s Ware River Line to catch the northward freight.

The pair of classic EMD GPs produced a nice roar as they worked along the Ware River.

Using a borrowed Canon, I made this photo on Fujichrome Velvia (50 ISO slide film).

The soft lighting combined with Velvia’s high saturation allows for a painterly quality. This is improved by lightening the image using Adobe Lightroom.

Below are two versions of the same scan, one is lighter than the other.

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Moment in Time-August 14, 1988.

Conrail and the town of Palmer, Massachusetts were replacing the old South Main Street Bridge immediately east of the signals at CP83.

I made this view from the old bridge that was in its final weeks. New retaining walls had just been installed and machinery was working near the old Palmer Union station as Conrail’s eastward SEPW (Selkirk to Providence & Worcester) took the conrolled siding to make a meet with a set of westward light engines holding on the main track.

The old bridge featured classic wooden decking and makes for an interesting foreground. To make the most of the bridge and railroad code lines, I framed the scene with my Leica M2 rangefinder fitted with an f2.0 35mm Summicron.

A Central Vermont local freight was working the interchage track to the right of the Conrail freight.

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Central Vermont—Dublin Street, December 12, 1992.

Thirty years ago fresh snow covered the ground at Dublin Street in Palmer, Massachusetts.

At that time the Grand Trunk influence on Central Vermont Railway was very much evident.

I made this photo on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T to preserve the scene for posterity. I scanned the slide last night for presentation here using a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered by VueScan software.

I wonder how I’d handle this scene to day using my Nikon Z6?

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Blue SD60—Palmer, Mass.

Seven years ago—November 14, 2015—I made these photos of a colorfully decorated SD60 spotted at the New England Central yard at Palmer, Massachusetts.

Back in Central Vermont days, six-motor diesels were a very rarely operated to the Palmer yard. These days they are common.

Photos exposed using my first Fuji XT1 with an 18-135mm kit lens set to 18.5mm.

GMTX 9000 is an unusual example of EMD’s SD60 that features the 1990s-era Radial Truck.

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Amtrak 448 catches the Glint in Palmer.

Yesterday evening at CP83 in Palmer, Massachusetts in time-honored tradition, Kris and I rolled by Amtrak 448—the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited

I made these photos with my Lumix LX7. Working from the camera RAW, I made necessary adjustments in Lightroom to control highlight detail, color balance and contrast.

August 12, 2022.
August 12, 2022.

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Empty Yard at Palmer

Deep blue sky, fluffy white clouds, Spring-green trees, three locomotives and not a car in the yard nor a wheel turning on the New England Central at Palmer, Massachusetts.

That was the scene when we passed through last Thursday, May 12, 2022.

Exposed digitally using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70 Z-series Nikkor lens.

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Classic Conrail at CP79

After a light snowfall in December 1993, I set up at CP79 east of Palmer, Massachusetts, where an eastward Conrail freight led by DASH-8-40C 6069 was holding on the Controlled Siding to meet a set of light engines rolling west behind B23-7 1992.

I was working with my Nikon F3T fitted with an Nikkor AF28MM lens. Since the F3T wasn’t equipped with autofocus, I set the focus manually.

This lens offered a wide perspective and tended to vignette the corners of the photo. Also because it was relatively wide, the relative motion of the leading locomotive to the film plane was greater than with a longer focal length lens, and resulted in a slight blurring, despite a 1/250th of second shutter speed.

My film choice was Kodachrome 25.

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Central Vermont at the Diamond.

September 23, 1984; crisp autumn sunlight made for some nice light to capture a southward Central Vermont freight crossing the Boston & Albany at Palmer, Massachusetts.

I was working with Kodak Tri-X, which I was learning to process in D-76, rather than Microdol-X. D-76 offered broader tonality, but resulted in somewhat coarser grain. Complicating matters, my process time was a bit longer than necessary and I tended to over agitate, which resulted in denser negatives than I’d like.

A comparatively rare Central Vemont lash-up; GP9 4551 and GP18 3602. The former Rock Island GP18 was relatively short lived on CV.
Palmer Union Station at left.

Despite the minor processing flaws, I scanned the negatives last week and made minor corrections in post processing to yield better results.

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Alcos at Dublin Street

On January 27, 1984, I made a few photos of Central Vermont Alco RS-11s switching at Dublin Street in Palmer, Massachusetts.

Locomotive 3608 was a rare bird on CV’s Palmer Subdivision. I only caught it in daylight on a few occasions. This RS-11 was distinctive for its boxy chopped nose on its short hood.

I scanned this negative a few days ago using my Epson V600 flatbed scanner and made some very minor post-processing adjustments to contrast using Adobe Lightroom.

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Palmer Yard—Spring 1985

Another choice image from my recently scanned roll of Ilford FP4 exposed in Spring 1985.

I made this view with a 50mm lens looking timetable west at the west end of Conrail’s old Boston & Albany yard in Palmer, Massachusetts. I had driven in behind Howlett’s Lumber to photograph a Sperry rail defect detection car that was stored near the B&A freight house.

Just about everything in this scene has changed. The freight house was demolished in Janaury 1989. The large building at right beyond burned down some years later. The code lines were removed after the B&A was re-signaled in 1986-1987.

I’ve posted two versions of this photo. The top is my unaltered and uncorrected scan. The bottom reflects a series of nominal adjustments using Adobe Lightroom.

Unadjusted sca&W negative. Back in the day, I suffered from a propensity to tilt my camera to the right, leaving many fine photos flawed by being off-level. I also had a tendency to over process my negatives, which led to ‘white skies’ and excessive highlight contrast.

In this view, I leveled the image by rotating it about 2 degrees clockwise. I then adjusted sky density and contrast and make overall changes to image contrast and density to improve tonality and detail..

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GP38-2 with WInter Sky . . .

. . . Sky ‘enhanced’, that is.

The other day on a brief visit to Palmer, Massachusetts,Kris and I paused for a minute to make a photo of this Buffalo & Pittsburgh GP38-2 at the New England Central’s former Central Vermont yard. (Both NECR and B&P are part of the Genessee & Wyoming family.)

I thought of the countless photos that I’ve made of locomotives here over the last 45 years. Yet, I had never seen this locomotive here before. (Or certainly not in its current guise anyway.)

I made the image toward the end of daylight. Rich winter light graced the late afternoon sky, while the locomotive was largely bathed in shadow.

Lumix LX7 photo. I arranged my composition to show more than just the locomotive, but also feature the road, yard tracks, freight cars, and of course the clouds. To minimize the effects of some distracting glint on therighthand number board on the locomotive, I took the photo from a relatively low angle.

To make for a more pleasing image, I balanced the highlights and shadows and made adjustments to color temperature and contrast using Adobe Lightroom. The Sky Mask tool sampled this work. I felt my initial edit was a bit heavy handed so I toned it down a bit for presentation here.

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My Conrail

Next Friday evening, (November 12, 2021) I’ll be presenting a mulitmedia program titled; ‘My Conrail,’ to the 25th Anniversary Beecherfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This is my tribute to the Boston & Albany with a selection of photography spanning nearly 30 years.

SEPA/PASE power in Palmer, Massachusetts in 1989. Kodachrome 25 exposed with a Leica M2 and 35mm Summicron.

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October 25, 1985—Palmer Diamond

This day has always been a special one for me!

On this day 36 years ago, I spent the afternoon making photos at Palmer, Massachusetts.

I exposed this image using my father’s Rollei model T loaded with Kodak VPX (Verichrome Pan) 120-size black & white film that I later processed in Kodak D76 developer.

At that time I was attending Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where I was studying photography and music.

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New England Central on a Frosty morning.

I made this Fujichrome slide of the New England Central yard at Palmer, Massachusetts in January 1998—just a few weeks before embarking on my first trip to Ireland

The subtle duo-chromic hues and stark winter landscape make for a simple frame for what I find a visually complicated image.

Carefully observe the unorthodox use of selective focus.

Where a common solution for a focus point might have been on the nose of the locomotive, instead I aimed at the distant truss bridge at the south-end of the yard, while leaving the tracks in the foreground slightly blurred.

The use of lighting selective provides silhouettes.

Texture in the tracks, trees and sky, add complexity.

What is the subject? The locomotive? The tracks? Or the truss bridge and poles in the distance?

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Nostalgia for a Bad Slide.

Languishing in my Miscellaneous Railroad Seconds file (Bad Slides) from 1982-1983 was this back lit winter view of the Central Vermont Railway yard in Palmer, Massachusetts.

I’d exposed this Kodachrome 64 slide using my old Leica 3A fitted with 50mm Sumitar.

This is a technically flawed photo. It is considerably off-level. The exposure is slightly on the dark side. The composition is a bit loose. And the color is decidedly magenta owing to a processing abnormality on the part of Kodak.

As an exercise, I decided to scan the slide and import into Lightroom to see if I could improve it.

I’ve included the unadjusted scan. A screen shot of the adjustment window. And, my final adjusted image.

My unadjusted scan.
Leveled, cropped, color and contrast corrected scan.

Screen shot of the Adobe Lightroom work window showing the degree of change during an early edit of my ‘Bad Slide’. I ended up taking out even more magenta.

I ended up wondering how I might photograph this scene today, using my most modern cameras. Also I wonder, is my ‘bad slide’ really all that bad? It may mean little to random viewers, but it conjured up in my memory the Palmer Yard of my youth. There’s a pair of idling Central Vermont Alco RS-11s, and in the distance the train they had recently delivered. Just about everything in the photo reminds me of how exciting I found railroading when I was 13.

Would a ‘better’ photo convey the same feeling for me?

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Rainy Night at CP83 in Palmer, Massachusetts

Saturday night, July 17, 2021, I revisited Palmer, Massachusetts with Kris Sabbatino and Pat Yough, where we made night photos of the CSX signals at CP83.

For me photographing at Palmer at night is an old tradition that began in the 1980s.

Where I used to make time exposures with a Leica IIIA loaded with Kodak Tri-X, on this visit I worked with my modern Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera mounted on my father’s Gitzo carbon fiber tripod.

My own tripod had remained in New Hampshire, so needed a loan of my dad’s legs.

A westward CSX highrail truck passes CP83.

I made minor adjustements to color temperature and contrast using Adobe Lightroom.

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New ENgland Central —Palmer, Mass.

Years gone by, I would have made a pass through Palmer on my way out of town to get the lay of the land on the railroad.

We went through this exercise a few weeks back when visiting from New Hampshire.

On our way through Palmer, Massachusetts, Kris Sabbatino & I checked the signals on CSX’s former Boston & Albany route at CP83. Then we inspected New England Central’s former Central Vermont yard.

For old time sake, and to record the scene for posterity, I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 with 24-70mm zoom lens.

The ‘Simpsons Sky’ was an added bonus. (In reference to the opening sequence of the popular animated television program)

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Central Vermont 444 at Palmer

Back in the mid-1980s, I’d often catch Central Vemont’s southward road freight arriving at Palmer, Massachusetts. This would operate overnight from St. Albans, and typically arrive in the morning.

On this occasion, 444 was lead by a colorful mix of locomotives including Grand Trunk Western GP38 5808 and a couple of GTW GP9s, a CV GP9, and a Canadian National M-420.

I must have been so enthralled by the array of motive power that I didn’t mind my exposure. My original slide is about 2/3s of a stop over exposed. Which means the photograph is too light.

Back in the day, I’d instantly reject an image of this quality as ‘unsuitable’ for projection. Although, I labeled the slide, I filed it away with my ‘3rds’, where it was protected from the light for more than 34 years.

I scanned it the other day using a Nikon Coolscan5000 digital scanner, making a multiple pass scan to extract the most amount of data possible in a 4000 dpi scan, then imported the TIF file into Adobe Lightroom for adjustment.

The actual adjustment required to correct for over exposure required just a few seconds of my time. Using the histogram as a guide, I lowered the exposure, set the black and white limits and exported as a JPG for presentation here.

Below is the unadjusted scan, followed by my exposure adjusted scan.

The original over exposed photo unadjusted after scanning.
My exposure-adjusted scan.

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Ten Years Ago!

Ten Years ago on this day (January 24, 2011) I caught Mass-Central and CSX freights side by side at CP83 in Palmer, Massachusetts using my Canon EOS-7D.

This was an effort in passing; I’d been out running errands and saw the signals lit on CSX’s Boston Line and so I turned down the road to see what was going on.

January 24, 2011 at Palmer, Massachusetts. If you look carefully, there’s a second CSX westbound blocked behind the first.

It helps to have a camera at the ready!

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Conrail’s CP83 Palmer, Massachusetts—October 1998.

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This was just an ordinary scene at CP83 in Palmer, Massachusetts in October 1998.

Amtrak’s Vermonter was holding on the interchange track as C30-7A rolled east on to the controlled siding, and a westbound with SD80MACs waited on the mainline.

I made this view on Fujichrome using a Nikon N90S with 28mm lens.

At the time I made this image, Conrail’s class 1 operation had less than a year remaining.

I recall Conrail’s 23 years of operation in my new book; Conrail and its Predecessors published by Kalmbach Media. 

https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/01309

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New England Central 611 at Three Rivers—Four Photos

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It was nice to see some freight on the move!

Here we have New England Central’s 611 Job northbound at Three Rivers in Palmer, Massachusetts.

My eight page feature on the New England Central appears in the June 2020 Trains Magazine.

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Central Vermont at Palmer—May 17, 1985.

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This was a common scene in the mid-1980s; Central Vermont’s southward road freight with a large collection of GP9s crossing the Palmer diamond.

What I find remarkable looking at this image is how few trees were around the tracks back then as compared with today.

At the bottom is a view of the New England Central at the same location a few weeks ago.

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Vintage New England Central!

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New England Central from 24 years ago!

On February 5, 1996, I exposed a series of Kodachrome 25 color slides of New England Central 9529 switching at Palmer, Massachusetts.

The railroad later renumbered its engines from the 9500-series to the 3800-series, but in 2020 a few of its now geriatric GP38s still work the line in the 1995-era Conrail-applied New England Central start-up paint.

K25 exposed with a Nikon F3T fitted with an f4 Nikkor 200mm telephoto lens.

25 years in the same blue and yellow scheme. While not a world record, it is still pretty impressive.

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