This morning (31 March 2016), Irish Railway Record Society’s Peter Rigney in cooperation with Irish Rail launched an historical display focused on the role of the railway in the 1916 Easter Rising.
The display is located on platform 1.
The other evening some friends and I traveled from the Dublin city centre to Blackrock on the DART-Dublin’s electrified suburban rail-transit service.
The DART branding mimic’s the Bay Area’s third-rail rapid transit brand ‘BART’ (Bay Area Rapid Transit).
While sometimes my rail travel is focused on the making of photos, this trip had another primary purpose; yet with my Lumix LX7 at the ready, I used every opportunity to make photos.
Significantly, Dublin’s Pearse Station, formerly-known as Westland Row, is credited as the world’s oldest city terminus in continuous use. It was opened in 1834 with the Dublin & Kingstown Railway. Of course, the D&K has the distinction as the world’s earliest operating suburban railway.
Ireland has been celebrating the Easter Rising Centenary.
Liberty Hall is an iconic Dublin skyscraper that makes for a interesting prop when juxtaposed with Irish Rail trains on the Loop Line Bridge over the River Liffey.
I explored this scene on 26 March 2016, when a swollen overcast sky made for typical Dublin lighting.
On Easter Sunday, I revisited my locations of the previous day. The sun was out, which changed the look of the setting. Perhaps, I’ll try again with film.
Not on ‘Tracking the Light’? Click on Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light for the full image and story.
In the 1980s, I made hundreds of images of upper quadrant three-position semaphores along the old Erie Railroad in New York State, a line then part of the Conrail system.
I focused on this semaphore near Tioga Center, New York in August 1988. This is part of a sequence that portrayed the signal in its three position and this image is of the ‘approach aspect’.
Learn more about American semaphore practice in my book, Classic Railroad Signals published by Voyageur Press.
The deep cutting on the north-side of Dublin’s Phoenix Park Tunnel used to be a difficult place to get a good angle on a train. Previously I’d worked it, but it wasn’t easy. There was only a narrow view and the light was almost always problematic.
Some weeks back, Irish Rail cleared brush and trees from the cutting opening up the view as it hasn’t been for in decades.
Saturday, 19 March 2016, Colm O’Callaghan collected me and we met some friends at a high over bridge to make the most of this new opportunity.
Two trains were expected after Irish Rail lifted a permanent way possession (in North America this would be called ‘maintenance window’, which basically means the line was closed for work).
Take away the trees! Hurrah!
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This quiet overhead crossing of the quad-track is just past the 8 ¾ milepost from Dublin’s Heuston Station.
It offers an open view of the line with a favorable angle for down (traveling away from Dublin) trains mid-morning.
It takes a tuned interest in Irish Rail’s operations and a bit of luck. to time a visit to coincide with passage of the weekday IWT Liner (International Warehousing & Transport container train between Dublin and Ballina) and the more elusive HOBS (high output ballast system).
Getting the clouds to cooperate is trickier yet again.
A couple of weeks ago Colm O’Callaghan and I spent a strategic 45 minutes at Stucumny Bridge.
Even if you fail at catching the freight on the move, there’s always a steady parade of passenger trains.
Last Tuesday, I noticed a shaft of sunlight that had illuminated a pair of trains under the shed at Dublin’s Heuston Station.
This Kodachrome slide has always resonated with me.
In North American practice, cabooses and stack trains were equipment from different eras that just barely overlapped.
During the mid-1980s, most class 1 freight carriers banished cabooses to operational backwaters. True, cabooses held out in rare instances (some can still be found), but they had been made redundant by technological changes and their once-standard operation finally came to an end as a side-effect of deregulation.
Another effect of deregulation was a more progressive environment that favored double-stacked container trains.
So, as cabooses were rapidly sidetracked, stack trains were becoming common on principal trunk lines. Since intermodal operations tended to run from terminal to terminal, these trains were among the first to lose cabooses.
I can count the number of caboose-ended double-stack trains I photographed on one hand.
I especially like this view in a snow squall of a Norfolk Southern train carrying an Norfolk & Western caboose on the back of a Maersk stack train that had just come east over the old Nickel Plate route.
The background is the colossal and completely abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal, designed by Fellheimer & Wagner, and constructed by the New York Central during the false optimism of the roaring 1920s, only to open on the eve of the Great Depression.
Buy my book Railway Depots, Stations & terminals published by Voyageur Press to learn more about Fellheimer & Wagner’s stations
Last Friday, 11 March 2016, I went up to my favored Irish local location; Islandbridge Junction. This is a handy place for me.
This is great place to catch a freight train exiting Dublin’s Phoenix Park Tunnel on a bright clear day, yet can be visually problematic on a dull day.
On this day, I thought it would be a good place to experiment with a Lee graduated neutral density filter as a means of controlling contrast and allowing for a more effective overall exposure.
The filter I use offers subtle 2/3s of a stop gradation. This is adjustable both up/down and rotationally left/right.
I made a few test photos with and without the filter to gauge my exposure before the IWT arrived with Irish Rail 088 in the lead.
A similar effect can be accomplished digitally, yet the digital effect doesn’t add information to the RAW file, but only makes a visual adjustment in the final image.
In other words to apply the filter digital may be viewed as a ‘correction’ rather than an in-camera technique. Yet, it is often easier to apply a filter in post-processing than in the field.
I’ve used both methods depending on the circumstance.
Below are some results.
This gives a nice overall of my experiment, but in the middle of all this I got a little greedy. Using my zoom lens on the FujiFilm X-T1, I made a tight view of the IWT (with the filter).
As is often the case with last second changes, I didn’t get my exposure quite right. My feeling was that the RAW file was about 1/3 of a stop too dark.
As with most of my photography, I consider this a work in progress. In all likelihood, before long I’ll be back at Islandbridge Junction to further refine my experiment.
It was a day of big excitement. Up north, Guilford was in a knot as result of a strike action. Bob Buck phoned me early in the morning to say that ‘The Boot’ (the colloquial name for Amtrak’s Montrealer) was detouring to Palmer on the Central Vermont, then west on the Boston & Albany (Conrail).
Using my dad’s Rollei model T loaded with Kodak Tri-X, I made the most of the unusual move.
This was nearly a decade before Amtrak’s Vermonter began to regularly make the jog in Palmer from the CV/New England Central route to the B&A mainline.
And, it was only four months before Conrail ended traditional directional double-track operations between Palmer and Springfield.
I’d met some photographers at the Palmer diamond and encouraged them to take advantage of my favorite vantage point at the rock cutting at milepost 84, just over the Quaboag River from the Palmer Station.
As detouring Amtrak number 61 approached with a former Santa Fe CF7 leading the train to Springfield, we could hear an eastward Conrail freight chugging along with new GE C30-7As.
This is among my favorite sequences that show the old double track in action.
Some of these photos later appeared in Passenger Train Journal. Long before I was the Associate Editor of that magazine.
Sunday morning was warm but dull.
Railway Preservation Society Ireland had scheduled a trip to depart Connolly Station Dublin for a run out the Sligo Road to Carrick-on-Shannon and Boyle.
Where to catch it?
There’s a bit of a pull up toward Glasnevin Junction with the stiffest climb as the line passes Croke Park.
At Claude Road a pedestrian bridge over the line offers an excellent view to the east.
On a clear day this isn’t a preferred mid-morning view, because you’d be fighting the sun (to no advantage).
No chance of the sun presenting a problem yesterday morning.
I could hear number 4’s shrill whistle as the engine departed Connolly, followed by more than five minutes of stack talk as the engine worked its consist of Cravens upgrade.
Using my FujiFilm X-T1, I exposed this sequence of digital images as the train worked by me.
I wonder, perhaps I’d have been better off with my old Nikon and 400mm Tokina telephoto to hone in on the working engine? That would be a slide of course. Maybe next time.
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On a bright May morning at Wolsztyn, Poland, I organized a footplate trip for myself on a PKP (Polish National Railways) 2-6-2 running to Poznan with a revenue passenger train.
This was among the photos I made of the experience.
Let’s just say I had a nice view on the return trip.
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Last night, as advertised, I presented my program to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin.
I had a large and receptive audience. There were more bodies than seats.
The program was in two parts, divided by a tea break (as per tradition). After a few slides from America, I focused on the main event: Ireland as I saw it 10 years ago.
I apologize: there were no photos of the DART or 29000-series CAF-built railcars, and I probably offered a disproportionate number of views of the last two operational class 121 diesels.
For those curious about my camera equipment: at the time I was in a transition between Nikon and Canon systems, while I was also making good use of a Contax G2 rangefinder. Color slides were exposed with lens ranging from a 16mm Zeiss Hologon to a 400mm Tokina telephoto.
In 2006, I was more than 2 years away from exposing my first digital photo. I was like the Norfolk & Western in 1953, and still firmly committed to the old technology. Most of the slides were exposed using Fujichrome Sensia2 (ISO 100), although I also used some Fujichrome Velvia 100, Provia 100F, and Provia 400F, as well as the occasional roll of Ektachrome.
Thanks to everyone who attended!
Tonight, 10 March 2016, I will present an illustrated program “One Year on Irish Railways; Looking back Ten Years” to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin.
What will I show?
I sifted through thousands of my Irish Rail slides looking for images that fit my arbitrary qualification; exposed in Ireland during 2006.
After locating more than 500 slides that fit the bill, I then honed the selection to something manageable.
Ultimately, this meant I needed to reject more photos than I included.
Here are five views that I exposed in 2006, that will not be appearing tonight.
I hope no one will be disappointed.
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Irish Rail’s 071 class diesels are 40-year old work-horse locomotives that are now largely assigned to permanent way and freight trains.
Ten years ago, Irish Rail’s 071s still regular worked passenger services in addition to their other duties. I made a point of photographing the 071s on both main line and branch passenger trains.
Among the features of my presentation to the Irish Railway Record Society this coming Thursday (10 March 2016) will be my vintage images of the 071 at work.
The talk will begin at 7:30 pm at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station.
Among the features of Irish Rail in 2006 were two new paint liveries that had been introduced the year previous.
I preferred the yellow-face scheme on the 201 class diesel. This photographed better than either the older predominantly orange livery, or the new two-tone green and silver (such featured in yesterday’s post).
The brighter ends proved visually especially advantageous in situations such as this one where the front-end was shadowed.
On 10 March 2016, I will present a feature length illustrated talk to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin; my topic, Irish Railways in 2006.
This will begin at 7:30 pm at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station, Dublin.
On 10 March 2016, I will present a feature length illustrated talk to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin; my topic, Irish Railways in 2006.
This will begin at 7:30 pm at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station, Dublin.
In keeping with this theme, today’s Tracking the Light looks back at 2006: A year that saw many changes on Irish Rail. Among these was the introduction of the Mark4 push pull sets on the Dublin-Cork run.
I made this view from the canal bridge over the River Barrow of Irish Rail’s viaduct over the same river.
Here a 201-class diesel in the recently introduced green and silver livery (designed to match the new Mark4 sets) leads a train of Mark 2 carriages.
Green 201s and Mark IIs only co-existed for a short time and I was please to make this striking image of this comparatively unusual combination.
Key to my composition is the billowing clouds to the north of the line.
Today, we’d be happy to see a railcar cross Irish Rail’s dormant South Wexford Line.
Back in April 2006, I made this photograph of a mixed pair (class 121/141) with a ballast train at Campile.
Not hard to take in retrospect!
On 10 March 2016 at 7:30 pm, I Will Present to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin a feature length illustrated talk on Irish railways as they were ten years ago; the year 2006.
My talk will be at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station.
See: http://www.irrs.ie
This Kodachrome slide represents a memory of how things were:
Back when Conrail operated the old Boston & Albany.
Back when Boston’s Beacon Park was an active yard.
I passed this location on the Logan Express bus from Framingham the other day. It is much changed
The tracks at CP4 were being re-aligned.
A few years back CSX had come to an arrangement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and agreed to close the yard.
Now at Beacon Park the remaining yard tracks are weed grown and vacant.
Intermodal trains now only run as far east as Worcester where a new, expanded yard was constructed during 2011-2012 to take the place of Beacon Park.
What little carload freight CSX has in Boston is handled by a local freight.
I’d be willing to bet that today more freight moves through the interchange at Palmer than is generated in Boston.
. . . with the moon.
I can’t say that this composition works for me, but I’ve made a lot of photos from this location over the years and I wanted to try something a bit different.
Instead of a more typical horizontal view, I opted to include the moon that was high above the tracks.
Over the years I’ve traveled with dozens of railway photographers with whom I’ve learned elements of railway photography.
Among the most important lessons I’ve learned, one has has very little to do with specific railways, locomotives, signals, or old stations. It doesn’t specifically relate to different types of equipment and isn’t really about cameras, types of film, or the definitive virtues of one media versus another.
Normally, I avoid philosophical preaching and I remain reluctant to instruct people how to conduct their affairs.
However, I think this tip may help some photographers—this is if they choose to accept it and react to it.
So, what is it?’
When you’re out making photographs avoid your invisible barriers— those things in your head that discourage you from being in position to make great photographs.
In other words try to avoid letting your arbitrary personal opinions, feelings or established prejudices from materially interfering with your focus on photography.
By ‘invisible barriers’ I mean things you can control and not personal obligations, physical limitations or other real impediments. The invisible barriers are what some people call ‘foibles’.
Some examples:
‘I don’t like to get up early.’
‘I like to eat a full breakfast before making photos.’
‘I don’t like cloudy days.’
‘I don’t like engines that are running long hood forward.’
‘I don’t like traveling more than 45 minutes from home.’
‘I don’t like driving in rush hour traffic.’
‘I don’t like locations that are too close to rivers.’
‘I hate the cold/heat/wind/dry air/rain/snow/dust storms/tornados.’
‘I only like passenger trains/freight trains/short lines/mainlines/Alco diesels.’
‘I don’t like tree branches.’
‘I only like trains climbing grades with a defined row of hills in the distance.’
‘I like bright sunny days.’
Any or all of these things may be true for you. However, when any of these things get between you and a photographic opportunity, your photography may suffer.
If you want to push your boundaries consider reconciling those arbitrary foibles that may be preventing you from being in place to get the best possible images.
Being in-place is key. If you are not there, you can’t a make photo. All the excuses in the world are no substitute for being there: so, Be There.
Push your limits. Get over the small things that are your invisible barriers. Work out what may be keeping you from your optimum photographic potential.
Not a good tip? Here’s a question:
When documenting a scene what’s the benefit of allowing invisible barriers to shape your photograph or prevent it? Answer that for yourself, not for me. I’m just giving tips.
Brian Solomon’s Tracking the Light is a Daily Blog discussing Railway Photography.
Another set from the old school: On January 29, 2016 at West Haven, Connecticut, I exposed a series of Fujichrome color slides of Amtrak train 137 (Boston to Washington) using my Canon EOS-3 with 40mm pancake lens.
I’ve found that Fujichrome works very well capturing the wide dynamic range and subtle colors of a stainless-steel train reflecting the sunset.
I scanned these slides using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 scanner. The files will be ultimately be archived in three locations on portable high-capacity external hard drives, while the slide will be stored with my other film photographs in a cool dark place.
Typically when I post photos under the ‘Classic Chrome’ heading, I use this to infer photos made from decades past.
Sometimes what was good then is good now.
I made these slides earlier this month (February 2016) using my Canon EOS-3 and Fujichrome Provia 100F. The slides arrived back from the lab and I promptly scanned them using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000.
The common qualities of all four images, in addition to the way they were made, is that they feature classic American diesel locomotives in the snow near Eaglebridge, New York.
In my earlier posts (see: Unexpected Surprise: Stumbling on to one of New York’s Rarest Railway Operations and Pan Am Railways Office Car Special (OCS)—February 15, 2015.) I described the details of my adventures along with the digital photos I’d composed. Here are the film images.
Which do you like the most?
In the last few months I’ve been lucky to catch a variety of the more obscure operations on the Pan Am Railways system.
Last week, Mike Gardner and I spent the afternoon around North Adams, Massachusetts.
EDRJ arrived with two locomotives to drop for local freight AD-1.
Although, we had high hopes of following EDRJ west toward the Hudson River Valley (uttering the now-famous battle cry, ‘To the River!’), Pan Am had other ideas.
History will forgive them.
So instead we followed AD1 down the old Boston & Albany North Adams branch to Zylonite.
I was familiar with the run, since my father and I traveled over it back in October on the Berkshire Scenic RDC (see: Berkshire Scenic’s Hoosac Valley—A Dozen Photos!)
After a taste of this surviving segment of B&A’s extension to North Adams, we followed the abandoned vestige of the line that runs southward to Pittsfield, then made the most of the late afternoon on the former B&A mainline!
In just two weeks time; on 10 March 2016, I Will Present to the Dublin branch of the Irish Railway Record Society a feature length illustrated talk on Irish railways as they were ten years ago; the year 2006.
This will feature some of my best photography from 2006 and will include a variety of images from around Ireland
My talk will begin at 7:30 pm at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station.
Tracking the Light posts every day!Dennis LeBeau was giving me a tour of post-industrial Worcester.
We called into ‘The Space Studios’ located in old brick factory buildings immediately north of CSX’s former Boston & Albany mainline near Webster Street. The building complex once hosted an array of sidings, including a small coal trestle.
Inside the studio Dennis’s son Tommy LeBeau was recording The Green Sisters who were energetically performing traditional Bluegrass with a variety of stringed instruments.
Using my Lumix LX-7 to its best advantage, I made a few evocative images of the session.
So what’s this have to do with railroads? Not much really, but its all related. Sometimes when you look for one thing, you find something else.
Later in the afternoon Dennis and I reviewed a vintage collection of B&A photos depicting the Worcester area. In the last 115 years a great deal has changed.
There was no Lumix LX7 in 1901.
I wonder what Worcester will be like in 2131?
My Visit with Jim Shaughnessy—February 2016.
The other day Jim Shaughnessy invited me over to look at some photographs.
Over the years Jim has contributed many excellent images for my books. I’ve lost track of the many different books of mine that feature his work, but at least 20 titles.
Presently, I’m gathering material for a detailed look at the Boston & Albany and Jim has hundreds of images of the B&A route in the New York Central and Penn Central eras.
Personally I find these photographs fascinating. Decades before I found the B&A and made photographs, Jim had been there to explore many of the same locations.
Compare the above view with a photo I made on December 28, 2015 of Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited at the same location.
In the 45-year interval between images, the railroad was reduced from directional double track to a single main track and the old road bridge over was replaced with a modern span that is slightly higher.
In recent years, CSX has undercut the line and cut back much of the brush along the right of way.
Jim’s Penn Central photo is just one of the many I’ve borrowed for consideration in the B&A book.
While I was visiting Jim, my friend Dennis LeBeau phoned from East Brookfield and set up the next day’s adventure which has ties to the B&A project among other things. Stay tuned for more!
On this May 2006 morning, Denis Mc Cabe and I focused on a westward freight led by a class 131 double-electric.
This was working on the busy double-track standard gauge (4 feet 8.5 inches) mainline to Kosice. However, our primary interest was catching movements on the adjacent Russian-gauge iron-ore line (seen to the left of the double-track line).
At that time ore-trains passed about every two hours.
This was my second visit to eastern Slovakian hot-spot at Kalsa, and it was the third visit for Denis who located this place a few years earlier.
Our success in eastern Slovakia led us to travel to western Ukraine the following year, which proved to be an exceptionally rewarding photographic endeavor.
Lately, I’ve made a project of scanning my Slovakian slides.
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At this exact location thirty years ago, I made a dramatic black & white view of a westward Guilford freight on the Boston & Maine.
Thursday, February 18, 2016, I stood in my own footprints, and recreated the drama.
Photographer Mike Gardner and I were on one of our railroad photo quests.
Pan Am Railway’s freight EDRJ (East Deerfield to Rotterdam Junction) was working upgrade along the Deerfield River toward the Hoosac Tunnel.
While I made some digital images, I also exposed several photos on Ilford HP5 using my Canon EOS3 fitted with a 20mm superwide angle lens.
Some writers have come to call this ‘analog photography’. Let’s use the word film: I made the photo on black & white film.
When I returned home, I brought the film into the darkroom and I processed it using chemicals (as you do).
I’ve detailed my secret recipe for black & white in the Tracking the Light post titled: Black & White revisited; Old Tech for a New Era part 2—Secrets Revealed! (http://wp.me/p2BVuC-4o) please click the link to see the post.
For this roll of film I made some minor adjustments to the basic formula.
The goal of my special process is to allow for a black & white negative that when scanned provides optimum tonality and contrast without the need for post processing adjustments.
This is significant for two reasons: 1) I’ve maximized the film’s tonality, thus allowing to capture the most amount of information. 2) I’ve minimized the amount of time I need to spend adjusting individual images.
With this photo, I scanned the original negative, and then scaled it in Lightroom while applying my water mark. I did not make adjustments to exposure, contrast, or similar. This is in essence and unmodified scan.
Here I’ve intentionally selected a very contrasty scene. This demonstrates the success of the process and makes for a dramatic photograph of modern railroading.
By using HP5, which is rated by Ilford at 400 ISO, I’ve intentionally selected a comparatively grainy film. This adds texture and grittiness to the image. I wonder how it will appear on your screen? On mine it is exceptionally sharp with broad tonal range.
What do you think?
I made these photos the other evening at Bridge Street in Monson, Massachusetts.
New England Central 608 from Willimantic, Connecticut was paused waiting for traffic ahead to clear up.
Despite the cold, I took the opportunity to make a few time exposures with my Lumix LX-7. My exposures were aided by a blanket of crusty snow that reflected some of the ambient light.
To keep the camera from shaking, I rested it on the handrails of the bridge and used the self timer to actuate the shutter. I exposed in ‘M’ mode (manual) using the camera’s histogram to gauge the length of my shutter opening.
Owing to the dimly lit scene, I still needed to boost the shadows in post processing to allow for a more visually appealing image. Opportunities such as this make for good exercises in existing-light night photography.
My Lumix LX7 is a superb tool.
Sometimes I use it as my primary camera.
Often I keep it handy for grab shots.
On Monday February 15, 2016, I used the LX7 along with my FujiFilm X-T1 to photograph Pan Am Railways executive F-unit with the company office car train. (See: Tracking the Light Special: Pan Am Railways Office Car Special (OCS)—February 15, 2015.)
Where most of my photos were made with the Fuji, I augmented my efforts with Lumix.
Why? Because each camera produces different results.
On this occasion, I used the Lumix LX7 for some tight angles on the special train.
I processed the Lumix RAW files in Lightroom to bring out shadow detail, and where necessary to adjust overall exposure, and alter color saturation and contrast to make for the most pleasing images.
Which of these do you like the best?
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On 10 March 2016, I will present an illustrated talk on Irish railways as they were ten years ago—the year 2006—to the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin.
This will feature some of my best photography from 2006 and include images on the Waterford-Limerick line, Galway Line and Mayo routes, plus Railway Preservation Society Ireland steam trips and many other subjects.
There’ll be plenty of photos of General Motors diesels at work hauling freight and passenger trains.
Th talk will begin at 7:30 pm at the IRRS Dublin premises near Heuston Station.
It seems like every time I board a plane for far away shores the Pan Am office car special sneaks out.
Not this year!
Yesterday, February 15, 2016, I had the rare opportunity to catch Pam Am Railways vintage FP9s on the roll. The trip was working east from Mechanicville, New York on the old Boston & Maine Fitchburg line.
Working with three cameras, I made dozens of images. The latent gem is the F’s broadside passing the old Eagle Bridge, New York station.
Until last week, I hadn’t visited Eagle Bridge in years. Now I’ve been there twice in less than a week. Funny how that works.
All the photos here were exposed using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera. Contrast and saturation were nominally adjusted in Lightroom.
The old Boston, Barre & Gardner Railroad was a 19th century line that ran from Worcester, Massachusetts to Peterboro, New Hampshire.
Today, the bottom portion of the line serves Providence & Worcester’s through connection with Pan Am Railways at Gardner.
Last fall I explored this line between Holden and Gardner looking for locations.
On Thursday, February 11, 2016, Mike Gardner and I arrived at Gardner in time to find Pan Am’s ED-8 making a drop for the P&W. Earlier, another train, probably symbol 28N had dropped autoracks, so the yard was nearly full of cars.
Based on past experience, I quickly surmised that the P&W hadn’t arrived from Worcester yet. So after a quick lunch, we started working our way south against the train.
North of Princeton, Massachusetts there are several grade crossing with nicely curving track. The snow covered ground made for Christmas card scene.
Mike and I didn’t have to wait long before P&W’s symbol freight WOGR (Worcester to Gardner) came charging northward. We were impressed by the length of the train. One unit was at the head-end with a second locomotive at the back of the train.
Southbound the train was even more impressive, but it required about 3 hours of switching to put it all together.
In yesterday’s post (Unexpected Surprise: Stumbling on to one of the Rarest Railway Operations) I wrote of how we found the Battenkill local freight at Eaglebridge, New York.
It was sunny at Eaglebridge, but ominous clouds were rolling in from the west.
On one level the clouds benefitted our photography, since we’d be fighting the sun on a northward chase.
I opted for something different. The sky was a textured tapestry of clouds and light. The technique I’m about to describe isn’t really bold, nature and architectural photographers use it all the time.
I fitted my FujiFilm X-T1 with a Zeiss 12mm Touit (previously described) and a moveable Lee graduated neutral density filter (with a 2/3s of a stop range).
This arrangement allows me to better balance the exposure differential between the bright sky at the top of the frame and the inky dark shadows toward the bottom of the image. The Lee system allows me to rotate the filter and adjust it up and down.
You can make similar adjustments in post processing using a digital applied graduated filter, however by using the filter on-camera I’m allowing the camera sensor to capture greater amounts of data, thus expanding the dynamic range of the image.
Specifically, I can adjust the filter to expose for the sky to the point where highlight and shadow detail are adequately captured which allows me to lighten the shadow areas at the bottom of the photo.
In some situations, the image will not require any post processing. However I found it was still necessary to make some post processing adjustments to make the image appear better to the eye. I fine-tuned my exposure and contrast using Lightroom.
All four images in the sequence below were made using my FujiFilm X-T1 with a Zeiss 12mm Touit Lens. (However, the introduction photo at the top of the post was made with a 18-135 lens, unfiltered.)
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I was surprised to learn that I managed to stump most of the viewers with my February 2016 Mystery Photo! I thought for sure that someone would instantly recognize this exceptionally obscure section of line.
I had many very good guesses from many informed readers.
(Those of you viewing on Facebook/Tumbler/Google Plus etc, you will probably need to click on Tracking the Light to see the full post with answers!)
The most popular guesses were focused on the Mass-Central.
(By the way, thanks for the tips on locations!)
I’m sorry, but these answers and many of the other were incorrect.
I opted for a snow covered scene that obscured many clues. I thought this would be an added challenge.
The tracks are in Connecticut. They are not on the former Central Vermont.
Norbert Shacklette correctly guessed the predecessor railroad and the correct current operator but could not guess the specific location.
The only truly correct detailed guess was supplied by an exempt viewer. (I felt it was unfair to allow people whom I pointed out this location in the past to participate).
In the future I will try to supply juicier clues.
I made this photograph on February 6, 2016 at the Connecticut Route 140 crossing of the old New Haven Armory Branch in Melrose.
Historically this line was part of the New York & New England system, which was among the lines absorbed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
Today the line is under the administration/operation of a short line titled Central New England Railroad. However, confusingly this segment was not operated by the historic New Haven component company known as the Central New England.
During the late Penn-Central and Conrail periods, this section of trackage was not shown on many maps and was largely overgrown. It has been cleared in recent years. To date, I’ve never seen a train here, although I’ve crossed the tracks dozens of times.
The maps below show the specific location and the angle of the photograph. It is my hope that the arrows clearly indicate to you where I made the image.
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