Rapid Transit | Tracking the Light

Sunday Afternoon and Evening.

At Tower 1, MBTA 1123 shoves toward Boston‘s North Station. MBTA diesel fleet will soon be transformed by 40 new locomotives built by MPI using General Electric components. As is often the case with fleet upgrading, older locomotives may be withdrawn as newer ones come on line. Lumix LX3 photo modified in post processing to improve contrast and color balance.

Boston gets some great light and evening can be one of the best times to make photographs.

Sunday October 27^th was clear in the morning, but clouded up a bit during midday. Towards evening the clouds melted away and a rich golden light prevailed.

MBTA Orange Line. — Orange Line rapid transit cars in the early evening light. Canon EOS 7D.

Tim Doherty and I photographed operations out of North Station as well as the north end of the Orange Line rapid transit, then went toward Boston College, where the Commonwealth Avenue branch of the Green Line crosses over the former Boston & Albany mainline.

The fading light of evening made for a dramatic skyline. I didn’t have my tripod with me, so instead racked up the ISO on my digital cameras. With my 7D I can work with a 4000 ISO rating and still get some very presentable images.

My memories of the Commonwealth Avenue line extend back more than 40 years, and my photography of the line nearly that long.

In the late-1970s, I made a point of exposed Kodachrome slides of the PCC’s that were then waning on that route. I never could have guessed than in 2013 some PCC’s would survive in daily service on the Mattapan-Ashmont line.

See yesterday’s post for more Boston images: MBTA Sunday October 27, 2013—Part 1

MBTA Boston. — Green Line streetcars meet on the Commonwealth Avenue Line. Boston’s iconic Prudential building looms large above the city. Canon EOS 7D with f2.0 100mm lens. Exposed at f2.8 1/125th of a second at ISO 3200, photo file adjusted in post processing to improve contrast and color balance.

See my new book North American Railroad Family Trees for discussion of the evolution MBTA and other commuter rail networks.

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Digital Images of Urban Transport.

London Tube — Caledonian Road Tube Station on the London‘s Piccadilly Line, April 19, 2013.

During 2013, London’s Underground network has been celebrating 150 years of service. This milestone is marked by posters and artwork around the network. For me the Underground is both a convenience and a subject for photography.

London Underground 150. — London Transport Poster celebrating 150 years of service on the Underground. Lumix LX-3 photo, exposed at Bank station on Sunday April 21, 2013.

The Underground is one of the world’s most complex and extensive railway rapid transit networks, and is well integrated with the rest of London transport.

Photographing on the Underground has its challenges. Space is often constrained, it tends to be dimly lit underground, and trains and platforms are nearly always crowded. The system boasts that it carries more than 1 Billion passengers annually! At times it seems that each and every one of these billion are in the way. Yet, the passengers are the reason for the system and often make for the most interesting images.

I’ve included a small selection of photos of the London Underground that I exposed over the last week. Most were made with my Lumix LX-3, which owing to its compact size and ease of use makes it my choice camera for making Underground images. Use of flash is prohibited; a tripod is impractical, so all of my images were made handheld with existing light.