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.
I was on my way to intercept Amtrak’s westward Pennsylvanian. As I cautiously approached the Jefferson Road grade crossing in Lancaster, I looked left and spotted the headlight of Norfolk Southern’s New Holland Branch local freight in the distance.
That’s some good luck! I had enough time to park the car and pick my spot.
In the lead was Norfolk Southern SD40E 6340—another former Conrail SD50. In its original incarnation, this had been Conrail 6722.
It’s great to live in a neighborhood where you can see trains at random times, and find them by happen-stance.
Now to find that photo of 6722 in blue!
These photos were exposed using my Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens.
I’ve scoured through hundreds of Conrail slides. Finally, in my Erie box, I had my Eureka! moment when found what I’ve seeking:
Conrail SD50 6753 (now NS 6342) leading a freight in nice light. (See recent posts).
This was exposed at the grade crossing at East Hornell, New York. Conrail 6753 was leading BUOI-4X on January 14, 1989. The train had made a pick-up at M-K in Hornell consisting of recently rebuilt New York City subway cars and was about to make its move to go through the cross-overs and then reverse back onto its train.
Conrail’s BUOI was a daily symbol freight connecting Buffalo’s Frontier Yard with the former Lehigh Valley Railroad Oak Island Yard near Newark, New Jersey. On this day, traffic was sufficient to warrant two sections, thus ‘BUOI-4X’ (X for eXtra).
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 with my old Leica M2 and 50mm Summicron.
So why ‘ZY?’ That was the old Erie two-letter telegraph code for CP East Hornell. My friends and I continued to refer to CP East Hornell as ‘ZY’ even though this designation had been discontinued years earlier.
Interestingly, if you locate this place on Google Maps, you’ll find on Magee Road a marker for ‘ZY Crossing Station.’ Someone at Google respects Erie history!
Someday I’ll tell another story about this day, but not today .
My Lumix LX7 photo from Monday September 18, 2023 that spurred the quest to find Conrail 6753.
Between 1986 and 1991, I documented vestiges of the former Erie Railroad using hundreds of rolls of Kodachrome, Ektachrome, and T-Max black & white film.
I made dozens upon dozen of trips along Conrail’s lines, seeking to make images of this fascinating railroad in its environment.
There could be long intervals between trains, and some days were more productive than others.
October 14, 1988 was memorable because it was a perfect day. I had a very early start. The autumn foliage was at its peak. It was clear from dawn to dusk. Conrail and Delaware & Hudson ran a lot of trains, and I had Kodachrome 25 in my Leica.
Among the photos I made that was this view of Conrail SD50 6774 leading OIBU west through Swain, New York at 8:07am.
I like this image because although 6774 is key to the composition, it isn’t the only subject of interest and it captures the essence of rural western New York in autumn.
Soon old 6753 will be featured on TTL. The lure of the quest is about finding treasures along the way. If I found the prize too soon there would be no joy in the path to it.
This is the raw and adjusted scan of my original Kodachrome 25 slide. Exposed at 8:07am on October 14, 1988 using a Leica M2 rangefinder with f2.0 50mm Summicron lens. My old Dodge Dart is parked behind me with the engine running. Soon, I’ll be in pursuit of this train en route to my next desination. Slide scanned with Nikon LS5000 slide scanner powered with VueScan 9.8.04 software.This the same scan as above, but adjusted using Adobe Lightroom to improve its presentation. I’ve lightened the image, reduced contrast, warmed the color balance, lightened and warmed shadow areas, while slightly increasing overall saturation.
March 23, 1989 was a busy day on the old Erie Railroad.
Between Conrail and the Delaware & Hudson, the railroad was alive with trains.
I’d spent much of the day around Attica, New York, where the line snaked around on its climb over Attica Hill.
In the afternoon, I caught Conrail’s BUOI (Buffalo to Oak Island, NJ), the daily mixed freight. This was often a huge train and some days in ran in two sections.
In this view, BUOI has just crossed Main Street in Attica, and has begun to bog down on its eastward climb. In the lead are two Conrail SD50s. These are numbers 6773 and 6763. I found this slide looking for the elusive 6753, which appeared on Tracking the Light a few days ago as Norfolk Southern 6342.
Conrail’s 135 SD50s spanned the number series from 6700 to 6834. Over the course of my years photographing Conrail trains, I’m sure I saw nearly all of them. At the time they seemed so common.
The quest for SD50 6753 continues!
Kodachrome 25 slide exposed with a Leica M2 and 50mm Summicron lens. Image cropped slightly for presentation here.
At 7:11 am on May 4, 1989, I parked my 1981 Toyota Corolla on School Road in Batavia, NY.
I was moments ahead of a Conrail westbound freight symbol SENF-X (Extra section of the Selkirk to Niagara Falls train). I’d heard this on my scanner and knew that the fill on Byron Hill at School Road offered a nice broadside view of the tracks.
With my Leica M2, I made this Kodachrome view of a pair of Conrail SD50s rolling west. I located this image the other night while searching for a suitable photo of Conrail 6753, and thought it was a pretty neat photo.
While the pair of SD50s ‘elephant style’ (tail to trunk) is cool, what catches my eye today is the freshly painted Conrail 50ft box car. I wish that I’d made a photo full frame of that car. Today, any clean railroad-owned boxcar is worthy of attention. Back then, I just wasn’t all that impressed. And there’s a lesson for you!
A year earlier, I photographed the same leading SD50 (6793) on May 1st at CP402 in Batavia. I’ll need to find that photo. In the mean time, stay tuned for a nice view of Conrail SD50 6753 (now Norfolk Southern SD40E 6342-See yesterday’s post).
Kodachrome 25 color slide exposed at f3.5 1/250 second with a Leica M2 and 35mm Summicron lens on May 4, 1989. Scanned with a Nikon LS5000 scanner at 4000 dpi using VueScan software.
Following up on yesterday’s post about the former Conrail SD50 working Norfolk Southern’s New Holland Branch, I’ve started searching my 1980s Conrail files looking for a photo of SD50 6753 at work.
Traditionally my system of organization was not oriented around locomotives, nor set up to find a particular engine by number. Typically, I filed photos by railroad, division, and location, usually grouped by era.
I have countless thousands of slides from the 1980s depicting Conrail all around the system. Some show locomotives, others focus on other elements of the railroad. These were organized by historic routes. I have boxes of Boston & Albany, New York Central Water Level Route, Erie Railroad, PRR, etc.
For the SD50 search, I’ve started with my Conrail-New York (state) box from 1987-1989 that largely covers the Water Level Route from about Utica, NY to roughly Westfield, NY, with various forays elsewhere. Mixed in with the Conrail photos are some of Delaware & Hudson, Norfolk Southern, and New York, Susquehanna & Western.
On March 10, 1989, I visited Dunkirk and photographed a parade of freights rolling along the Waterlevel Route. At 10:39am, I made a sequence of images of a westward mixed freight led by a Conrail SD50 using my Leica M2 loaded with on Kodachrome 25.
This was Conrail 6777, not 6753. But (hopefully) we’ll find the elusive locomotive eventually.
A westward Conrail freight at Dunkirk, New York has SD50 6777 in lead. I made both these images at 10:39am using my Leica M2. Exposure is f4.5 1/250th of a second.35mm Summicron lens with Leica M2 loaded with Kodachrome 25. Dunkirk, NY. March 10, 1989.
I’m not suggesting a fix for Conrail or its aftermath, just a few adjustments to a 24-year old Kodachrome slide.
Two weeks ago, I located this slide in my collection and scanned with with an Epson V750 flatbed scanner driven by Epson Scan 2 software.
This portrays an eastward Conrail freight on the Boston & Albany near West Warren, Massachusetts, where the railroad crosses the Quaboag River. I’d exposed it on May 5, 1997.
In my view the photo is imperfect: The level is seveal degrees off, I’d missed the reflection in the river, the lighting is a bit high and harsh, my exposure was about one half stop too dark, and the processing left the image with a red-magenta tint.
I can’t fix the lack of reflection, but I addressed most of the other imperfections using Adobe Lightroom. In less than ten minutes, I was able to import, correct and export the improved image.
For comparison, I’ve included both the uncorrected scan (scaled for internet) and my corrected photograph.
Scaled, but uncorrected scan of the original Kodachrome slide.Corrected scan.
Here’s another photo from my Classic Conrail Kodachrome Files.
Photographer Mike Gardner and I had spent December 2, 1997, photographing Conrail operations around Worcester, Massachusetts.
Early in the day, we dropped E6 slide film at E.B. Luce for processing and then occupied our time documenting the parade of Conrail trains on the former Boston & Albany line.
In this view at CP44 at the east end of Worcester Yard, I photographed some SD50s that had arrived with an eastward train and cut off to make a drop and were running ‘light engine’ past the signals.
It was clear, cool and crisp. Perfect weather for Kodachrome 25!
My book Conrail and its Predecessors is now available from Kalmbach Media. Click the link below.
