#Seamus-the-dog | Tracking the Light

Last weekend, I put the finishing touches on an article about the dawn of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road.

I write old school, searching sources for details, facts, historical continuity, and understanding. For every word I write, I easily read a thousand. In addition to my various previous writings on the B&O, for this effort I filled three notebooks with source material.

Seamus-the-dog took great interest in my notes and is seen here studying the finer points of Baltimore & Ohio’s early days.

Thirty years ago, I followed the advice of Baltimore & Ohio scholar John P. Hankey and traveled to Ellicott City for the title transfer of the old B&O Station—believed to be the oldest extant railroad station building in the United States—from CSX to the B&O Museum at Ellicott City, which was occupying the structure.

For the event, the 1927-built replica of Peter Cooper’s engine was brought to Ellicott City and hoisted onto the Old Main Line. They fired it up, and I made a variety of photos of the curious vertical-boiler engine as it chuffed back and forth on the historic B&O right-of-way.

Tracking the Light Looks Back on the B&O!

Last Saturday, Kris, Seamus-the-dog and I caught up with our friend and fellow photographer Pat Yough at Esbenshade Road in Strasburg to watch and photograph the railroad’s Santa Paradise Express trains.

Seamus enjoyed watching the trains pass from the safety of our car as we made photographs.

Clear winter sun and brisk conditions made for stunning displays of steam and smoke. I exposed these photos with my Nikon Z7-II, but also made images with my Z6-III and my dad’s old Leica M4 (loaded with Kodak Ektachrome). Kris worked with her FujiFilm X-T4 digital camera.

After a little while we moved on to another location to make productive use of the light and intensive railroad action.