Tag Archives: #Stateline Tunnel

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Sunday TV9 at Stateline

No, this is not about television.

It was late afternoon on a Sunday in May 1984. I’d spent the day with Bob Buck & co., photographing Conrail on the old Boston & Albany.

As the day progressed we worked our way west. Bright sun gave way to dull overcast light.

Conrail was a busy railroad in those days. At Stateline Tunnel near Canaan, N.Y., we caught TV9 (TrailVan 9, Boston-Chicago), which operated on a much later schedule on Sunday’s than on weekdays.

As the train roared by with a new B36-7 in the lead, I made these photos with my old Leica IIIA and f2.0 50mm Summitar Lens.

Owing to the history of the line, Conrail operated a divided alignment at this location. A little more than four years later, Conrail abandoned the old westward main track, leaving just the former eastward main for movements in both directions. The old tunnel portal survives as vestige of the old line.

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Classic View at Stateline Tunnel

In the mid-1980s, I made numerous trips to photograph Conrail’s Boston Line—the former Boston & Albany—at Stateline Tunnel. This short, curved, twin bore tunnel is located a few miles west of the Massachusetts-New York Stateline in Canaan, New York.

On the morning of Aug 24, 1984, my pal TSH and I spent several hours at the tunnel waiting for trains. Four decades earlier, my friend Bob Buck had photographed at this same location, and I was familiar with his photos of B&A’s Lima Berkshires, New York Central Mohawks, and new Alco FA diesels at the tunnel.

I made this view of Amtrak Train 448—Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited—approaching the west portal on the eastward track using my pre-war Leica 3A 35mm camera loaded with Kodak Tri-X.

This was an early favorite photo of mine and for years I had a mounted print of it on my wall.

The negative had been missing for decades, but resurfaced the other day while I was going through boxes in our new house.

I scanned the original 35mm negative using my Epson V600 flatbed scanner and processed the image using Adobe Lightroom.

More than 40 years have passed since I exposed this image. It just doesn’t seem so long! Today, Bob Buck would have been 95! Happy Birthday Bob!

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