HAL, Why Do I Keep Coming Back to This Image?

In recent months, I’ve reviewed thousands of my Conrail photos.

I keep coming back to this image, made near milepost 67 in Brookfield, Mass., of an eastward Conrail freight, probably SEMB (“The Queen”).

It is a moderately competent execution of a classic style: a three-quarter view exposed with a 50mm lens of a freight marching along the former Boston & Albany.

What I’m saying is that, photographically, this image is unremarkable.

Yet, it means a lot to me.

In my teenage years, Conrail’s GE B23-7s were common locomotives on the Boston Line. This image captures a time on the railroad when it was most fascinating to me. At every turn, I was finding something new. The roar of every approaching train brought fresh excitement.

I had little money. No visions of the future. No past to scrutinize. Just an antique Leica in hand, loaded with hand-rolled black-and-white film, to preserve the passage of trains for posterity.

“Turn back the clock, HAL.”

“I think you know that I cannot do that.”

Tracking the Light makes allusions . . .