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Tracking the Light visits Ashland, Virginia—June 4, 2015.

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I’d had a ticket on Amtrak 95 for Main Street in Richmond. However, a call to my old friend Doug Riddell resulted in a change of plan.

I’ve known Doug for more than 20 years, since I was worked at Pentrex Publishing. Now Doug is retired from Amtrak and living near Ashland.

Getting off the train in the middle of the street is an experience. Especially when its raining. Doug and I had lunch at the Trackside Grill, a short walk from the station.

We positioned ourselves along the street near the passenger station to catch Amtrak’s Auto Train, which as I soon learned, still routinely runs with Amtrak’s older 800-Series Genesis diesels.

Amtrak's Autotrain with a pair of 800-Series Genesis. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Amtrak’s Autotrain with a pair of 800-Series Genesis. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Track speed down the street is limited to 35 mph during the day. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Track speed down the street is limited to 35 mph during the day. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
The Auto train is Amtrak's longest and heaviest run. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
The Auto train is Amtrak’s longest and heaviest run. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
June 4, 2015 at 6:05 pm at Ashland, Virginia. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
June 4, 2015 at 6:05 pm at Ashland, Virginia. Fuji X-T1 digital camera.
Amtrak 125 makes its station stop on Track 3 at Ashland, Virginia. This is one of the relatively new trains destined for Norfolk, Virginia.
Amtrak 125 makes its station stop on Track 3 at Ashland, Virginia. This is one of the relatively new trains destined for Norfolk, Virginia.

The weather wasn’t the best, but there was plenty of action on the old RF&P and it was great to see Doug again.

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Norfolk Southern on 19th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania October 1994

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Street Trackage
Norfolk Southern on 19th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Norfolk Southern’s former Nickel Plate Road mainline from Buffalo to Cleveland navigated 19th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania. This unusually long section of street trackage offered some great photographic opportunities. In October 1994, I was visiting Erie on my way from West Virginia to Wisconsin, and I made this image of a lone NS GP59 leading a westward double-stack train down 19th Street. The soft light of a dull day works well here by allowing the texture and hues of autumnal foliage to offer the illusion of a long corridor, with effect of haze giving added depth. The train seems endless. I was working with a Nikormat FT3 with Nikkor f4.0 200mm lens on a Bogen tripod and Fujichrome 100 slide film.

This street trackage was sacrificed as a condition of the Conrail split in the late 1990s. To eliminate the slow running and please unsympathetic neighbors of the railroad, NS shifted its operations through Erie to the parallel former New York Central grade-separated line (owned and operated by CSX after the 1998-1999 split.)

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