In early September 1991, I was documenting Southern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 4449 with fellow photographer, and noted Southern Pacific author Brian L. Jennison. In between sets of the steam locomotive, we took the time to photograph SP’s freights.

Summer midday sun in the canyons of northern California presented difficult lighting conditions to make photographs using Kodachrome.

Here we were in the Sacramento River Canyon near Conant, California to catch SP’s westward EUWC-M (Eugene to West Colton manifest). I’d set up my Nikon F3T on a Bogen 3021 tripod in vertical (portrait) format in order to capture the train with the famed Castle Crags rock formation in the distance.

My lens of choice was an old Nikkor f4.0 200mm telephoto lens that I’d purchased secondhand a year earlier. This lens was tricky to focus, but offered a wonderful soft color palette that helped compensate for the summer ‘high sun’.

As SP’s EUWC-M came into view I exposed a series of slides. I’d edited some of the other views and filed them away more than 30 years ago, but this one had remained in the yellow Kodak box until a few days ago.

I’ve been gradually sorting, scanning, labeling and filing thousands of my older slides. Although this is a very tight view, it makes me nostalgic for the days when Southern Pacific’s EMD diesels populated the rails of the West. I was especially fond of SP’s classic headlight arrangement that included both fixed and oscillating headlights and a red oscillating warning light, such as featured on SP SD45T-2 9260.

This was before the use of ditch lights predominated on American locomotives.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!