Tracking the Light Looks Back at Bayshore—Two Photos.

Often it’s the details that make a difference. In April 1991, I made a few photos at Cal-Train’s Bayshore platforms near the San Francisco-end of the old Bayshore yard.

By that time the yard was but a ruin—a vestige of another era. Southern Pacific’s operational presence in San Francisco, still its headquarters at that time, was a shadow of what it had been, and diminishing.

What caught my eye was the old wooden speed-restriction post with Southern Pacific written on it. Here was tangible evidence of the SP at Bayshore.

Pan photo exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens.
Pan photo exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens.
Shallow depth of field helps emphasize the front of the locomotive and the Southern Pacific sign. Photo exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens.
Shallow depth of field helps emphasize the front of the locomotive and the Southern Pacific sign. Photo exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens. The image might have been a little more effective if I exposed it a moment later, when sunlight would have been on the sign. Undoubtedly that was my intention, but I couldn’t have known if I caught it until after the slides were processed.

I made a point of featuring the sign in this pair of photos of passing Cal-Train ‘Commutes.’ Interestingly, these Cal-Train F40PHs were the last locomotives delivered with the classic SP ‘full lighting package’ which included headlight, white oscillating lights, a red oscillating light, and class lamps.

Pan photo exposed on Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon F3T fitted with a Nikkor f1.8 105mm lens.

Every morning Tracking the Light posts new material.

Please share Tracking the Light!

http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>