{"id":1817,"date":"2013-03-25T06:25:53","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T10:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2013-03-19T10:47:08","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T14:47:08","slug":"conrail-end-of-days-may-29-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/conrail-end-of-days-may-29-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"Conrail: End of Days, May 29 1999."},"content":{"rendered":"

Morning at Fonda, New York.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the eve of assumption of operations by Conrail in Spring 1976, my father and I had explored railway operations in the New York City area. Twenty-three years later, we spent a long weekend in New York\u2019s Mohawk and Hudson Valleys photographing the last days of independent Conrail operations before the railway was divided between its new owners CSX and Norfolk Southern.<\/p>\n

\"General<\/a>
I exposed this on Fuji Astia (100 ISO) using a Canon Elan 7e with a 100-400mm lens (extended to its maximum focal length). Canon\u2019s auto-focus and\/or image-stabilization system were temporarily confounded the harsh morning light, resulting in unanticipated \u2018fluttering\u2019 as the camera tried to compensate for the circumstances. In the end, I made a split-second decision to switch off the auto-focus. I’ve made a few minor adjustments in Photoshop to correct color-balance and other nominal defects in the original slide.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the morning of May 29, 1999, I made this dramatic image of a westward Conrail double-stack train blasting along the former New York Central Water Level Route<\/i> at Fonda, New York.<\/p>\n

Evidence of the old New York Central can be seen in the wide right of way left over from its four-track days, and the steam-era signal bridges with classic General Railway Signal searchlights. In the last few years, CSX has replaced most of the NYC-era signals with modern hardware.<\/p>\n

Leading the train was one of Conrail\u2019s ten C32-8s, a pre-production model built by General Electric in 1984, unique to Conrail (although nearly identical in appearance to the slightly more powerful C39-8, bought by Conrail and Norfolk Southern). This one was dressed in Conrail\u2019s short-lived \u2018Ballast Express\u2019 livery.<\/p>\n

A variation of this image was published by RailNews<\/i>, shortly before that magazine concluded operations. Hard to believe that both Conrail and RailNews<\/i> have been gone nearly 14 years.<\/p>\n

Conrail is among the railroad covered in my book North American Locomotives<\/a>\u00a0available from the\u00a0Qbookshop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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