{"id":43423,"date":"2026-02-03T06:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43423"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T02:56:50","slug":"palmer-local-february-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/palmer-local-february-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"Palmer Local\u2014February 1979."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In early February 1979, my father drove my brother and me to Palmer, Massachusetts. A visit to the old Palmer Union Station alerted us to a train working in the old Boston & Albany yard to the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I encouraged Pop to drive us over to the old B&A freight house, which was adjacent to Haley’s Grain Store. Here we found a former Penn Central SW1500 and a freshly painted Conrail caboose. This was the local which had just finished up its switching and would soon head west to the yard at West Springfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My pre-war Leica 3A was loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 200, and during the course of our adventure, I exposed several slides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in 7th grade at the time, and my photography skills were marginal. What I find remarkable is that my slides survived all these years. I recently found them mixed in a collection of my father’s slides and recognized them as my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with Adobe Lightroom, I made a variety of adjustments to the photos to improve their mediocre qualities and make them more interesting to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Scan from original Ektachrome slide without cosmetic modifications.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Improved versions of the top scan. In this version, I’ve made a variety of adjustments to exposure, contrast and color.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Adjusted Ektachrome color slide.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Conrail was then in its infancy and would survive for another 20 years as a class I carrier serving Palmer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Looks Back!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early February 1979, my father drove my brother and I to Palmer, Massachusetts. A visit to the old Palmer Union Station alerted us to a train working in the old Boston & Albany yard to the east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6060,10,6108,48],"tags":[5043,5128,6504,8503],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Conrail_SW1500_9558_Palmer_MA_Feb1979\u00a9Brian_Solomon210275.jpg?fit=2048%2C1443","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bin","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43423"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43427,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43423\/revisions\/43427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}