{"id":43603,"date":"2026-02-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43603"},"modified":"2026-02-13T07:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:24:12","slug":"no-449-on-jointed-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/no-449-on-jointed-rail\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 449 on Jointed Rail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summer of 1983: I made this trailing view of Amtrak’s westward Lake Shore Limited <\/em>on the old Boston & Albany at West Warren, Mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had an eye, but hadn’t yet refined technical skills to make my vision work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My exposure was off; I failed to control flare from the evening sun; and my film processing was imperfect, which resulted in comparatively dense, yet oddly flat negatives that were difficult to print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For 43 years this photo languished in darkness. The other day I found it in an envelope and scanned it. Working with Lightroom, I was finally able to present digitally what I was incapable of doing with traditional chemical materials. Below are both the straight (unmodified) scan and my digitally processed interpretation of the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The end result places me in a dream trackside again, when Amtrak ran with a lone F40PH and classic Budd-built streamlined cars, and I wasn’t yet 17. I can hear the clack of steel wheels on jointed rail and fading roar of the locomotive as the train raced down the Quaboag Valley toward Palmer and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

My exposure was off; I failed to control flare from the evening sun; and film my processing was imperfect, which resulted in comparatively dense, yet oddly flat negatives that were difficult to print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","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":[8525,5028,5043,5599,104],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Amtrak_449_West_Warren_MA_Brian-Solomon22041-2.jpg?fit=2048%2C1252","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-blh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43603"}],"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=43603"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43622,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43603\/revisions\/43622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}