{"id":43854,"date":"2026-03-20T06:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T10:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43854"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:49:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:49:58","slug":"snaking-through-the-canisteo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/snaking-through-the-canisteo\/","title":{"rendered":"Snaking Through the Canisteo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

April 16, 1989, was a busy day on the former Erie Railroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was another of my epic trips photographing the Erie that began before dawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the trains I photographed that day was an eastbound Delaware & Hudson PLMT (Pittsburgh & Lake Erie\u2013Mount Tom, Massachusetts) unit coal train running via trackage rights on the line then owned by Conrail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, D&H was being operated by the New York, Susquehanna & Western and was short on motive power. This coal train was underpowered and moving at less than track speed. Leading the consist was former Reading Company GP39-2 No. 7410, still wearing Reading paint. Other locomotives in the consist had been borrowed from Bangor & Aroostook and leased GATX unit (in Chessie System paint). Fifth in line was a NYS&W SD45, still in the Cascade green and white of its former owner, Burlington Northern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been following this train for miles through New York\u2019s Canisteo Valley in my Toyota Corolla. Near West Cameron, I hastily parked and ran through a farmer\u2019s field to capture a series of photos as the train passed from across the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my way back to the car, the farmer stopped to chat. \u201cI don\u2019t mind you walking through my field, but I thought you ought to know that I killed six rattlesnakes there the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, I wasn\u2019t sure whether he was joking, trying to rattle me, or serious. A couple of weeks later, however, I was walking the line about a mile to the west when I spotted a rattlesnake lying near the rail. As I passed, the \u201csnake\u201d slithered off in three different directions\u2014each with its own distinct rattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the old Erie for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

Try to fit all the details of this photo on a Kodak slide mount! Oh, wait this is from a black & white negative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43857,"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":[6568,5128,5510,8573,7515],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DH_PLMT_coal_train_w_ex_RDG_GP39_West_Cameron_NY_Canisteo_Valley\u00a9BrianSolomon22604.jpg?fit=2048%2C1282","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bpk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43854"}],"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=43854"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43860,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43854\/revisions\/43860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}