{"id":43975,"date":"2026-04-12T06:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T10:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43975"},"modified":"2026-04-10T22:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:03:16","slug":"conrails-dirt-devil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/conrails-dirt-devil\/","title":{"rendered":"Conrail’s Dirt Devil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 9, 1988: Boston Line milepost 81, east of Palmer, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this day, I spent the afternoon with a Conrail maintenance-of-way gang as they were undercutting the old Boston & Albany mainline where Route 20 crossed the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were working with a large undercutting machine called the ‘Dirt Devil’ which used a chain-driven excavator to remove material from below the tracks. This was necessary to allow to improve vertical clearances for double-stacks and covered tri-level auto racks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Exposed on Kodak Tri-X black & white film using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone might ask, ‘why didn’t you make color photos?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who said I didn’t?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made both Kodachrome and Tri-X photos of the Dirt Devil crew. All have withstood the test of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Looks Back on Conrail on the railroad’s 50th Anniversary!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone might ask, ‘why didn’t you make color photos?’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43977,"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":[5128,5701,5190],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Conrail_undercutting_on_Boston_Line_near_MP81_Palmer_MA_Aug_9_1988_TXP\u00a9BrianSolomon22566-2.jpg?fit=2048%2C1439","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-brh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43975"}],"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=43975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43978,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43975\/revisions\/43978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}