{"id":44474,"date":"2026-06-17T06:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T10:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44474"},"modified":"2026-06-15T21:23:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T01:23:37","slug":"mountville-on-the-columbia-secondary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/mountville-on-the-columbia-secondary\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountville on the Columbia Secondary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of the railroad lines radiating from Lancaster, Norfolk Southern\u2019s Columbia Secondary represents a photographic challenge. This short former Pennsylvania Railroad electrified line connects Lancaster and Columbia, Pa., but lacks the scenic splendor, open vistas, and historic structures that have aided my photography on other lines in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a warm evening, Kris and I were approaching Columbia on South Front Street when I heard the sound of EMD diesels working in Run 8. When we arrived at the grade crossing near the old Philadelphia & Reading freight house, Norfolk Southern freight H-19 from Enola was crawling through town, ascending the grade as it climbed away from the Susquehanna River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We jumped onto Route 30 and drove east to Mountville, where I had previously scoped out a few potential locations. We arrived several minutes ahead of the train. As it passed, I made these images using my Nikon Z7-II with a 70\u2013200mm zoom lens and a Nikon Z6 with a 24\u201370mm zoom. The freight totaled more than 80 cars, including several flatcars carrying structural steel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a good show!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

NS freight H-19 from Enola was in Run-8 as it ascended the grade climbing away from Susquehanna River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44476,"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":[8674,5383,5073],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/NS_6936_w_H19_eastbound_at_Mountville_PA_Columbia_Secondary\u00a9BrianSolomon_DSC_6319.jpg?fit=2048%2C1363","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bzk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44474"}],"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=44474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44478,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44474\/revisions\/44478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}