Essex Steam Train No. 3025 backs over the Deep River Creek.
(Source: ihearttrains.us)
Photos of trains, generally in New York and New England. Updated Mondays and Thursdays.
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January 29, 2013
January 2, 2013
November 6, 2012
An hour and a half later, D44 returned, done with its work at the interchange with the Batten Kill Railroad. As its headlights lit up the rain, I jumped out of the car, tore the trash bags off the lights and took the shot of Delaware & Hudson 7304 crossing the Hoosick River with a short train.
July 16, 2012
July 12, 2012
Last weekend, while canoeing on Lake Champlain, Stephannie and I noticed some impressive locations along the Canadian Pacific’s (formally D&H) line in Port Henry, NY. The timing looked close for a shot up there - but the cliffs and rock cuts are interesting enough to warrant a try. CP’s northbound train, 253, looked like the best chance for a good photo.
I heard reports that 253 was working Mohawk Yard (just outside Schenectady, NY) at noon. Later, I received an email that it was pulling into Saratoga Yard around 3:45pm. It usually departs Saratoga between 4 and 8pm. I left Troy at 5pm and drove 110miles to the boat launch in Port Henry. Checked my email again and saw that as of 6:15, it was still at Saratoga…good news.
By 7:45, the canoe was in the water and all the gear loaded. Train 252 rolled by on its trip south. Just after it passed, I heard 253 tell the dispatcher that they were ready to leave Whitehall, NY, located about 40 miles to the south. So. Now the question was, who’ll arrive first, a freight train with 40miles to travel or a canoe with 2.5miles? Enough word problems…just paddle.
I got there in 40minutes. The train arrived just after twilight, about ten minutes after I was finishing setting up. Three little speedlights illuminate the foreground, side, and nose of the locomotive. Two huge lights, located behind the cab, fill in the background.
After all that traveling, I hoped I might get a 2nd shot and set up my lights in the canoe: the plan was to anchor it along a cliff and shoot the next southbound, perhaps train 930. 10pm, 11pm, midnight, 1am ok one more hour….2am. no train, no talk on the radio. Got home at 6am.
July 9, 2012
July 5, 2012
Into The Poison Ivy
Ten stone arch bridges were built in Chester and Middlefield Massachusetts in 1840. A few are still in use and a couple more are standing and visible from the realigned tracks. Last week, I shot the most western bridge of the set. It passes over the Factory Brook and Town Hill Rd. This week, I lugged the lights into the bed of the West Branch of the Westfield river to shoot the double arch bridge in Chester, MA. This bridge is the first of the set and furthest to east. The rest of the bridges are only accessible by a couple mile hike: after moving the gear 1000 feet to get this shot, I’m going to have to reconsider how I access future locations.
July 2, 2012
Motion blur: 1949 Electro-Motive Division BL-2.
June 28, 2012
There isn’t much room to work with in the valley that contains the Factory Brook – certainly no place to leave a car. While getting permission to ditch my car in a field, the property owner told me this railroad line was the only East/West line in New England (that’s not quite true) and that when it was completed in 1841, it was the longest and highest railroad ever constructed (turns out, that is true). What’s striking is that the Boston & Maine, the other major line between Boston and Albany(ish) wasn’t complete for another 34 years – avoiding the Pioneer Valley looked like a great idea until they had to build the Hoosick Tunnel, which took the invention of nitroglycerin, the jackhammer, and 27 years to complete.
To connect the port of Boston with Albany (and the West via the Erie Canal) The Western Railroad built ten stone arch bridges in the Berkshires, many are still standing and a few are still in service. Traditionally, railroads are built in a relatively linear fashion, however civil engineer George Washington Whistler sent a small army of stone masons into the woods to complete the bridges well in advance of the track being laid.
This area of Massachusetts is still the state’s most remote and after the moon set I couldn’t see anything. Perhaps I need some modeling lights. Here’s a Boston-bound CSX intermodal at Town Hill Rd. in Middlefield, MA on the Berkshire Subdivision.
June 22, 2012
Railroad crossings sound like a great place to take photos of trains. They are accessible by car and are a legal place to set up photography gear. In reality, the illuminated gates ruin everything. Next thing you know, you’re pouring over satellite images looking for rural crossings guarded only by crossbucks.
Hunt Road between Johnsonville and Eagle Bridge, NY is sufficiently rural to have escaped any crossing modernization: a dirt road, timbers between the rails, and no gates! The crossing was interesting but the scene fifty feet to the east was better: a signal and telegraph pole sit between the track and the road.
Not visible in this shot are the truly excessive number of fireflies that camouflaged my flashes. Normally, I can locate my flashes by looking for the blinking LEDs….not tonight.
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