Trains In Black And White

Trains look older when photographed in black & white. We railfans tend to like our trains old. Above: Idle Power at Brunswick, MD in 1993.

CSX GP40 #6223 emerging from the west portal of the Point of Rocks, MD Tunnel in 1999.

At the same location, but facing west, the eastbound Q216 is captured in 1997 with the C&O Canal tow path and the Potomac River in the background.

Q398 rumbles east through Dickerson, MD in 1993.

At Riverside Shops in Baltimore in 1993, this ex-Burlington Northern E-9 has received its new MARC identifiers and awaits a "67" number board.

In 1992, westbound Amtrak train #29 "Capitol Limited" rolls toward its first stop in Rockville, MD. It will be in downtown Chicago by lunchtime tomorrow.

Two shots of a CSX freight heading east out of Cumberland Yard and past Mexico Tower at North Branch, MD in 1992.

A train robbery reenactment at the old Western Maryland Station in Cumberland, MD in 1996.

Westbound Q217 approaching Cumberland Yard in 1992 and not making nearly enough noise.

Check back for more. So much more...

Look To The Sky

Clouds have always intrigued me as a photographic subject. From a technical perspective, they're usually not difficult to shoot. The trick is to compose an image with the right amount and complexity of cloud cover, and to put the clouds into an appealing context. Before the days of digital photography and at-home editing software, the composition challenge was far greater. It was still just as much fun, though. The frame above is a crop from one of my shots of a Barbados beach in 1993.

Sunbeams - Thurmont, MD - 1999 (Shot by [Maris] on an Olympus Stylus point-and-shoot 35mm camera. That little camera had an incredible piece of glass in it, and that little woman has a hell of an eye.)

Clouds Behaving Weirdly - Harpers Ferry, WV - 1999.

Old Cape Elizabeth Light - Cape Elizabeth, ME - 2004. After slogging through a wall of torrential rain from Brunswick down east to the cape, we were rewarded for our patience here and at Portland Head Light, which will be featured in a future post.

Weird Sky at Point of Rocks, MD - 1997. It was really that color - no filters or retouching!

Sunset over Germantown, MD - 1996.

And one over Burtonsville, MD - 1996.

Storm clouds lit by the sun setting behind the camera - Germantown, MD - 1997.

B&O Railroad Museum and Skyline, shot from Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD - September, 1993.

Thanks for stopping by!

Trains: The Chase Continues

Okay. It's late. I haven't much to say that's of any value, or even the least bit interesting. Here be some more photographs of trains, taken between 1991 and 1996 on The Met. Above - Ex-Reading Lines GP39-2 - now CSX #4317 - leads empty auto-racks west through Germantown's MARC station in 1993.

Idling power at the head end of Q401 waiting for the call from the dispatcher - Brunswick, MD - 1996.

Sure, I could have cropped out the "S" curves in the foreground, but why? That's the best part of this 1991 shot of eastbound Q216 east of Germantown, MD.

The roundhouse to the right is long gone, but the turntable on which we find CSX #6103 is still in use today. Brunswick, MD - 1994.

EB "pigs" emerging from the old B&O tunnel at Monument Street, Baltimore - 1994.

Eastbound CSX freight crossing the Thomas Viaduct, one of the oldest bridges of any kind in the US - and still solid as a rock - between Relay and Elkridge, MD - 1992.

By 1995, the "Back Shops" area at Cumberland Locomotive Facility was littered with old GP30s awaiting delivery to regional/short-line railroads, museums and . . . . . . scrap yards. This is #4210, wearing rust (and maybe fire damage - upper right) like badges of honor, in the summer of 1995 at Cumberland, MD.

One of my favorite shots of the MARC F-units in action. This is #82 as it scampers past Randolph Road near Rockville, MD in 1991. I was born out of time...

More More More... Soon... I Promise...

Train-chasing in 2nd Gear

In an effort to keep you non-railfans from getting dangerously bored, I've tried to round up a few train pics that are at least somewhat interesting, photographically speaking. I found that I have more than a few, so I randomly selected nine for this post and I will upload more later. If trains just aren't your thing, hang in there. I'll be getting to The Cruising Years (MD, PA, VA, WV, KY) soon, and hopefully the lighthouses that follow will prove to be worth the wait. But first - the above banner photo is the meeting of two Conrail trains just about smack in the middle of the famed Horseshoe Curve, near Altoona, PA in 1995.

This set of Rio Grande light power was photographed as it followed the Amtrak train #5 "California Zephyr" into the Rockies west of Denver, CO in January 1987.

Where the railroad meets the sea - CSX #6577 (with the obnoxiously elusive #4253 hiding behind it) sits at Penn-Mary Junction in East Baltimore, MD in 1992. The gantry cranes in the background belong to the Port of Baltimore.

A rare switching operation at Point of Rocks, MD in the summer of 1991.

Significant more for history than for photographic quality, this shot of a westbound container train leaving Cumberland, MD in 1992 could not be duplicated today. The rails that branch off to the right (towards Cincinnati) are now single-track, the manual switch lines in the far upper right of the frame are gone (replaced by electronic relays), the steps of Viaduct Junction tower, from which I shot this photo (and the tower itself) are gone and there's now a big modern signal bridge situated about where the last engine is. "Progress."

Westbound freight laboring up the grade near Fairhope, PA in a misty autumn chill - 1993.

Westbound auto-racks crossing Thomas Viaduct over the Patapsco River, between Relay and Elkridge, MD - not far from Baltimore - in 1992.

Amtrak train #29 "Capitol Limited" blasts westward past Randolph Road with a couple of miles to go before its first stop at Rockville, MD in 1995.

CSX #6603, still in B&O paint, awaiting service at the Riverside Shops in Baltimore, MD in 1994.

Thanks for looking. Much more to come!

Old Stuff On The MARC, Part Three: The E-Units

For a couple of years in the early 1990s, MARC Rail was so desperate for cheap power that they added a few hand-me-down E units to their aging stable of Fs and RDCs. They're about the same age as most of the F units - built in the early 1950s - and they have a similar (but much larger) streamlined profile. The engine in these first two shots is Ex-Illinois Central E8 #4023, which led the last IL-Central "City of New Orleans" from its namesake city to Chicago in April, 1971. After some time in New Jersey, it was painted blue, renumbered as MARC #60 and had a brief run here in Maryland. Above, #60 leads a special Orioles train away from Camden Station in Baltimore in 1992.

MARC #60 (and F-unit #84) rolling into Rockville, MD in 1992.

Ex-Burlington Northern E9 #9911 awaits some minor repainting and a new number at Riverside Shops in Baltimore in 1993.

Ex-BN E9, now MARC #64, completely surrounded by CSX power at Riverside Shops - 1993.

MARC #68 blows by a whistle-stop at Dickerson, MD in 1993. I kept that plain grey little Chevy in frame because that is the first car I ever bought, and she chased many trains with me and took a lot of abuse in stride.

MARC #65 at Germantown, MD in 1994. In a move that showed just how short-term a solution these E-units were for MARC, only the "Burlington Northern" and the numbers and flags were changed. New engines had already been ordered.

MARC #60 (E8) and #84 (F7) lead an eastbound commuter train across the Monacacy River near Dickerson, MD in 1992. This shot provides a good look at the size difference between these two old GM Electro Motive Division relics.

THANKS FOR RIDING WITH ME.
In the interest of keeping you non-railfans from wandering off and getting into trouble, let's head back to the beach, next. Then, maybe some critters and cats and dogs and whatnot. If you're patiently waiting for lighthouses, they're coming. I swear. No, really. We'll get to them. Honest. We will! OK bye...

Close To Home

There isn't a lot to say about the pictures in this post. I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, so a lot of my early photography centers on DC, Baltimore and the surrounding area. Not many people seem to be FROM the DC area, but I am and I still find it a great source of photographic subjects. Above: Looking north on Rockville Pike from Montrose Road in December 1992.

The Smithsonian Institution Castle - Washington National Mall - 1992

The Lincoln Memorial - Washington National Mall, 1992. I didn't want the same old postcard, so I shot through the fountains. The fencing is there to keep the public out of the fireworks launching area.

Okay, so this is pretty much the same old postcard shot of the Jefferson Memorial through cherry blossoms, across the Tidal Basin in 1997. I could not resist that pink sky. There's a reason everyone takes this type of shot: It works.

Chief Zee and 54,566 friends at RFK Stadium, cheering the Washington Redskins to a playoff victory over the Los Angeles Rams on December 28, 1986.

The north span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge under an ominous summer sky in 1985. No, I wasn't driving. This time.

The B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, destination of my first train trip with my dad. This photo comes from over two decades later - 1996. The museum was closed, so this rainy scene was actually shot through a chain-link fence.

The Montgomery County Fair - Gaithersburg, MD - 1991. There are actually dozens of people between the camera and the ticket booth near the lower left corner, but the long exposure helped them to do what I love having people do in my photos - vanish!