Driving south through Mississippi on Interstate 55. It’s a cool, rainy morning, the kind of spring day you sometimes get in the South before the summer heat and humidity settles in. I pass the signs for Crystal Springs, Hazelhurst, Wesson, Brookhaven, Bogue Chitto, Summit—towns that lie to the east along the tracks. The tracks, and the Interstate, lead me to McComb. In town, I stop for a morning cup of coffee, and make my way to the former Illinois Central depot.
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In the second half of the 1960s, I made a number of trips up the New York Central’s Harlem Division to Chatham, New York. Chatham was at the northern end (western end by timetable) of the Harlem Division, where the Harlem met the main line of the Boston & Albany Railroad. It was well over a hundred miles north of home, so these trips were adventures for a kid in his early teens.
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As railfans, we all have that one place we love to go. Whether it’s to shoot trains or to just escape from the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the world, we all have a place that helps us or soothes us in some form or fashion. For me, that place is the diamond in my hometown of Meridian Mississippi. The diamond isn’t just a place for me to shoot trains, but it was always a place for me to go when I needed to clear my head and just relax. It’s my sanctuary, if you will.
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Indeed, most of these images have trains. But in all, it’s the location that defines them. It’s been said that if one first finds a beautiful location—simply add a train, and Bingo!
Location is everything in these photos and they all shout, “Desert!” They are the result of a mad-dash trip last January to attend an event in Phoenix, Arizona. This was not an intended photo trip (we were on a mission!) but I was able to pull off a few roadside doors-open-engine-running compositions.
Fast, furious, and fun.
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I grew up looking at well lit, telephoto images of trains plying the scenery in magazines discarded from the library. I wanted get to there, for my photos to end up well-circulated and glossy. Instead, I ended up walking along the tracks, making images that looked nothing like what I saw in print. Most of the time, I wouldn’t see any trains and would shoot a few details along the way. When a train would appear, the only way to get a shot was to sprint off the right-of-way, head up a bank, and hope for a clear shot with a 50mm which had the ability of capturing too wide and not nearly enough all at the same time.
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Back in an earlier era of railroading, it was not uncommon to move station buildings from one location to another. It may have been a short procedure necessitated by work on a new track alignment. Or, if a new, larger station was being built in a town, the smaller existing structure might be loaded on a flat car and transported by rail to a new town. Temporary stations were sometimes built specifically to be moved from site to site as needed during construction. Even to this day, it is not uncommon to see depots vacated by the railroads moved from the right-of-way to new sites for historical preservation as museums, or for other commercial uses.
The small Victorian station originally located in Quincy, Pennsylvania may be a contender for the record number of moves, but this time all in the interest of historical rail preservation.
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