The Trackside Photographer is pleased to present more than 150 photographs selected from the personal collection of Victor Zolinsky., a lifetime railroader whose photographs tell the story of mid-20th century railroading from an insider’s perspective.
From the end of the steam era and early generation diesels to the time of mergers and fallen flags, don’t miss these photographs.
The town of New Canaan, Connecticut was established in 1731, and was an agricultural community with a few small shoe making businesses. Then in 1868, the expanding New Haven Railroad built a branch line of 7.9 miles from the Stamford Main Line to connect New Canaan with the outside world. At the time, the post-civil war population was 2,497. Fast forward one hundred years to 1968, and the population had grown to around 17,100, and the town was becoming an affluent and sought after place for New York executives to live with a 70 minute commute between home and work.
Although the New Haven Railroad in 1968 was in dire physical and financial condition, the centennial of the New Canaan Branch could not go unrecognized, so the town and the railroad decided to celebrate appropriately. The station building was spruced up with new paint, and for the weekend the New Haven sent two of their freshly repainted freight engines up to town to be on display for the locals to see.
Main Station – New Canaan, Connecticut – 1968
The railroad definition of a station is “a place named in the timetable”. Nothing more. It can be just a sign, or an architecturally grand structure for a big city. Within the town of New Canaan, there is another station – Talmadge Hill. This little station was originally just one step above a flag stop in stature; all the trains stopped there, but usually only a few hardy passengers got on or off.
Although it was tiny, the railroad’s Bridge and Building painters decided Talmadge Hill was deserving of a centennial celebratory sprucing up as well, so after dressing up New Canaan, they used a couple of gallons of paint to spruce up the station building.
On this day, the little building is resplendent and proud, all dressed up in birthday finest and ready to shelter any waiting passengers from the rain. Even the sign is new, announcing to everyone that Talmadge Hill Station is ready and able to serve.
Talmadge Hill Station – New Canaan, Connecticut – 1968
A great deal has changed since I took this photo in 1968. In those days, the morning newpapers for the commuters were left on a bench inside the station. Alongside was an unlocked metal box, which held the nickels and dimes left by the commuters, strictly on the honor system. The following day the agent returned in the early hours with the next days papers and collected the coins from the day before.
In 1971, the station building was demolished and replaced by high level platforms, fixed seating, and lighting, and new train cars. Today, the hundreds of commuters who park in several lots surrounding the station, probably have no idea that Talmadge Hill is nearing it’s 150th birthday, but never as well dressed as it was in 1968.
Southern Pacific mainline near Deeth, NV on September 10, 1976
While I was in high school, I used to visit the Lancaster, CA depot every Saturday. At the time, this SP depot had a semaphore train order signal and the operator let me lower the signal when there were no train orders for the next train and then raise the signal back to stop position after the train passed. This was my first experience with a semaphore signal. Later, when I was in the Navy, I traveled across the country and discovered many more semaphore signals along the Southern Pacific and several other railroads.
Southern Railway – Old Fort, NC – March 14, 1981
The operator is about to hand up train orders to the engineer on train 167. Train 167 has engines 3182, 3202, and 3052 with 112 cars.
Burlington & Rock Island – North Zulch, TX – April 5, 1980
The Burlington and Rock Island used joint trackage between Waxahatchie and Houston. Train 77, with engines 6494 and 6607, rolls through North Zulch, TX on April 5, 1980. The young lady standing next to the depot is not the operator, but my future bride. This was our first train chasing date. The depot was later destroyed when a grain train derailed at the site. Note the one signal blade is rounded and the other is square. Normally the Rock Island train order signals had rounded ends.
Milwaukee Road – Seattle, WA – February 3, 1973
It is 8:30AM on February 3, 1973 at Black River interlocking tower south of Seattle, WA. Milwaukee Road number 3 was one of the rare FP45s. The engines have finished setting out the cars for Seattle in a small yard around the curve. Leaving the rest of their train in the yard, the engines have come up to the tower to pick up train orders. After receiving the train orders, the units will move back to their train and then head south down the valley to Tacoma. Notice that on this train order signal, that both blades are square.
Burlington Northern – Skykomish, WA – April 26, 1973
BN train 90 passes the depot at Skykomish, WA on April 26, 1973. It has engines 875, 6525, and 6560. The train will pick up a helper here to get over Stevens Pass.
This collection is just a small portion of the signals I photographed during the 70s and early 80s.
February found me along the tracks on the Norfolk-Southern B-Line between Manassas, Virginia and Front Royal, Virginia. I was scouting for good spots to photograph the Norfolk &Western 4-8-4 J-class locomotive #611 which will be steaming along this line from Manassas to Front Royal and back on June 4th and 5th, 2016. The B-Line runs through Virginia’s hunt country, and there are many interesting railroad landscapes in the small towns and farmland that line the tracks.
The B-Line dates from before the Civil War, when it was established to link the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to the Shenandoah Valley. Known then as the Manassas Gap Railroad, it became part of the Southern RR system in the 1890s.
In 1988, the B-line acquired mainline status when Norfolk Southern moved its interchange for north-south traffic from Alexandria, Virginia to Hagerstown, Maryland and re-routed traffic from the former Southern mainline across the B-Line to Front Royal.
Marshall, Virginia
My exploration of the B-Line was hampered by rain and soon a violent thunderstorm (in February!) would end my photography for the day.
Photographers, like sea captains or steam train excursion planners, have no control over the weather, and I hope that there will be good weather in June for the N&W 611 excursion. But as I stood along the tracks in the February drizzle, I began to imagine 611 appearing out of the winter mist, its headlight shining through the fog with smoke and steam billowing in the damp air. It would be quite a sight.
The city of Toledo, Ohio, has a fascinating railroading history, of which I know almost nothing. Trains run through between the East Coast and Chicago, and between Columbus and Detroit, and any possible combination. In the early days of railroading, in the late 19th century, cooperation between railroads basically did not exist. As a result, instead of trying to share tracks and other facilities, many different railroads built tracks to or through Toledo. Even today, Google Maps shows an amazing collection of tracks going every which way.
Toledo Union Station – End of Track
A central passenger railroad station was built in Toledo in 1886, but by 1930 it was so decrepit that when it caught fire, watching citizens cheered. They were sad later, when the structure was repaired instead of replaced. A couple of decades later, in 1950, they got their wish, and the new Toledo Union Station was opened.
That was still in the glory days of passenger rail transportation, and its many tracks and platforms would have been constantly busy. But, as time went on, we all know the fate of passenger rail. Today, the station houses a nice waiting room for Amtrak’s four trains per day. That’s all the passenger traffic it sees. Freight trains pass on the main Norfolk Southern line, frequently stopping for crew changes.
Toledo Union Station – Empty Platform
During the Christmas holiday of 2013, I had a day to spend exploring northwest Ohio and visiting Fostoria, a favorite location. One of my stops was Toledo Union Station. It is still an impressive building, but I think the station must feel sad to be used so far below its potential. I wandered its empty platforms, wondering what they would have looked like when they were crowded with passengers, and porters, and train crews, and trains everywhere. They’re not there any more.
New River Bridge – Glen Lyn, Virginia – April, 1968
The former Virginian Railway bridge over the New River at Glen Lyn, Virginia was perhaps one of the most spectacular railroad crossings constructed at that time. Designed in 1906 by the Tidewater Railway, the bridge was completed in 1909 after the new Virginian Railway was formed by merger of the Tidewater with the Deepwater Railway which was building eastward from its namesake town in West Virginia. Both the Deepwater and the Tidewater railways were constructed by financier Henry Huttleston Rogers. After the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Norfolk & Western railways refused to give the little Deepwater favorable rates for shipping coal from the mines in southern West Virginia, Rogers quietly incorporated the Tidewater railway to build westward from Norfolk to the West Virginia state line. In 1907 the Tidewater name was changed to the Virginian Railway (reporting mark VGN) and at the same time the Deepwater Railway was acquired by the VGN. There was a gap between the former roads until 1909 when the “Golden Spike” was driven close to the WV-VA state line which was located about the middle of the bridge over East River.
The four concrete piers in the New River which made up the main part of the bridge stood nearly 90 feet high from the river bottom and with the addition of the steel deck truss, it made the bridge about 120 feet tall to the top of the rail. The total length of the bridge was 2,155 feet. This bridge and the equally tall but much shorter bridge over East River about a half mile west of Glen Lyn were the last bridges constructed that opened the way for trains to move the whole length of the railroad.
New River Bridge – Glen Lyn, Virginia – April, 1968
When the states of Virginia and West Virginia decided to widen US 460, the 10 mile stretch of the former Virginian from Kellysville, West Virginia to Narrows, Virginia was acquired by the respective state’s highway departments. The connection track, built by the Norfolk & Western Railway at Kellysville in 1960 after the Viginian merger, was reconfigured and a new connection to the former Virginian Railway at Narrows was built over the New River in 1970. Most of the old right of way was used for the new US 460 except the New River and East River crossings. Since these bridges became isolated and served no purpose, they were torn down. Today the massive concrete piers in the New River serve as a reminder of this once mighty structure.
View of the concrete piers
Doug Bess – Photographs and text Copyright 2016
See more of Doug’s work at WVRails.net
