Every Rail Enthusiast has their favorite place. Most of the time, their favorite place is called “My Place” because there’s a sense of ownership through the unique nature of the location, an emotional tie or, perhaps, just a quiet location where they feel comfortable and enjoy just being there. To qualify for “My Place” status, the location must look great without a train. For me, there are two places that fell into that category.
Read more
Tuesday January 18, 1994 was forecast for frigid temperatures and there was a significant snowfall already on the ground. What better time to head up to the top of the Alleghenies at Cresson, Pennsylvania, to take a few train pictures? Listening to the radio on the drive up, the weatherman was warning people that the high that day would be negative 7 degrees. Pretty darn cold.
I bundled up in my warmest parka, heavy gloves and insulated boots. Remembering mistakes I’d made in the past, I made a mental note to rewind and finished rolls of film very slowly. The extremely dry air at that temperature could cause a lot of static between the film stock and the felt seal on the film canisters. I’d seen lots of “lightning bolts” on people’s film at the lab. Explaining what happened with someone’s vacation pictures to some completely clueless customer was not fun.
Read more
The exact date is lost, but one warm summer afternoon in 1980 I headed over to Washington Union Station from my office at the American Railroads building for an overnight ride to Chicago. A meeting of the Research Committee was scheduled for the 9:00 a.m. the next day and my attendance was mandatory. I was a little worried about taking the train knowing that it could well be late, but the Assistant Vice President of the department was a former Pennsy man and he assured me that it would be okay. Even so, the rest of the staff flew.
My train was Amtrak’s version of the famous Broadway Limited. The original Pennsylvania Railroad Broadway Limited ran from New York City to Chicago via Philadelphia. In 1980 however, there were two trains that combined at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. The Washington section passengers rode forwards while the New York riders rode backwards across New Jersey.
Read more
I started photographing from the perch at Denver’s Union Station in March of 2015, when Amtrak announced they were going to run a Winter Park ski train to see if there was still interest after the Rio Grande stopped running the ski train a few years earlier.
Read more
Situated deep in the New River Gorge National River area is a little-known Amtrak station in Prince, West Virginia. In the late spring of 2018, my family and I used it as a jumping off point for a trip on Amtrak to Yellowstone National Park. The station is still served three days a week on Amtrak’s Cardinal line and is in CSX’s New River subdivision.
Read more