Lousy slides

[BR&P]

I think I'll start something a little different. We usually look through our slides and pick out the best shots for public viewing. Yet we all have stuff that does not meet the grade but we can't replicate them so they sit in the box.

So every so often, I'm going to post a pic or two from my archives, which are by most standards - lousy! Maybe bad exposure, maybe I should have taken 3 steps back to get a better view, blurred, whatever. But the one thing they will have in common is there will never be a second chance to get it right "next time". My purpose is not so much to critique what's wrong, but just to share some sights that used to be. Feel free to add to this, no doubt others have similar stuff stashed away.

To lead off, here's a shot from summer 1961. The NYC First Belt job had a car of lumber for Nichols Wyman Lumber Co at Barnards. They ran around the car at Ridge Road, then shoved it north across McCall Rd and into the siding. Here, we see 2 of the 3 units on the job that day in on the spur, about to cut off and leave the car. The slide itself DOES show the trucks of the closer unit, but it's a square pic and I'm too tech-challenged to know how to modify the scanner's work to include it.

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[BR&P]

March 1, 1970 at Hornell. I was able to lighten this one up a bit on the computer but it still could have used some sunshine. Next time!

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[Benjamin Maggi]

Thanks for sharing the pictures. I really look forward to reading this thread.

[BR&P]

Bad angle and nothing to identify the location. But interesting anyway. We're on the B&O Dock Branch bridge over the former NYC looking north toward Lake Avenue. It's March 1970 and the train is again the First Belt, southbound from Charlotte.

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[CPSmith]

Here's the SP unit with a little more "CTC Board" punch:

[CPSmith]

This one was a little harder. Were you using Ektachrome that day?

[CPSmith]

I can handle the square stuff, either slides or negatives. Mail them to me if you want. I'll be back in a couple of months, but the scanner's not traveling with me.

[BR&P]

The Trainmaster pic was Kodachrome. The NYC RS-1's were on Ektachrome. I won't bother you with re-sizing the square ones, can probably get local advice if I find too many more. Thanks, tho. Let me know when you'll be up here.

[ACM]

"Lousy" slides are better than no slides. Please share as many as possible, especially images from Dock Junction, Dock Branch, Feldspar Junction and the docks themselves.

[BR&P]

Well, here's one less than a mile from Dock Jct. McCall Road again, summer 1961. A long train of coal headed to the docks. Today's Photoshop can get rid of the processing glob and even the bicycles, but it won't make up for chopping the back end of the caboose off, or the switch target right in front of the herald!

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[BR&P]

I am piling up candidates for this thread faster than I can post them - guess I was a crappy photographer back then!

Here's one from the other end of the state - Mechanicville. Processed Feb 1975 so probably shot summer of '74. A little weed whacking would have been worthwhile!

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And a pic of a B&O unit train at Kodak, no date but probably about 1965. The angle, the shadow, the lighting is all wrong but it captures what was pretty much an every-other-Saturday-morning event back then. BTW - between the front of the loco and the left of the photo itself is what looks like a hill. That was one of several huge coal piles which Kodak kept on hand as a stockpile against unexpected supply problems.

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[BR&P]

OK, one more helping and I'm done for a bit. I know the old stuff goes over well, but these will be modern times - Penn Central and early Conrail. Sorry!

First up we have Chili Jct, SS33, CP37, CP382, whatever you'd like to call it. Shooting too early actually helped get the building on the far side in the view, behind my '69 Mustang. This was summer 1972.

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In March 1975, I was living at an apartment complex overlooking the West Yard at Charlotte. Looks like the First Belt gathering cars to take back to Rochester Yard.

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And here's April 20, 1976, less than 3 weeks into Conrail. Here's an eastbound on 1 Main passing Gleason Works, as seen from track 4 in the Coal Yard, with former EL E units doing freight duty. Appears the lead unit is a GE running long hood front if I'm seeing it right.

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[pumpers]

OK, one more helping and I'm done for a bit. I know the old stuff goes over well, but these will be modern times - Penn Central and early Conrail. Sorry!

First up we have Chili Jct, SS33, CP37, CP382, whatever you'd like to call it. Shooting too early actually helped get the building on the far side in the view, behind my '69 Mustang. This was summer 1972.

Bet you wish you still had that Mustang! (My first car was a 1970 AMC Javelin SST- the American Motors attempt to compete with the Ford Mustang and Chevy Camaro).
Also, in the pic of the red B&O caboose near Dock Jct, it looks like a baseball bat sticking out from the bicycle somehow. Coming from a game, or was it a rough neighborhood?

[SST]

Any picture taken long ago regardless of quality is a good picture...…..its better than no picture at all.

My first car was a 1976 Cutlass Salon. Boy was I spoiled with that car! Cranberry Valour buckets seats. Power seat for driver, a/c, power door locks and windows. One day, while driving to collage and as I entered the expressway, Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac came on the radio and I just put my foot to the floor and roared down the 290. The good old days! Gas was still under a $1.

[BR&P]

Also, in the pic of the red B&O caboose near Dock Jct, it looks like a baseball bat sticking out from the bicycle somehow. Coming from a game, or was it a rough neighborhood?

Pumpers, that wasn't my bat but I guarantee it was not for self-defense. That was at McCall Road (Barnards) and was perhaps 1/2 mile from Kodak. Back then probably 50% or more of the folks around there worked for Kodak and life was wonderful. Kodak had athletic fields and sponsored summer baseball leagues for kids, and it's possible that bike was forumite C2629, IIRC he played summer ball back then.

Since we're on the B&O, here's a pic of "the twins" at the docks. The dock office is at left, they are just completing the task of shoving loads out onto the trestle. Simply taking about 5 steps back would have made a great pic showing the building and the trestle, not to mention not cutting off the nose of the 9547. But as Willie Nelson's song goes, "There's nothing I can do about it now".

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