Pity the 1975 LV railfan

[BR&P]

Pity the poor railfan in 1975. No scanners, no talking detectors, LV dispatchers didn't talk to the crew by radio. So you'd wind up with whatever random pics you could get, maybe taken too far away or with poor light. Here's AP-2 on 12-07-75, somewhere near Rush or Mendon.

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Unlike today, where the last car can be ANYTHING, 45 years ago it was monotonous - EVERY train had a caboose on the rear. Oh sure, maybe PC's looked different from EL's which were different from LV's. But kinds predictable, don't you think? Here's an example of what we had to put up with.

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And no nice wide-cabs - nosirree! just these old things, and in some cases even older like GP9's or even, on some roads, an F-7! And cameras were not as user friendly and shooting into the sun at dull Cornell-red units sometimes gave you results like this, eastbound at Wheatland Interlocking.

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So next time you're out watching trains, take a moment to pity those who had to use old outdated methods to shoot old outdated equipment. But somehow we put up with it, just didn't know any better I guess!

[TB Diamond]

Did come in handy if one knew some key operators and had access to a block phone or even a dial up (gasp) land line telephone, however.

Totally neat photos.

[lvrr325]

2nd and 3rd units are probably 412 and 413, I think all the rest were some shade of red by the end of 1975.

The LV in 1975 was chaseable, if you knew your roads well enough and had an idea where the slow orders were. On the west end the fastest they'd go per timetable was 50 MPH, but there were lots of stretches of 25. My guess is by December even more slow orders not in this timetable. Worst case maybe you'd have to hit the Thruway at Manchester to get ahead of them by Batavia somewhere, or vice versa.

I mean I was chasing the Conrail Auburn branch as a kid with just a map, no problem, and that was all 25 MPH running. In fact I was probably too cautious and could have jammed in more shots than I did take.

[Benjamin Maggi]

Great pictures!