Nostalgia & History > Low Light 40 years old!

By 1982 the Santa Fe engineer’s jobs covering Amtrak trains #3 & #4 had become so undesirable that they were generally forced-assigned to the youngest promoted hoggers on the seniority roster. This was because the 73-mile run -if on-time- out of Emporia was always in the wee hours. And the layover in Newton was always 20+ hours. I don’t remember which Middle Division engineer climbed aboard while I took this shot. But I know I would have had a bit of empathy for him. Even though I, myself was deeply furloughed in the middle of the first year of the reaganomics recession.

This image has been converted from an original Kodachrome 64 slide. The passenger platform at Emporia was a fantastic place for tripod, night time-exposures. That bank of lights on the front of the depot was pure white, and gave off enough diffused light to allow a shooter to get some correctly color-balanced shots of a standard main line crew change for the freight trains. Depending on how quick the transfer was between Eastern & Middle Division crews, you would usually have 2-3 minutes to get a few 30-second shots. But the westbound passenger crew change for the engineers was right here, under that skyscraping yard light tower that gave off a harsh nuke-green cast for K-64 slide film. I had thought about trying to edit out that headlight refraction effect between the train and the depot. But when I decided to leave it in, I also decided to convert to B/W. A change of pace now & then is good for the railfan soul, eh? ;^)

1. AMTK 291 points train #3, the “Southwest Limited” at Emporia, KS in March of 1982.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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That is one great shot, Lance!

RC Lundgren

Excellent black and white save!
Bob

Nice conversion and great lighting!

JG

That pic captures night railroading.

Great shot and accompanying narrative.  Thanks for sharing your experience Lance.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Lance - that is one fine night shot !
Gary

Thanks gang! Emporia was such a cool place to shoot at night! There were several places all around the yard/RH/downtown where ambient (available) light was very friendly to Kodachrome 64... :^)

Lance/199

Great shot! Thought the KC and Emporia based  engine crews worked between KC and Newton with no engine crews at Emporia.

Rodney, did you even frickin BOTHER to read my text????????????????????????????????

Unbelievable

B&W really works here! 

RodneyZona Wrote: > ... Thought the KC and Emporia based  engine crews ..............................................................

Why would I spend over 3 hours start to finish, including Photoshop time, creating a thread about my own working territory just to post BS? Just so you can come along with your incessant tagging??? Not hardly! You have to tag every single passenger shot you can find. Every one. Every one. Every one. Every one. Every one..... Trouble is, you have been wrong enough times just on a few crew districts I know about. So I have ZERO faith that what you tag over & over & over & over onto other passenger shots around TO is even accurate. It wouldn't be so bad, but you are so coldly impersonal about it. With absolutely NO recognition or appreciation for the TO members who do the actual work to bring a passenger shot to life in a thread. Your short little "Nice shot!" repeated a thousand times has little or no meaning. If you've really done the research it should have taken to be able to tag every single passenger thread with crews' running territory, then TALK about it!!! Talk about the on/off duty & layover times for a given era & district. Talk about the crew lodging quarters away from home. Talk about passenger train names and maybe some history. Talk about the train's normal car consist. Diners, sleepers, coach accommodations & connections good, bad or absent. Talk about what kind of power their trains typically had in different eras. Put some humanity into your efforts. There are hundreds of TO members who would love to talk about the entire train, not just where the hogger climbs up & down a damn ladder. Be a railfan. Be a passenger fan. But just talk about SOMETHING! You'd be surprised how fast people will warm up to you...