Nostalgia & History > What is wrong with these photographs?

A little bit misleading title, but not really. One photographs over a long enough period of time, one can tend to form opinions when things don't look like the norm. Case in point are today's images out of my most recent scans. I have to fall back to the tumultuous 70s. So many things in the east got knocked off their pins, that the pace was at times warp speed. For an industry that rooted itself in traditions, it was just plain scary. They say the only thing constant is change....Yep!

top...I rest my case on this atrocity. Don't know where it was taken, but it still makes me ill!

middle...everybody but at Elizabethport NJ.

bottom... tell me I would have seen this, and I would have said the drugs would be wearing off soon....Hagerstown, 1977

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

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top...more culture shock at Hagerstown

middle...never thought I would see this in the backshop at Altoona

bottom...check this beauty out in Cleveland Ohio

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

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top...Rutherford yard Harrisburg. It was a Reading facility just a few months ago

middle...had to throw this in. Who does not belong in this picture??

bottom.... looks like the circus came to Enola!

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

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Depressing and enhanced by the lack of color, yet important historical records of that ever present "All Things Must Pass" reality. Thanks fo posting them.

top...caboose confusion in Allentown

bottom...passing the Lehigh Valley station on the Lehigh Valley main in Bethlehem. Ok, we all got used to these rambling, but I would have rather not!
 

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

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First-rate historic mood photos. Even now some of these bring a feeling of depression. How sad to see old friends treated this way. 
How often we forget that what seemed to some like trash back then would be another man's treasure in the present. Let's be thankful for being able to view these photographic memories.
Bob

Now you "youngsters" know how I felt when my Dad and I would drive over to Madison and Granite City, IL in the '50s and see track after track full of steam locomotives lined up to be scrapped.  Very traumatic for a young steam fanatic!  Now you know why I don't like diesels.

Not a thing. Another outstanding bunch.
JB

Roadjob Wrote....
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> bottom...check this beauty out in Cleveland Ohio

Hmmm, looks like Conrail's version of the hi-ad truck on this former Reading Lines C630 lol. And a WM BL2 with an EL SDP45 ? How cool was that ! Great bunch of photos Bill !

Roger Durfee
Akron, OH

Thank you Bill as always for your outstanding photos that bring back many sad memories for most of us, especially seeing railroad engines now under the ownership of Conrail.  And that Western Maryland F unit looks sad with that Chessie System number on it.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

Thanks for postng these Bill. Absolutely NOTHING wrong with these photos now. Of course we all felt differently in the 70's...

Love the BL2/SDP45 shot.

I really enjoy your posts.   This one with the hodge podge of locomotives and paint schemes is great.

Wow !  On that shot of the EL E8 on the table at Altoona you can see the old EL lettering down in the Gray starting to show through. Looks like it suffered some internal or external trauma in that area. The early era of Conrail was where I cut my teeth. Nice stuff Bill !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/22 10:24 by perklocal.

What heretical scenes with great irony, all great but nonetheless must have been shocking at the time. Love that RDG beauty in Cleveland...

JG

Conrail is what is wrong with those photographs. After two years of that crap I pretty much stopped fanning CR and spent my time in northern New England and eastern Canada, where everything had not *yet* turned to shit. But eventually, along came Guilford and CN dumped the GT and CV, and CP's New Brunswick branch line network got wiped out by a flood. But until then, NNE was a very rewarding place to fan.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/22 18:49 by CPR_4000.

I agree with the turn to shit comment! I followed the first four years of the Conrail mess only because it was still an operational mess. Once everything started turning blue, and they scrapped the electrics, I was done with it from about 1982 until the realization that it too was leaving the scene hit. I went west, and north. D&H saw a lot of me until Guilford ruined that. I went to Eastern Canada and New England as well. Still a lot of great railroading through the 80s, but after that decade, I shot about as many train pictures in the 90s decade, as I did on a week long trip to the Chicago area back in the 70s.

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

Another great post of things not so pleasant. It took a lot of gut wreaching to turn the industry around. I still miss all the original railroads, never thought I'd say I miss Conrail, but I do. The railroads are still here moving freight and passengers, just in different ways. When I was a kid in the Fifties and saw train after train of coal rolling into Philadelphia on the Reading and PRR I thought I was witnessing a giant growing industry, little did I know it was actaully in its death throes! Most of the Conrail fallen flags were Anthracite dependant. When Anthracite fell it took the need for so many railroads with it. All ancient history now.
Go

At least there were trains to be seen that should be appreciated while you have them.  Where I live in Connecticut so many tracks that saw Conrail replace the New Haven are now trails or rusted rotted  rails and completely disappearing ties.  I would give a lot to see just one more train one these no matter what the power is
 

Bill, after CR had turned blue I tried to give it another shot but just couldn't muster the interest. Pretty much hung up the camera rail-wise, as by then I was shooting every day for a newspaper and railfan photography just wasn't as rewarding as it had been. I did get a couple of good RR features and news photos in the paper, though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/22 20:28 by CPR_4000.