20 Years Ago -- A Trip For A Hot Dog

New York City Transit Authority; West 8 Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

It seemed like a good choice -- the Wilmington Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society was looking for a spring trip using regular service trains. The trip would originate somewhere in northern Delaware or southeastern Pennsylvania. I suggested we go to Coney Island to get a hot dog from the original Nathan's Hot Dog stand. So on April 1, 1995, a group of us set out to travel through Manhattan to Brooklyn in search of a hot dog.

Our trip began at the SEPTA station in Marcus Hook, Pa. -- at the time, SEPTA service into Delaware was quite limited. We boarded a Silverliner IV and headed to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where we would change trains and take another SEPTA train to Trenton, N.J.

SEPTA; Marcus Hook, Pa.; April 1, 1995

At Trenton we changed to a New Jersey Transit train to continue into Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. We were riding in the lead car of a set of Jersey Arrow self-propelled multiple unit cars, and as the conductor was taking tickets he soon realized he had a group of railfans on board. He checked with the engineer and soon he was cycling members of our group through the cab for photos from the head end.

Amtrak; Elizabeth, N.J.; April 1, 1995

Once in Manhattan we worked our way into the subway system. We knew we wanted the F-Line out to Coney Island. As it works out, the F-Line also serves the oxymoronically highest point on the subway system at Smith-9th in Brooklyn, just after leaving Manhattan. The elevated line provides great views of the Manhattan skyline, so we paused for photos here.

New York City Transit Authority; Smith-9th, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

We continued on the F-Line to the West 8 Street station near Coney Island. This is a multi-level station that also has some good photo angles. We paused here for a few shots before finally heading to lunch.

New York City Transit Authority; West 8 Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

Two more stops and we had arrived at Coney Island. The Stillwell Avenue subway station marked the end of our outbound journey.

New York City Transit Authority; Stillwell Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

Finally, it was time for our hot dog! We did take time to shoot subway trains approaching Stillwell Avenue across the street.

Nathan's Hot Dogs; Coney Island, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

After lunch we spent some time looking at the Stillwell Avenue terminal. A lot has changed in the intervening 20 years -- the terminal has been expanded and modernized. The BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit) signage on the outside that we saw is still in place in 2015.

New York City Transit Authority; Stillwell Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

NYCTA; Stillwell Avenue

Now it was time to head home. Lunch was late, and it was already mid-afternoon. As I recall, we opted to take the B-Line back, but long shadows precluded photography. At New York Penn, a few of our group opted to hop on Amtrak to Philadelphia to expedite the ride home. Most of us, however, opted for the NJ Transit/SEPTA combination back to Marcus Hook. Arrival back at the hook was after dark, but it certainly was a memorable trip to get a hot dog!

Nathan's Hot Dogs; Coney Island, N.Y.; April 1, 1995

Seashore Trolley Museum at Night

A complete set of photos of this trip can be found here.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 2, 2013

Last year I had seen some photos taken by Joey Kelly of a night photo session at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. I contacted Joey and said if the event was repeated, please let me know. He immediately responded that it would indeed be held again, this time on November 2, 2013. I circled the date on the calendar, and made my way up the Maine coast once the date arrived.

Amtrak; Hartford, Conn.

Timing conspired to force me into making the trip in a quick weekend up and back, so I plotted a route to Maine that would let me pick off a couple of Amtrak shots that I had wanted to do. There is a shot in Hartford, Conn., from the station platform that features the Nutmeg State's capitol building in the background. Unfortunately, the shot is looking straight south, making lighting tricky. I had done the shot with the mid-morning train a few weeks earlier with okay results; this trip would take me through Hartford at lunch time and I could try the midday train. This, as it turns out, did not work out well; the light was extremely harsh and Amtrak was running the shuttle trains between New Haven and Springfield with the cab cars on the north end (the first time I had seen that). Oh, well. . .

Up next was a shot I had scoped out on a rail photography site of the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited in Worcester, Mass. The shot featured a nice backdrop of old mill buildings. I easily found the location, but in the four years between when the shot was taken and this day, the middle mill building had been demolished, leaving a large gap in the facade. A splash of fall foliage made the shot worth doing, anyhow.

Amtrak; Worcester, Mass.; November 2, 2013

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine

Arriving in Kennebunkport, I did a few quick daytime shots, then met up with Joey, who was the coordinator for the event. I also met Shawn Duren, who would be doing the lighting. A second flash guy couldn't make it, so I dusted off my 20-year-old Lumedyne flash (which I haven't used in a couple of years; it has been supplanted by my collection of Alien Bees strobes) and joined Shawn in lighting the scenes. If the event had a downside, it was that is was too popular -- 34 photographers showed up, when the expectation was for a dozen at most. This made some of the scenes a touch crowded. Rain that had been predicted for after midnight arrived early, and a one hour rain delay after the first few shots thinned the crowd out.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 2, 2013

The first setup was at north end of the museum's trackage, where three complete sets of subway cars (two from New York and one from Boston) were posed (above). Not many museums can field a full set of subway cars, never mind three sets. It was quite impressive, and a bear to light. From there the session moved down to Tower C near the museum's visitor center where the Boston Blue Line subway set was posed (top of this page), followed by a variety of streetcars including the museum's first car and a pair of Connecticut Company cars. The evening finished with a couple of electric freight motors.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine

Once all the shots were done, the session came to an end around 10:30 p.m. I had initially planned to stay in the Boston area overnight; in fact, my collection is very thin on MBTA photography and I had carefully plotted out a seven-shot itinerary for Sunday that would let me fill in a lot of gaps. Unfortunately, Sunday's weather forecast was not good. Not wanting to spend money for a motel just to get up and drive straight home the next day, I decided to just do the five and a half hour drive back to New Jersey right after the night session broke up. By 11:00 I was on the road and rolled into my driveway at 4:30 a.m. On the way home, my mind kept plotting shots that needed to be done next year at Kennebunkport. And that Boston trip is still near the top of the list for a day of shooting, hopefully soon.

Cool Chromes -- Traction Action

Cool Chromes is a recurring feature of slides that have passed through the scanner recently.

Newark City Subway; Newark, N.J.; April 21, 1985

In this edition of Cool Chromes we're going to look at some traction -- electric-powered streetcars and subways. Our first shot above takes us back to April 21, 1985. The Newark City Subway (operated by New Jersey Transit) was having an anniversary of some sort (I can't remember exactly what!) and brought out one of its work cars for display at the Franklin Loop at the north end of the line. Today the PCC streetcar, the work car and even the loop are all gone.

MBTA; Riverside Carhouse, Newton, Mass.; July 1986

Next we have a line-up of Boeing-built Light Rail Vehicles (LRV) for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) at the company's Riverside carhouse in Newton (I think; I wasn't the greatest at taking notes). This view was made possible thanks to a tour operated for the joint convention of the National Railway Historical Society and National Model Railroad Association in July 1986. Once again, all these Boeing-built cars are gone to retirement.

SEPTA; Hunting Park, Penn.; January 28, 1995

Here's a Peter Witt streetcar operating in charter service for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The Philadelphia transit agency used to maintain a small fleet of historic cars, but has since dispersed its collection. The Peter Witt now resides at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton. This shot was taken on January 28, 1995, during a Super Saturday Streetcar Special operated by the Wilmington Chapter NRHS.

PATH; Kearny, N.J.

We finish this edition of Cool Chromes with a shot of the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) system. A work train is out on the line at Kearny, N.J., using retired cars and a flat car. One of the curses of slides is the processor didn't always stamp the processing date on the mount (especially after Kodak gave up doing its own processing) so this slide is, for the moment, undated (I may have mentioned I was bad at taking notes). However, I would guess it was taken during a boat trip on the Hackensack River either during or right around the time of the 1988 NRHS Convention in New Jersey in July 1988.