While cleaning the other day I found some old photos of my first long distance railroad trip and I wanted to share. The photos have to be at least thirteen years old, I remember leaving from Penn Station and going down to Jacksonville, Florida, and then later leaving from DeLand station back to Penn. I don’t think I really cared all that much about trains back then, but I sure was mesmerized with that Solari departure board that used to be in Penn Station.

 
   

Most typical of me, there is a photo of a cat in there. I don’t recall much about the cat, but based on the fur coloring visible in the photo, the cat is a she (or a rare genetic aberration). I remember that cat hung out at the station, and of course I hung out with her while waiting for my train. Amusingly, the DeLand station’s wikipedia entry mentions the cat, and how she often will greet passengers disembarking from the train on the platform. Whether the cat is the same or not, or possibly a descendant of the cat in my photo, I have no idea. My grandmother is going to be heading down by train to DeLand sometime in March, so I told her to keep her eyes open for the cat. I could always call the station and ask about her, but then they would find out what you guys already know – that I’m just a tad crazy.

Those old photos were of course taken with a real film camera. Honestly, I never really liked film all that much. I’ve done the whole film thing, from shooting to self developing, which I especially loathed (imagine me, with my poor coordination, standing in the blackness of the darkroom attempting to roll my film onto the spool for processing and failing miserably). I never had much money growing up, and film and developing was always costly. Digital gives me the ability to shoot a million different frames of the same thing from various angles, and then decide which I like best – without worrying in my mind about wasting film exposures and money in development.

All this thought about my old photography is making me think about what my goals are for this year. What places I’d like to go see and photograph, and then post on this blog. The whole lack of a car thing makes some of this difficult, and it is likely I won’t be able to visit all of these places this year. But these are just some ideas…

Railroad Museum of Long Island – Riverhead, New York
Vanderbilt Mansions in Rhode Island – The Breakers and Marble House
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site – Hyde Park, New York
Vanderbilt Museum – Centerport, New York
Sharon Station – Old Harlem station in Amenia
Craryville Station – The other remaining Harlem station that I’ve not been to

At the end of April I will be heading to Africa for a little bit of adventure. I’ll be going on safari in South Africa and Botswana, as well as visiting Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Victoria Falls. I’ll get the chance to photograph the Cape Town Railway Station, as well as Africa’s largest railway station: Johannesburg Park Station. I’m also hoping to take a Metro Train to Simonstown as well as a journey through the Karoo desert to Johannesburg on the Premier Classe Train.

Unrelated to trains, but keeping up with my desire to visit really strange locales, my friend has a strong desire to go and see Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. The mayor of Rabbit Hash is a dog. Along the way, however, we would stop at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, which looks like quite the gorgeous building.

Most notably, I will continue with my station tours whenever spring finally comes and this snow has melted. It was up in the air between either the Hudson or the New Haven lines, but I finally decided upon doing a Tour of the New Haven Line. Just as I did with the tour of the Harlem Line, I will post a new station each Tuesday.

For now that is about all I can think of. I’m very open to suggestions for interesting places to visit, so if you have an idea, be sure to comment and let me know!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, it should be rather obvious that I enjoy going on little photo taking adventures that are loosely based on the subject of railroading. Last week on my little jaunt to Amenia, I got called out on twitter. A rail adventure? Than what are you doing on the road? Not to mention, getting lost on the road. The GPS was quite delightful, sending us down single lane dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. The intent of the trip was to see the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. I’ve also had a yearning to check out some of the old New York Central rail stations that were part of the upper Harlem Line and closed back in the 70′s… at least the ones that have some sort of building or remnant left standing. The closest one being Sharon Station, in Amenia, but on the border with Sharon, Connecticut. So see, some rail adventures do require the use of cars!

We took the scenic route through Connecticut, past Kent Falls and the Indian Reservation in which my aunt lives (which itself is a story on its own, but suffice it to say if you ever thought I was crazy, you haven’t met members of my family. I’m probably one of the more sane ones). The idea was to get up to Sharon, and then cut over the border to New York state. Well, the GPS had other ideas, because we started to get out into the middle of nowhere. And started noticing, oh look at that, the roads aren’t even paved here! And then the roads got so narrow, they were practically one laned. My mother, who was driving, was not amused.

We pulled over to the side to allow this truck to go by

By the time we got managed to get within a few miles of where the GPS said the former station was, there were signs that a bridge was out. Great. First we get the dirt roads, now we get the lack of a bridge, with no visible detour. We never did find the old station that day. Nor did we really have enough time to walk anywhere on the rail trail. But sometimes adventures turn out different from how you’ve imagined them… but then, that is why they are adventures. We admired the rolling hills, the farm land. Amenia is after all pleasing to the eye, from the original latin word amoena.

An unintended accomplishment of the trip was the opportunity to take photos at most of the upper Harlem Line stations. After trying to find a way around the bridge that was out we practically ran right into the Tenmile River station. And on the way back, we figured it might be a safer bet to ride down route 22, as we had enough dirt roads for that day. Most of the stations happen to be located along that route as well. Clearly we had to stop at each. Though I think my mom was about to punch me at the end. I imagined her saying “Emily, I’ve had enough of these fucking train stations,” though she never did say it out loud.

Because I made this little logo thing in Illustrator, it means this project is totally legit.

For a while I had wanted to start a new project. Sort of like all the other projects I start and not finish… except this one I would finish, I swear. I want to go to every Harlem Line station and take photos. Not just any photos though. Getting a picture of me in front of the station sign is one requirement, and the second requirement is to take a panorama photo at the station. And that will be the project: the Panorama Project. From now until I have photographed every station, I will post a new panorama each Tuesday. It will be a Harlem Line Tour Tuesday, how grand! Be sure to check back tomorrow to see the first panorama and station profile, Wassaic, the current terminus of the Harlem Line, located in Amenia.

The traveler’s guide to the Hudson River, Saratoga Springs, Lake George …
By John Disturnell
1864

[pdf-ppt-viewer href="http://www.iridetheharlemline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/1895_harlemdivision2.pdf" width="600" height="500"]

Excerpt from Health and pleasure on “America’s greatest railroad.”
By New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company
Found on Google Books