In 1973 Model Railroader magazine had a column called "Teen Trainhead" or something like that. I wrote a letter soliciting replies from fellow railfans my age. Several pen-pal friendships ensued, but the usual teenage distractions on my end led to these winding down.
My pen-pals sent me photographs that were contemporary at the time, which means that they are historical today. One fellow in particular sent me pictures of the Penn Central world around him in Upstate New York. I immediately fell in Love with the region but would not visit there myself until 1993, long after his name and the memory of his photographs had vanished.
Luckily, I stashed his pictures in a safe place and managed to take them with me over the course of 6 moves in 15 years. In December 1999 I found them, along with several pictures (and negatives) that I had taken in 1976 along the Penn Central/Conrail mainline through Vermilion, OH, along the old NYC Water Level route.
The photographic paper has that 1970's orange/brown fading look to it, so these images have gone under a fair amount of image manipulation on my part. Nevertheless, they provide a visual time capsule of "The Decade That Taste Forgot", the 1970's.
Enjoy.
Bibliography:
Reid, Robert H., Penn Central System B-Annual (1973).
Diesel Era Staff, "GE's U23B part 2" article in Diesel Era Magazine, Volume 10
Number 1, Withers Publishing Co., (January/February 1999).
Lund, G.W., email identifying locations (1.7.00).
Smith V.M.D., Ph.D, Bruce F., email identifying locations (1.7.00).
Breon, Roy, email identifying locations (1.10.00).
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