New Haven's Framingham, MA to Lowell, MA branch ran close enough to observe from our home in Framingham. Along with a Lionel train set, the love of trains was in my blood. At about 12, my older brother and I were taking bike rides from our new home in Stow, Massachusetts to Boston & Maine's Ayer Junction, 15 miles away. I began taking my first photographs with a Kodak Instamatic camera. The mid 1970s would evolve into trips by car as my brother would get his driver’s license. Mostly we would visit Mechanicville yard, but the big one was a trip to the 4-tracked Horseshoe Curve during the last year of the Penn Central. Unfortunately the photos were horrible. I received a hand-me-down 35mm Miranda camera in the late 70's, which despite an unreliable light meter, handled prints alright due to film processing that was flexible when it came to compensating for poor exposures. In late 1982 I began shooting slides. This is when the camera caused me a lot of pain as the light meter was untrustworthy, and processing of slides did not compensate for exposure mistakes. About 50 percent of my shots were over-exposed junk. A Pentax K1000 and several other cameras would follow over the years. I also developed a love for shooting video in mid 1986, and that would lead to my commercial DVD business (Broken Knuckle Video Productions) which I kept for over 30 years until selling to Pentrex in 2020. Back to photos, I finally went digital in 2005. I currently (and likely for the rest of my picture taking days), use a Canon EOS Rebel T7 that was graciously given to me by my best friend of many years who accompanied me on many railfanning trips. I feel fortunate that I have seen many great railroads at many locations in North America before all the mergers and the other changes.

There are some outstanding photographers out there. Many of them can turn railroading into art with composition, creativity and patience. I’ll nail it every so often, mostly by accident, but I’ve always considered my photography as simply documenting the moment, and looking back at my older stuff especially, I fondly re-live my favorite moments of railfanning.

I hereby declare without shame or apology that especially in the case of my older slides that I make full use of the tools available in Photoshop which have allowed me to salvage many of them. I’m so happy I saved them until home scanners and photo editing software were invented!

For most of my slide scans or prints, the maximum posting size is 1920 pixels wide. Digital shots will vary. I am happy to supply larger images when it's feasible if requested.