FlanaryRon-LN1555 South-LoyallKY-north end-3-2-1975
Sunday Potluck
Throughout much of the 1970s, Wil and I would travel to Loyall, Ky. on Sunday afternoons about every couple of months or so to visit my grandmother, Bessie Yonce. These were memorable and eagerly anticipated events. My grandmother would always have an abundant spread of food for dinner. She was an outstanding cook, and the selections included a variety of gastronomically divine comfort food delights.
I always ended up eating too much, so with so much carb stuffing, my body was screaming to find somewhere to lie down and take a nap. I always fought it off and excused myself to make a visit to the L&N yard office and engine terminal with camera in hand while Wil and Granny looked through things in the old rooming house that was her home.
Weather and railroad activity was strictly potluck, but I usually could find a few scenes worthy of film. Sunday, March 2, 1975 was a warm and sunny pre-Spring day. Rail photography in the “hills” is game of hide and seek with sunlight and dark shadows on such a day as that one, but you take what’s given.
At the north end of Loyall Yard, I was first expecting a crew to depart with a Corbin-bound coal train when I realized the dispatcher had lined a southbound into the yard. The lighting was so backlit I knew it was a wasted shot, but of course I took it anyway.
The image was unusable until I scanned it last evening and used every Photoshop tool in the box to convert it to black and white, with heavy adjustments of lighting and contrast, dodging and burning, a better replacement for the grainy sky, and a final shot of Topaz grain reduction. Thanks to digital image technology, a slide I might have otherwise trashed 50 years ago has a new life. L&N Extra 1555 South (a GE U30C and two EMD SD40s) arriving at Loyall 50 years ago is now properly documented as an acceptable entry in the railroad image history of the Cumberland Valley Division.
FlanaryRon-LN1555 South-LoyallKY-north end-3-2-1975
Sunday Potluck
Throughout much of the 1970s, Wil and I would travel to Loyall, Ky. on Sunday afternoons about every couple of months or so to visit my grandmother, Bessie Yonce. These were memorable and eagerly anticipated events. My grandmother would always have an abundant spread of food for dinner. She was an outstanding cook, and the selections included a variety of gastronomically divine comfort food delights.
I always ended up eating too much, so with so much carb stuffing, my body was screaming to find somewhere to lie down and take a nap. I always fought it off and excused myself to make a visit to the L&N yard office and engine terminal with camera in hand while Wil and Granny looked through things in the old rooming house that was her home.
Weather and railroad activity was strictly potluck, but I usually could find a few scenes worthy of film. Sunday, March 2, 1975 was a warm and sunny pre-Spring day. Rail photography in the “hills” is game of hide and seek with sunlight and dark shadows on such a day as that one, but you take what’s given.
At the north end of Loyall Yard, I was first expecting a crew to depart with a Corbin-bound coal train when I realized the dispatcher had lined a southbound into the yard. The lighting was so backlit I knew it was a wasted shot, but of course I took it anyway.
The image was unusable until I scanned it last evening and used every Photoshop tool in the box to convert it to black and white, with heavy adjustments of lighting and contrast, dodging and burning, a better replacement for the grainy sky, and a final shot of Topaz grain reduction. Thanks to digital image technology, a slide I might have otherwise trashed 50 years ago has a new life. L&N Extra 1555 South (a GE U30C and two EMD SD40s) arriving at Loyall 50 years ago is now properly documented as an acceptable entry in the railroad image history of the Cumberland Valley Division.