A few from the "Good lord I am old" files...Southern goodies in KY

[E.M. Bell]

As most anyone that visits our little place here on the web knows by now, I take a lot of pictures...a lot, and this is not a new thing. I had the good fortune of growing up right by the Southern's Louisville district mainline in Lawrenceburg KY, and had parents that supported (and participated) in the hobby. My dad was a model railroader long before I was even thought of, and between that and having a parade of trains going by the house every day I was pretty much "doomed"  to like railroads.

I cant recall exactly when I got my first camera (I have shots going back to when I was 6 or 7), but I got my first "real" camera for Christmas when I was 10. From that day on, Kodak stock was on a roll.. Since then, I have accumulated a massive amount of prints and slides that go back to at least 1982.  I didn't make the switch to slides until 1990 or so, and have 8 or 10 big plastic totes full of slides, and a print collection that could fill a warehouse.

With all of that stuff stored in every nook and cranny of our house, my darling wife made the suggestion that perhaps it was time to start sorting and scanning some stuff. I have bought and tried several slide scanners over the past 3 or 4 years and have never found one that worked well, so the slides will have to wait I guess. Over the past week I have been slowly scanning some prints and started a new gallery on Pbase. While I have scanned some stuff off and on through the years, this will be the first time I have ever had a "plan"....and the plan is to scan when I can.. If I am lucky, I might make a dent in it before I die

Here are a few Southern Goodies that I did over the weekend. This thread might wind up being pretty big as time goes on, and if anyone has a good slide scanner and some time to kill, I can keep you occupied for a long time These wont be in any particular order, just what ever I lay my hands on and feel worthy to share.

The new gallery at Pbase is at this link... >>  http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/southern_

A winters morning in 1984 finds Southern GP35 #2661 (riding on trade in ALCO trucks) idling on the shop track at Lexington, KY.  That good looking Caddy belongs to car inspector Jimmy Ball, who has just came on duty. Soon, the morning yard crew will board the geep and start working the yard before they head out to switch customers around town.


A Southern caboose brings up the rear of a Northbound intermodal train, seen here passing under the intermediate signal at MP 154.6 (Cumberland Chair)  on the CNO&TP  This was shot December of 1985, and it must have been a cold day, as you can see a little heat coming out of the stack for the stove.


A highhood GP38-2 and a Southern bay window Cabb congregate in the small yard at Lawrenceburg KY in the winter of 1983. I don't recall what the cabb was doing here (I was only 11 when I took this), but it was unusual to find one just sitting around town.


A Southern GP50 (turned the right way) leads NS train 224 West at Waddy KY in May of 1989


Southern X773 brings up the rear of a Westbound train at Avenstoke KY in 1985

[Ptrainman]

Nice shots EM.


Paul

[Ponce de Leon]

Yes sir....MIGHTY nice shots, EM! I see you had talent as a photographer even as a youngster.

[E.M. Bell]

Thanks, but I have to question this talent.   I should post a sampling of the 50 or so prints I went through just to find what you see above   I look at some of this stuff and cringe at the amount of money I wasted back then...it was not until I started paying for film myself that I adopted the  "1 shot 1 kill policy".   

Funny how using your own money can do that!

[AFT2101]

Very nice! Thanks for posting.

[mbgphoto79]

Very nice trip back, looking forward to more! I use an Epson Perfection V500 scanner and seem to get pretty good results for negs, slides and prints. Runs about $150 on the web.

Matt

[Bill Richardson]

This is an old post, and I don't know what your scanner status is now, but I will add my comments.  I have an Epson Expression 1600 that is very good for scanning film.  It has four film holders to use with it, for different size film.  I found this at a thrift shop a few years ago, cheap.  It seemed there was a bit of a problem when scanning reflective items, color in particular.  Some thin bands showed up.  Something like that.  Not sure now.  Didn't matter.  I wanted the scanner for film.  Currently, it seems to work ok on reflective scanning.  I mainly use it for film.  For photos, I prefer to scan the film, instead of prints.  A good glossy print would be ok, but a lot of my prints were done by Wal Mart on "textured" paper.  Anyway, I really like this Epson Expression 1600.