A Portal Into My Past

It is July 3, 1972, in Brewster. I had just purchased my first single lens reflex camera, a Nikormat by Nikon, and was taking my first few rolls of Agfachrome slide film. In less than a year, I would move on to Kodachrome.

Back then a release was easy to get, and Brewster was filled with locomotives built by Fairbanks-Morse, Alco and the Electro Motive Division of General Motors.

I took this slide and have looked at it perhaps two or three times since 1972. 

A few days ago, I discovered this slide in one of my boxes. Now I can appreciate the scene. It is not a far away FM H12-44 image as much as a portal into my past.

I’m looking east. The big building in the background is the Norfolk & Western office building which was built by the original Wheeling & Lake Erie and is now used as the main offices of the modern W&LE.

As long as I did not cross tracks, go into the shops, or wander into the yard, I was free to photograph where I wanted. I even had permission to cross tracks to photograph in the engine facility.

Such freedom is almost unheard of now. I can truly say that I have been blessed.

Article and Photograph by Robert Farkas

N&W Era Two for Tuesday From Gambrinus

Here are two views of vintage Norfolk & Western motive at Gambrinus Yard near Canton. In the top image is the 2152, a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 captured in February 1973. In the bottom photograph a pair of N&W locomotives await their next assignment on Oct. 11, 1980.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Showing Signs of Wear

Norfolk & Western No. 2149, a former Nickel Plate Road Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 sits outside the shops in Brewster in June 1975. The unit is worn and a little battered, but that comes with the territory of having been a hard worker for all these years on the railroad.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Nickel Plate Road Heritage in Brewster

Fairbanks-Mores H12-44 may have been a Norfolk & Western unit when it was photographed in Brewster in the late 1960s but it began life as Nickel Plate Road No. 140.

Photograph by Robert Farkas