Of Light, Landscape and the Echo of Trains

Railroad photography by Todd Halamka

Todd’s fascination with trains began as a young boy on the southwest side of Chicago. His love of trains began in the early 1960’s around the age of five, through visits with his grandfather, trekking the back alleys of discarded trash and treasures from their classic depression-era brick bungalow to a nearby station platform to witness countless parades of Zephyr, mixed-manifest freight and every conceivable consist along the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy triple-track speedway and the Indiana Harbor Belt at Congress Park, Illinois.  A favorite pastime was seeing who could first spot the next distant headlamp of an approaching train on the horizon.  Each visit became cherished moments to connect with his grandparents whose collective experience spanned from the coming and going of the age of steam locomotion, to sixteen hour shifts at Western Electric’s Hawthorn Works during World War 2, to watching man land on the moon and the introduction of the computer.  In the early 1940’s his grandfather purchased a small black and white movie camera and captured several days of railroading during the passing of CB&Q steam and the introduction of diesel electric locomotives, including the FT, E5 and Shovel-nose Zephyr.  These romantic images captured on film and the platform visits through childhood cemented Todd’s love affair with trains. 

Trains and their resonance in my life.

When I was young, I had not yet connected, that most everything I interacted with in my day-to-day existence had at one point traveled by rail.  In retrospect, now nearly 50 years later, railroads continue to play a significant role in nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from moving vast concentrations of people to enormous quantities of the world’s merchandise.  

Growing up in a rural, wooded setting shaped my profound appreciation for nature and sensitized my eyes to the subtle beauty of filtered, dappled lights and darks.  As a family, we traveled, fished and camped extensively throughout all of North America.  Magical train memories from our cross-country excursions include overtaking a trio of throbbing Union Pacific DDA-40X climbing a grade in California;  catching up to an incredibly soot-covered bundle of smoking Southern Pacific and Rio Grande SD45s and Tunnel motors in Colorado; pacing a 100 car, 15 mph coal drag led by a half-dozen High-hood Norfolk & Western EMD GPs and GE U-boats at the point and another 6 units at the stern in hills of Tennessee and West Virginia; or pausing at a grade crossing as a stunning array of silver and red Santa Fe F units sprint the Super Chief into the Arizona desert at sunset.  Now slightly blurred with time, these trips remain etched in my soul and continue to fuel my deep love for nature and railroading.

Photography entered my life in college.  Degrees in architecture spurred a desire to learn how to make photographs that documented the city, its buildings and the spaces in between. Understanding context and the unique attributes that describe a place were of great interest to me. After graduate school and throughout my early years of practice, I had the opportunity to travel and work around the world and explore my interest in understanding how cities develop over time and their interconnected relationship to railroads. Research almost any great city’s neighborhoods, in and around its main train station, and chances are you will learn a great deal about the evolution and development of that modern metropolis.

My professional ambition, in leading a collaborative architecture practice then and now, is to create extraordinary buildings for clients that improve their lives through the shaping of spaces that employ unique combinations of light, form and materials.  The parallels between the definition of space, light and movement in architecture and railroad photography are many.  I met the love of my life Susan in the late 1980’s, and asked for her hand in marriage aboard a Bi-Level train ride in Chicago; we are still riding trains together. Raising a family of three followed and a 26 year marriage continues.  Reconnecting with trains began again in earnest after the purchase of our first home only a few miles from my grandparent’s house and a couple of blocks from the CB&Q (now Burlington Northern Santa Fe) mainline.  In our case the apple fell very close to the tree. Track-side stroller excursions commenced as did daily rail commuting to work downtown.  It was not until 2011, at the age of 50, did I begin to combine my love of trains with a passion for photography. 

Todd is a self-taught photographer who continues to experiment, discover and learn his craft. A move to digital from film corresponds to his decision in 2011 to focus his photography almost exclusively on railroads.  Now five years in the making, the following images explore his interests in all things railroading, organized in three separate but overlapping primary categories: Landscapes, Cities and In Between. 

Todd’s photography focuses on making images that speak contextually of time and place and explore how qualities of light and composition elicit emotion. 

Landscapes

Remote locations deep within nature, where mountain, forest and stream speak to one another in uninterrupted verse, bring particular joy to me. Combine this idyllic place with a fly-rod and camera coupled to the distant sight and sound of a train echoing through a canyon below, and I have achieved my nirvana. Landscapes pull and play with the very essence of our emotions, our senses and our being.  The ever-changing theater of weather, sunlight, and season, present a symphony of visual opportunities that invite and challenge the photographer to embrace the earth and all of its natural wonders with fresh eyes. Favorite times for my landscape railroad photography revolve around the hours before and after sunrise and sunset, when the light and corresponding atmosphere render the scene in sublime hues.  Add to this recipe occasional snow, wind, rain or a dash of fog, and a favorite image is born.  

Cities

I am drawn to the unique energy found in cities. The sheer density and visual stimuli in cities is intense and unrelenting. Incredible scale shifts abound, from small buildings to skyscrapers, back alleys to interstate highways, from transit platforms to cathedral-like railway stations.  Mammoth rail yards, lift-bridges and ferries add further excitement to the senses. From the discrete to the immense, each element contributes unique threads to the urban fabric of a city. Cities are like living and working organisms within which railroads provide conduits of oxygen and food to thrive.  Metaphorically, I look at cities as man-made mountains, constructions filled with flowing rivers of people and transportation hubs that seldom sleep. From sweltering rail yards in Mumbai, frozen industrial outskirts in Moscow, to the cross-roads of East and West in Istanbul, my photography of cities draws from distinct cultural, geographic and climatic influences to create images that convey the role and meaning of railroads and people in cities..

In Between

The spaces In Between our natural landscapes and urban centers present visual opportunities for storytelling that describe how railroads continue to navigate and shape our ever-changing built environment. The evolution and development of these sub-urban places, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, owe in great part their existence to railroads. People and goods traveled by rail and depots were primary centers of activity at this time. The second half of the 20th century ushered in an era of new technological freedom for the individual, dramatically changing our modes and choices of transportation. The American Dream of homesteading outside the city was made accessible by owning one’s own car and the ability to connect long distance via airplane, telephone and television. Towns grew during this period of post-war prosperity at an astounding pace, while freight and passenger railroads retreated into second class citizenship. Today, the opportunity to remap the role of rail service into the fabric of these areas in between, is ripe for consideration. More environmentally sustainable strategies are called for in solving challenges of congestion, movement of goods and services, and rail’s ability to reduce our dependence on the automobile. My images of In Between attempt to portray the visual impact a railroad has played or continues to play in this sub-urban context.  Most interesting to me is the resulting visual discussion of accretion and informal clutter these places and railroads impart on one another at the intersection of the two. Within these moments of overlap intriguing images can be found.

Contact

Inquires and comments are welcome.  To contact the photographer please use todd.halamka.rail.photography@gmail.com