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4/27/2024
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Viewing Album:  Dad's photos
 
By:Tom Beckett
Dates:1/1/1940 - 7/15/2012
Album Info:My dad, Tom Beckett Sr, was not a railfan, but he was an avid photographer of anything that caught his interest, everything from dogs to military aircraft, especially of WW II vintage; occasionally a train found its way in front of his camera. He passed away in March 2012 at the age of 79, at which time I came into possession of his photo collection. Much of this is slides, though he also shot a large volume of black and white, starting in the late 1940's. In this album we'll see some of his work as it turns up. Please note, in most cases, the dates are approximate, and sometimes they're wild guesses. Where I know it, it's correct; sometimes I can approximate by elements in the photo, or family history. Dad did not always mark info on his prints, though the slides most of the time have at least a month and year. He had a lot of slide film processed by private labs in New York, they did not always put a date on the mounts. If anyone looking at these photos can lend insight into a particular scene with a date or more info, please do so. Dad's not here to ask!!
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Mail RDC
Title:  Mail RDC
Description:  This RDC RPO was leading a BC Rail passenger schedule.
Photo Date:  7/18/1997  Upload Date: 5/18/2016 5:04:41 AM
Location:  Vancouver, BC
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Scenic,Passenger,Action
Locomotives:  BCOL 30(RDC3)
Views:  462   Comments: 1
Familiar sight
Title:  Familiar sight
Description:  New Yorkers will be familiar with the clock and winged messenger over the 42nd St entrance to Grand Central. I still think of the building behind it as the Pan Am Building. Some things just die hard.
Photo Date:  10/5/1997  Upload Date: 2/13/2016 3:19:34 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  29   Comments: 0
Grand Concourse
Title:  Grand Concourse
Description:  Not the one in the Bronx, this one in Grand Central Terminal. Its one of the great public spaces in the world. Dad caught it from an odd corner one afternoon. This is the result.
Photo Date:  10/5/1997  Upload Date: 2/13/2016 3:22:08 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  46   Comments: 0
Electric and diesel
Title:  Electric and diesel
Description:  A pair of Metro North trains wait for departure at Grand Central, the one on the left a train of M-2s, the one on the right a train of diesel hauled equipment patterned after the cars that trace their heritage to the ELs 1971 cars that replaced the Stilwells.
Photo Date:  10/5/1997  Upload Date: 2/13/2016 3:29:46 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger,Action
Locomotives:  MNCR 8125(M-2 Cosmopolitan)
Views:  195   Comments: 0
Headed for Brewster
Title:  Headed for Brewster
Description:  A train of 30 year old M 2s waits for departure to Brewster, as it has done with those cars since the late 60s.
Photo Date:  10/5/1997  Upload Date: 2/13/2016 3:43:04 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger,Action
Locomotives:  MNCR 8125(M-2 Cosmopolitan)
Views:  100   Comments: 0
Theres a ferry here
Title:  Theres a ferry here
Description:  But everything else has changed. Were looking at what was once the NYC Weehawken Yard. Once there was a passenger station here, the terminus of passeger operations on NYCs West Shore Line to Albany. The terminal also served the NY Ontario & Western til they quit running passenger trains in 1949. The last NYC train ran in 1958, after which time the area was largely unused. Like everywhere, development has come, and with the vehicular traffic congestion from Jersey to NY, the ferry has returned. Ah, progress!!
Photo Date:  10/5/1997  Upload Date: 2/14/2016 2:43:47 AM
Location:  Weehawken, NJ
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Yard,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  163   Comments: 0
Are there stars out tonight??
Title:  Are there stars out tonight??
Description:  In Grand Central, always. The ceiling of Grand Central Terminal, with the stars shining above.
Photo Date:  12/12/1997  Upload Date: 5/19/2016 4:19:52 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Scenic,Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  44   Comments: 0
Festive
Title:  Festive
Description:  Grand Central is lit up for the holidays, wreaths all around, as we look at the Pan Am-oops, Met Life-Building entrance.
Photo Date:  12/12/1997  Upload Date: 5/19/2016 4:25:16 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  52   Comments: 0
Its the holiday season
Title:  Its the holiday season
Description:  The terminal looks festive from the Vanderbilt Av balcony, looking toward Lexington.
Photo Date:  12/12/1997  Upload Date: 5/19/2016 4:43:01 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  31   Comments: 0
Get on board
Title:  Get on board
Description:  The crowd walks down the platform as it board this MU train for an ex NYC destination.
Photo Date:  12/12/1997  Upload Date: 5/19/2016 4:44:01 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  30   Comments: 0
Ready to go
Title:  Ready to go
Description:  The passengers are on, the doors are about to close, and another commuter run will be underway from Grand Central to NYC territory.
Photo Date:  12/12/1997  Upload Date: 5/19/2016 4:45:05 AM
Location:  Grand Central Terminal, NY, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  32   Comments: 0
High view
Title:  High view
Description:  Dad had an eye for panorama, nowhere better than Bear Mountain State Park. Here we see a Conrail southbound roll past Iona Island from up near the Bear Mountain Bridge.
Photo Date:  11/6/1998  Upload Date: 9/26/2014 1:31:35 PM
Location:  Bear Mountain, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Scenic,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  87   Comments: 0
Union Station
Title:  Union Station
Description:  Dad appreciated good architecture, and railroad stations had it. He took this photo of Toronto Union Station one cold day in January of 1999.
Photo Date:  1/12/1999  Upload Date: 10/4/2014 2:11:19 AM
Location:  Toronto, ON
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  59   Comments: 0
GO train
Title:  GO train
Description:  Dad must have been somewhere in the Union Station complex and was able to grab this shot. In a "close but no cigar" moment, he got the railing right over the engine number, so no unit number.
Photo Date:  2/20/1999  Upload Date: 9/22/2014 3:00:21 AM
Location:  Toronto, ON
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Winter,Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  50   Comments: 0
Amtrak and MN meet
Title:  Amtrak and MN meet
Description:  A Penn Station bound Amtrak train rolls into Poughkeepsie, reflecting in the just arrived Metro North train from Grand Central.
Photo Date:  9/26/1999  Upload Date: 12/17/2015 4:05:02 AM
Location:  Poughkeepsie, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger,Action
Locomotives:  AMTK 705(P32AC-DM)
Views:  283   Comments: 0
Concrete
Title:  Concrete
Description:  Concrete ties were still an innovation in the late 90s, though they had become widely used on the NE Corridor. Metro North was starting to use them as well, seen here at Poughkeepsie.
Photo Date:  9/26/1999  Upload Date: 12/17/2015 4:11:24 AM
Location:  Poughkeepsie, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Track
Locomotives: 
Views:  33   Comments: 0
Inside the station
Title:  Inside the station
Description:  The interior of the Poughkeepsie NYC station, as it appeared in 1999.
Photo Date:  9/26/1999  Upload Date: 12/17/2015 4:12:51 AM
Location:  Poughkeepsie, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  27   Comments: 0
Work extra??
Title:  Work extra??
Description:  This motorized crane and gon of sorts were in the Poughkeepsie yard. Check out the PC gon in the background.
Photo Date:  9/26/1999  Upload Date: 12/17/2015 4:14:45 AM
Location:  Poughkeepsie, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  RollingStock,Yard,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  266   Comments: 0
View from the bridge
Title:  View from the bridge
Description:  Dad got this shot of Metro Norths high level station platforms from the pedestrian overpass. The old NYC station building is at right. The high bridge in the distance is the former New Haven Hudson River crossing, which went out of service following a fire in May 1974. It's now a pedestrian walkway/park.
Photo Date:  9/26/1999  Upload Date: 12/17/2015 4:27:48 AM
Location:  Poughkeepsie, NY
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Scenic,Station,Passenger
Locomotives: 
Views:  90   Comments: 0
C&O gone modern
Title:  C&O gone modern
Description:  Dad was up to Charlottesville for a visit to Monticello and stopped at the joint Southern-C&O station, and caught this westbound empty coal train behind the successors to C&O SD 18's, 35's and 40's.
Photo Date:  7/23/2006  Upload Date: 11/13/2017 4:26:18 AM
Location:  Charlottesville, VA
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Station,Action
Locomotives:  CSX 561(AC44CW) CSX 4722(SD70MAC)
Views:  303   Comments: 1
On the street
Title:  On the street
Description:  A CSX GE leads an empty coal train as it peeks out from behind a building in downtown Charlottesville
Photo Date:  7/23/2006  Upload Date: 11/13/2017 4:33:56 AM
Location:  Charlottesville, VA
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  Action
Locomotives:  CSX 561(AC44CW)
Views:  199   Comments: 2
Empties past the station
Title:  Empties past the station
Description:  Dad caught the rolling stock too, getting this shot of hoppers rolling by the station.
Photo Date:  7/23/2006  Upload Date: 11/13/2017 4:37:26 AM
Location:  Charlottesville, VA
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  RollingStock,Station,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  40   Comments: 0
Snaking into town
Title:  Snaking into town
Description:  The long string of empties rolls into town toward the station and NS crossing.
Photo Date:  7/23/2006  Upload Date: 11/13/2017 4:41:06 AM
Location:  Charlottesville, VA
Author:  Tom Beckett
Categories:  RollingStock,Action
Locomotives: 
Views:  34   Comments: 0

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