Probably on the famous run?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Prize-locomotive-99 ... otohosting

Is it me or does the smoke look like it's been inserted to the photograph?

KL

Looks real to me.

It's interesting that you ask. When I first looked at the photo, I took kind of a double take on the smoke, but did not consciously come to any particular deduction. I guess my only thought was the knowledge that the engine set a speed record, and if the photo depicted that event, I wondered if that was 100+ mph smoke. It looks more like 30 mph smoke.

The photo could have been taken with the train running at some moderate speed, not during the speed run. I don't know if there was photographic technique in those days that could stop the action of a 100 mph locomotive. I would guess that it was not possible. Even at 30 mph, it may not have been possible to stop the action to the extent that it is frozen in the photo. I wonder if the photo was posed with the train stopped, and then the smoke from another locomotive photograph pasted in.

RTK

I was thinking the same thing. It wouldn't be unlike a railroad company to stage a shot like this with static equipment and cut the smoke from a photo and paste it in another. To me the smoke looks somewhat unnatural in its slope and angle to the train...

The train has to be stopped. Just look at the wheels and running gear. If it were moving, even it were only 30 mph, they would blurred, especially with the cameras of that time.

I second the motion (ha-ha) of a stopped train. Even at 1/500th of a second, at 100 mph the train would move an inch or two; and back around 1900 you would have been lucky to get a camera/film for 1/25th of a second (blur at 20 mph). That image is razor-sharp. Ergo, stopped/posed train, added smoke.

I played professional photographer for over a decade and did some work in the area of reproducing early 20th century photography technics. Later in my career did a lot of copy and repair work on old photographs.

IMHO, this train is stopped, the smoke has been added in the darkroom. For the period, this is pretty good work, perhaps "B" quality. For the 1990's it would I would give it a C at best. In the photoshop era, it's a D- at best.

As Sandy suggests, assuming a between the lense leaf shutter was used, 1/250 or 1/500'th of a second would have had some blurring, but I don't think the film speeds of the day would have allowed this shutter speed without having the lense wide open. If that was the case, I'd expect to see fuzziness in the corners from optical defects, else it should be more grainy from cropping. (Realizing this would have been shot using a large format camera on a tripod and getting it so closely cropped while in motion would have been an amazing shot!).

JMHO.

Bob Bunge

If you look closely at the trailing edge of the stack opening, you can see that the smoke stream appears to unnaturally overhang the rear edge of the stack opening by a couple inches. Apparently the smoke stream they pasted in was a bit too wide where they wanted it placed at the stack opening, so they aligned it at the front of the stack and let it hang over the back.

The link below shows another photo of the 999. If you click back and forth between this photo and the photo in the first post, you can see that the smoke plume is identical, except in this photo, they have cut off a little of the smoke where it overhangs the back of the stack opening in the photo in the first post.

So, not only have they pasted the smoke plume into the photo, they have used the same plume on two different photos. What would really be a unique find would be a print of the engine actually making the smoke plume that they cut and pasted for the 999. Smoke plumes are like fingerprints.


http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/stamen04.jpg

RTK

The driver diameter has also been reduced in the second photo. The originals were something on the order of 86".

its not 999 in the second photo, its #862, so drivers are probably correct.

only 999 had the "extra tall" drivers, the rest of the "Buchanan Americans" had smaller, more typical drivers..

999 was later outfitted with smaller drivers, and she wears smaller drivers troday..her original drivers are sadly lost to history..

Scot

You are right Scot, that's not 999 in the second photo. I should have looked more closely, but just assumed it was 999 because the article also featured an engraving of 999. Actually the article was about a comparison of the Empire State Express and the Cornish Express.

The caption of the second photo says it was running at speed, but again, raises the question of the feasibility of stopping the rod and spoke motion if the engine was moving. However, the cars do appear to be raising dust. I don't know if that could have been artificially added or not.

The fact that both photos display the same smoke plume means something, but I am not sure what. In the first photo, the smoke appears to not match the stack, so it was likely pasted in. The second photo shows the same smoke used in the first photo, except it has been corrected to match the stack. Considering the logic of this, I would conclude that the smoke was added into both of the photos.

RTK

Here is another shot of 999 duplicating the E-bay shot in the first post, except this one has had the smoke cut back coming from the back side of the stack like the shot of #862. But unlike the first photo of 999, or the one of 862, this shot has smoke added to the discharge at the front of the stack opening. You can see that the leading edge of the smoke is almost vertical for the first 1 ½ feet of rise, whereas the other two shots have the leading edge more curving backward.


http://www.trains.com/ctr/objects/image ... ican_1.jpg

RTK

And to the NYC PR department, seems that one size fits all!

Good discussion, guys.

KL

Hey guys, lighten up. Does the added smoke take anything away from the fact that my New York Central 999 ran fast back then?