Reading Railroad “Pennsylvania Avenue Subway” Tunnel, Philadelphia, 2004.
#photography
Captured with a Fuji GX680 camera, 80mm lens, T-Max 100 film. Some tilt was applied to control focus. It was very dark in there, and focusing required the use of a flashlight.
The Pennsylvania Avenue Subway was built to provide a sub-grade freight connection between the Reading Railroad’s main line and its “City Branch”. It served the Baldwin Locomotive Works’ Callowhill plant and, later, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s printing plant, among other Center City industries. Abandoned in the 1980’s.
The GX680 was a fun but very unusual camera that couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. It was a truly gigantic beast of a medium format SLR camera providing (limited) view camera movements. It used 120-format roll film with a 6x8cm frame (so a 3:4 aspect ratio), with a built-in autowinder. It’s sort of what you’d get if you merged a Nikon F4, a Hasselblad, and a Crown Graphic. Definitely not a point & shoot camera.
@[email protected] holy moly (FIL was an exec at Fuji and has stories)
🎵 Tunnel in the ground Subway goes around Take a train It’s not a pain Reading railroad 🎶
(I know it’s pronounced Redding but that popped into my head anyway)
