Fall Colors 2004 

Who could have guessed that Fall, 2004 would become 

"The Fall of My Life"
Photographs by Tom Trencansky

Fall is always so fleeting.  The trees seem to turn from green to color overnight and then, just like that, they fade and drop to the ground, leaving the trees naked for the next six months.  The calendar says the season known as fall runs from late September to late December but in the northeast, especially New York State, the period of beautiful fall colors is fleeting, instead of three months, perhaps only three weeks, and by the last week in October, it's over.

Fall has always been my favorite season, even though the harsh reminder that winter would soon follow.  I have photographed trains fall after fall, for as long as I can remember, savoring those few days in which my work schedule, fall colors, sunshine and desire might allow the opportunity to lens those elusive trains.  

Success for any particular year might be measured in a day, or at best
 a couple days of photography.

Fall 2004 would be different.  As those retired folk say, "everyday is Saturday".  Fall 2004 provided me with an opportunity that had never occurred before, there was no work schedule to fit into the formula.  I was free to grab my camera on any day, on every day, to pursue both sun, colors and trains.  First it was upper Canada, then the Adirondacks, and the mountains of West Virginia.  Northern Pennsylvania and the southern tier of New York would provide the last of the fall colors.  

Trains have always been a magical elixir.  

A day of photographing trains was worth a whole week of work, maybe more!  A good day watching trains was nearly as good as it might get.  Fall 2004 allowed me to be out in bright sunshine with my wife Nancy and family, with good friends, and even a few days of complete solitude in which I could take some time to simply walk through that hundred-year old cemetery that overlooks famous Nicholson Viaduct in Pennsylvania.  We stopped back at the old Adirondack Scenic RR a couple times.  We visited the old logging operations in West Virginia, rode behind the neat old Climax steam locomotive in Durbin, along the Greenbrier River and in the shadow of Cheat Mountain.  We stepped back in time to walk through the old coal-hauling shops of the narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad.  And, for the first time in my life, I visited and photographed Sand Patch Grade, the line that carried the original Baltimore and Ohio Railroad over the Alleghenies.  Memories?  How about standing at the top as a long freight train broke out of a tunnel and roared past the marker showing the location as the Summit?

The best time?  Maybe touring the Muskoka Lakes in upper Canada with Nancy on one of the old dinner boats, even photographing the R.M.S. Segwun, a historic 100-year old steamship.

Fall 2004 - truly, 
the Fall of My Life.