A friend and I had been scouting out this train station for a while because of its conspicuous location. We finally came up with a gameplan, set the date, and then a snowstorm hit.

Undeterred, we plowed ahead!

Not the best photos because it was 3AM, really cold, and my camera's lens has no indicators to focus with in low-light situations. We also tried to avoid using flashlights to light-paint near windows and doors in case someone outside noticed.

01: 3AM
This wound up being the clearest photo from the set - just a random photo taken to dissuade suspicion from passing plows.


02: Main Room
Once inside, the dark and vast annex of this train station awaited us.

Almost the entire building was totally boarded up except for a few windows much to high off the ground and the point of entry we used. This left the place very dark, and unlike the small houses we've explored in the past, light painting this large of a space with a mag-lite didn't work. This photo was shot on a 30 second exposure with a 5.6 f-stop and it's still this dark.


03: Distant Ceiling
This was another long exposure. The windows up top weren't blocked so they're much brighter in the photo.


04: Dark Tunnels
As usual, focusing long distances in the dark with a half-dead mag-lite didn't work out.


05: The Juke
A space-age jukebox surprised us in a side hallway. There weren't any 45's left and the tonearm was destroyed, but overall it was in pretty good shape.

That's something of a reoccuring trait here - despite the level of graffiti and how gutted the place was, a lot of things were still intact. Most of the light fixtures we encountered, even the 8-foot fluorescent ones, had their bulbs ready and waiting for power.


06: From Above
This square hole in the ceiling, whatever it was for, let a bit of snow into the elevator equipment room.


07: Antique Equipment
From the same perspective, this is one of two Otis elevator winches here. The second one was on the left side of the room and pretty smashed up. These are so old that they're probably original to the building, and the one pictured here could still be moved by hand!

Which is why it looks like the snow fell onto the side of the beltwheel.


08: Intercom
This mixer had another little control box bolted to its roof - this let the operator select where in the station they wanted the audio to broadcast. The bottom panel was missing, exposing that awkward transitional period when electronics were moving from point-to-point wiring to printed circuit boards. The circuits themselves are in great condition; this unit might even still work!


09: Solitary
In a room of shuttered windows, one stays open.


Epilogue

After about an hour and twenty we were pretty cold and sniffly, so we exited the station and made our way back to the car to go get food and be warm.

I shredded a good pair of pants getting into this place.

Posted by SaladKing 05: The Juke

The Seeburg KS200. I just saw one of these recently (restored).
Made in 1957 and worth a mint.

Not sure what you are shooting with but Autofocus can be a bitch for all of us in low light. Guess it comes with the territory. Go buy one of those cheap laser pointers and see if that will work. I use it with my Nikon and never had a problem but I understand that not all cameras will respond.

Posted by Peptic Ulcer cheap laser pointers

Abso-fucking-lutely, I've used a laser pointer for years in very low light situations!!!

Posted by Peptic Ulcer Not sure what you are shooting with but Autofocus can be a bitch for all of us in low light. Guess it comes with the territory. Go buy one of those cheap laser pointers and see if that will work. I use it with my Nikon and never had a problem but I understand that not all cameras will respond.

That's a brilliant idea! I'm manually focusing but with the cold, vapor of my breath, near pitch darkness, and lack of lens indicators it becomes really difficult to tell if it's actually focused. Most of the photos here looked focused through the viewfinder but came out like this. I tried having my friend go to the far end of the photos with his tiny maglite to use as a focus reference, but that obviously didn't work.

I'll definitely be getting a laser pointer and trying this on my next nighttime trip.

Posted by yaggy The Seeburg KS200. I just saw one of these recently (restored). Made in 1957 and worth a mint. http://www.antiquewhs.com/1998022.jpg

That is a damn fine looking machine.

That's quite a place, great find! I love the snow getting built up in certain areas, really adds to the feel of the place.

Abso-fucking-lutely, I've used a laser pointer for years in very low light situations!!!

This sounds like a great idea, flashlights are hit or miss, as far as getting a focal point goes. Does anyone know if theres any truth that lower cost lasers can damage your camera? I've heard this, just dont know if its fact or not...

Posted by offlimits This sounds like a great idea, flashlights are hit or miss, as far as getting a focal point goes. Does anyone know if theres any truth that lower cost lasers can damage your camera? I've heard this, just dont know if its fact or not...

If you pointed/reflected it straight into the camera lens and took a shot then I could see the laser maybe hurting the image sensor, but there's no way that just pointing the laser at something and photographing the resulting dot would hurt the camera.

If you pointed/reflected it straight into the camera lens and took a shot then I could see the laser maybe hurting the image sensor, but there's no way that just pointing the laser at something and photographing the resulting dot would hurt the camera.

Thanks, kind of what I thought. I remember an underground gymnasium at Belchertown where I couldnt get the camera to focus. Very dark down there, very wide open, hence the problem. We were unprepared because we had no idea a basement even existed in that building...

Posted by offlimits Thanks, kind of what I thought. I remember an underground gymnasium at Belchertown where I couldnt get the camera to focus. Very dark down there, very wide open, hence the problem. We were unprepared because we had no idea a basement even existed in that building...

I love surprises like that; there's a mill I went to last year that had a basement that seemed like it'd been sealed off decades and decades ago that still contained the rusted hulks of the mill's original Holyoke Hercules turbines. Only reason we found it it is because the floor above caved in at some point and gave us access.

Posted by Freaktography Abso-fucking-lutely, I've used a laser pointer for years in very low light situations!!!

wow never heard of this. Definitely need to give it a try