Casey Jones #15228

The Story

In this recreation of an old glass plate photograph from years ago, it’s easy to imagine this is Casey Jones the engineer at the throttle of this 1860s steam locomotive. Here on the NorthernCentral Railroad, his hand is held high on the throttle as he looks down the tracks and the fast forward motion trails dark smoke behind.

But in fact, both this old railroad steam locomotive and the old photograph are replicas created for effect.

The seemingly aged photograph shown here was done with digital overlays that were created from aged glass plates from years ago that were blank. There are always lots of imperfections and artifacts in the aged glass plates used in photography many years ago. After converting the picture to black and white, the digital overlays are applied over top in the computer and modified.

It’s rather interesting how modern digital means allows a picture to be aged and changed. Through that kind of creative process, a picture can take you back through a magical time machine via some artistic manipulation.

To see the original photograph that was used as a starting point, have a look at Making Time #15227. It’s the full-color modern photograph of Casey Jones the engineer and the original starting point for the digital aging process used here. There’s quite a difference!

Location: the Northern Central Railroad near New Freedom, York County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks