[PRCo] Re: Pennsylvania Turnpike

[Schneider Fred]

You need to spend thousands of hours playing with Photo Shop like  
John Bromley does to get really good at it.   It is one thing to do  
the easy stuff like removing dust spots.   It is something entire  
different to remove an offensive automobile and recreate the building  
behind it.    I remember suggesting to John once that the white car  
next to the edge of the picture was distracting.  It pulled your eye  
away from the subject which was the streetcar.   A hour later there  
was another e-mail.   The car was gone.   The building behind it  
appeared.

There is a man in Florida named Art Wheeler who is also very good.    
He takes fantrip pictures and removes the people.   Sometimes I think  
he goes overboard removing people that should be part of the picture  
but it shows what can be done.

It has created a whole no science of determining if pictures have  
been cloned.

And whose name should go underneath the picture?   The  
photographer?   The retoucher?   Both?


On Feb 19, 2009, at 2:35 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Chick's negatives of the tunnels are at PTM.  I'd previously  
> printed them,
> and if I can find where I put the prints (I've seen them in the  
> last few
> months), I'll post one or two.  They do not scan well because of the
> extremes.  Sometimes you simply cannot beat darkroom manipulation  
> to get an
> acceptable print (at least not until you know a lot more about  
> PhotoShop
> than I do).
>
> Ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
> Schneider Fred
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:56 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Pennsylvania Turnpike
>
> There are two bores that are still very easy to see.
>
> Several miles west of Somerset ... Quemahoming Tunnel is right on  
> the north
> side of the present highway ... you can spit into it from a passing  
> car but
> it is slightly lower than the highway and most people
> would not recognize it.   This is the only one that was actually used
> as a completed railroad tunnel ... it was the line from Somerset to  
> Ligonier
> that fell into the control of the B&O which is probably how it came  
> to be
> that the whole Vanderbilt South Penn Railway project was in B&O  
> hands when
> sold to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission circa 1937.
>
> Allegheny Mountain tunnel was realigned.   The west end is on the
> railroad alignment.   The east end railroad tunnel is slightly above
> and to the north of the highway tunnel.   If you park your car at the
> east end of the tunnel and walk up the dirt road to the ventilating  
> shaft
> (or even drive up), the original tunnel is just to right.
>
> Negro Mountain tunnel  (just west of the state police barracks, west
> of Somerset) is actually under the turnpike.   They may have caved it
> in.   I don't know for sure.   The railroad crossed the highway
> alignment at about a 15 to 20 degree angle here and about 15 to 20
> feet lower than the highway cut.   You can see the tree line trending
> slightly northwest of the roadway east of Negro Mountain cut, and  
> slightly
> southwest on the east side of the cut .... that's the railroad  
> right of way.
>
> Chick Siebert, the chap who built those beautiful O-gauge models  
> and wrote
> the Valley Railways and Northwestern Pennsylvania Railway books,  
> went into
> some of those tunnels in the middle to late 1930s
> with a young friend of his.   He had or has negatives of them ... not
> sure if they wound up at Arden with some of his other negatives or  
> where
> they went.
> But I've seen his views of Blue Mountain and Kittatinny before the  
> PTC began
> to expand it for the highway.
>
>
> On Feb 19, 2009, at 11:49 AM, Dennis Fred Cramer wrote:
>
>> My dad also used the turnpike before it was finished and opened to  
>> the
>> public.  It was the most convenient way to get from Fort Indiantown
>> Gap and little Washington when he was in the Army.
>>
>> he also claims to have seen some of the original bores in Somerset
>> County when he was in the CCC during the 30's as a teenager.
>> Dennis F. Cramer
>>       Trombone
>>
>>
>>
>>
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