Mystery Photo

[urrengr2003]

I think Brian Solomon is an expert. Always go with a B&A man. Signal line on north side of RofW is also consistent with B&A practice between Chester and Westfield as documented by several old photos between these locations.B&A

[dcm74]

Here's the Google map with the location circled.

[Mikejf]

Doing the Google street view, that location is incorrect. The ground is all wrong.

[Trinnau]

Yes, that's the place I was looking at. I have to admit these places are uncannily similar. But, I still rule out Huntington. With all due respect to Brian's mastery of the B&A, this is a B&M location.
The road is parallel and doesn't change it's relationship to the track in the distance where the road in the photo does.

The photo center also clearly crosses the inside of the curve with the far bank of the river and group of trees just offset to the right. That angle would not result in the same composition at Huntington. The road is the giveaway. Also, the spacing for the vertical guardrails would be gradually changing at Huntington as the road is on a continuous curve, where it has a bit of a "wiggle" at Erving, defined by a sharp change in spacing.

Here's a markup of the mystery photo compared to Google images of the two locations. Huntington has been flipped so you're looking at it the same way.

Mystery Photo Markup
Mystery Photo Erving.jpg (460.74 KiB) Viewed 5000 times

Erving Markup
Erving Google.jpg (591.75 KiB) Viewed 5000 times

Huntington Markup
Huntington Google.jpg (504 KiB) Viewed 5000 times

And as Mikejf mentions, the Google Street View shows the road and tracks at the same grade at Huntington which doesn't match the photo where the road is always higher.

[Red Wing]

You are looking at a current aerial of Erving. Route 2 has changed in this area so the alignment may have been different many years ago.

[dcm74]

Brian Solomon dug into his archives and found this picture. It is ground level but the mountain contour does match. Location is milepost 122 approx 2 miles west of Huntington Center. Picture was taken in 1988.

[kilroy]

The river looks completely different though. I know rivers change over time but the two are very different. The mountain contours are not that unique as to be definitive.

[dcm74]

In order to match the original picture the photographer would have had to cut down several hundred 50+ year old trees to reach the top of the hill. He would then be able to focus on the bend that is visible at the rear of the picture. Major floods in 1936, 1938 and 1955 did rearrange some of the riverbanks.