April 12, 1988 - helpers near Chattaroy, WV. One thing I don't miss about film is lost slides. I spent time at Bluefield shooting other N&W power this day, but my Kodachromes were lost, either by Kodak or the U.S.P.S..
Same here. I am still out a complete roll of K64. 36 exposures in late February, 1980, of the Milwaukee Road just before shutdown. Did not get the bad news until after the RR was gone. I got a "free" roll of film, and lost half a day of chasing up and down their famous Tacoma Hill. Helpers, a Logger, a Portland freight, etc. I'm still mad as 7734!!!
I recall another box of Kodachromes that disappeared in the early 90s. We took a successful family trip to Waycross, GA and my route crossed a number of shortlines, and NS and CSX lines. I lost a lot of good shots, though videos by my wife help to reclaim some of what was lost. I'd always planned to rerun the route, but 15+ Years later it has yet to happen. I remember a story perhaps 25 years ago in one of the railfan magazines that exposed (pardon the pun) a railfan employee at Kodak who was ransacking slides at a Kodachrome processing laboratory. He was duplicating train shots he liked, but got carried away and disorganized. Fans opened their new boxes of fresh slides to find rail shots ...... that they didn't take! Letters of complaint arrived at Kodak and the employee was busted. I'll bet that nobody got their correct slides back.
You are probably correct. I have been watching to see if any of mine ever show up. I did run across someone on the east coast, about twenty years ago, who was selling duplicate slides. One of which was mine. And I know that from something in the picture which the view nobody else could duplicate.
That would aggravate me too. In this modern Internet era, a number of photography forum members have had their photos taken and used elsewhere. I'm not a master photographer, but I would like to be credited if someone were to want one of my pictures. Happily, I had an automotive parts supplier contact me a year ago when they wanted to use a photo I'd posted on a car forum. It's a small firm and they offered to send me a nifty part in exchange, which I gladly accepted. That's the way it should be done.
