Both of my parents were from Sweetwater in Texas, but I grew up in Wilton, Connecticut near the constantly busy Danbury Branch of the New Haven Railroad. My father worked for Trans World Airlines based out of New York, and we spent many summers back in Sweetwater where my uncle worked for the Santa Fe Railway as the Yardmaster.
Spending time at the yard in Sweetwater coupled with hanging around the depot in Wilton sparked a life long love of railroads. This diversity of rail fan heritage explains why this site will present a mix of subjects from the northeast and the south central United States. I spent many hours standing beside and riding on EMD FL9 locomotives thanks to friendly New Haven crews, and so when “FL9.COM” became available, I snapped it up as the logical URL for my website. The New Haven banner photo above is one I shot in 1971 of two FL9’s arriving in Danbury, CT from Pittsfield, MA with the Saturday morning train for New York.
I started photographing and tape recording trains in 1967 at the age of 12, and have not looked back since. This has led to a large collection of slides, tapes, memorabilia, friendships and other great things over the years, along with being fortunate enough to have some of my work published in various books, magazines, and calendars.
After shooting slides for 36 years, in 2003 I won my first digital camera, a Canon G3 point-and-shoot, at the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society convention photo contest in Fort Worth. This was followed by winning a Canon 20D digital SLR as the grand prize in the 2004 TRAINS Magazine and Canon Camera Photo Contest. I also was fortunate to win the grand prize in the 2005 contest, this time a Canon 30D. As a result, I still keep my Canon film body handy, but I am now shooting 99% in the digital world. Most recently I won 2nd place in the 2006 Trains Magazine Photo Contest for which the prize was $300.00. In 2008’s Center for Railroad Photography and Art contest I was proud to tie for second place with a group of photos taken during a 2006 Amtrak trip to Montana that was part of the Trains Magazine contest prize.
I plan over time to share some of the good older stuff here along with the new, so please keep coming back!
Ken Fitzgerald
January 2006
