My response to this image is frustration about not knowing more. The image is from a postcard printed from an original glass plate negative, now at the State Archives.  Each plate was in its original paper sleeve on which was written date, time, photographer, etc.

It’s my hope that someone seeing this can interpret this image, and if need be, correct any errors in what I write.

Info on the back of the card dates it at 24 January 1916 taken at Culvert 30.  According to p. 138 of this US Dept of Interior NPS inventory pdf, Culvert 30 is in Monroe County and serves as conduit for Irondequoit Creek.

I’ll highlight groups of what appears to be over two dozen workers in the image, beginning with these three men in the photo below.  It appears to be a mild January day.

More than a dozen men are gathered around this steam shovel alone.  Might they be extending the rail for the shovel to move forward?

Would the gentleman in the photo below be lubricating running gear?

 

I can’t make out the text on the cab of the steam shovel.

Do I see three locomotives here?  Is that a pile of ties to the right?

I can’t recall seeing rail cars like those six below.  

It’s my hope that someone answers some of those questions.  This is just one of over a thousand postcard images that I numbered last winter.  The CSNY collection is vast and deserves to be seen and studied.

Very useful background information to this photo can be found here at this American Canal Society link.