The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s Norfolk Southern’s Locomotive #1825 pictured above, and below, hurtling through Pittsburgh on the south side of the city. The unit came online in 1993 as NS #2507, an EMD SD70 model. #2507 was rebuilt in 2019 and the upgraded engine is now an SD70ACC model. The tracks it’s riding on are the ‘Mon Line,’ which was formerly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. As far as I can discern, other than an upgrade of certain mechanical drive and braking systems, the difference between the two models revolves around the operator’s cabin and the electronics found therein.

I know people who keep this sort of information in their head, all the time. This post was actuated as a response to one of these fellows, a friend of mine and whom I consider to be my ‘go-to’ or ‘rabbi’ for understanding how the insanely complicated world of Choo-Choo trains works. Like all my friends, he likes telling me what I haven’t done.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I had sent this particular fellow a link to a few prior Newtown Pentacle posts which featured another train line here in Pittsburgh, that the CSX outfit operates on. An offered critique was that ‘I had mastered the flying wedge photo alright, but I needed to start getting to “rail photos level 2”…’ Grrrr, thought I.

So… after scuttling down Arlington Avenue – as described in the two posts directly preceding this one (here and here) – one proceeded to the PJ McArdle Roadway where I knew a ‘POV’ for the Mon Line tracks awaited a humble narrator. Grrrr. Level 2, my ass.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One had to hang around for a bit, and I used the time to call my old pal Armstrong back in Brooklyn and check in with her. While chatting about the news of the day and hearing about the old neighborhood, #1825 rounded a corner and appeared in the distance. Gotta go, said I.

I had already figured out the camera’s exposure triangle, but it needed a bit of fine tuning. The shot above is zoomed out at 300mm, so atmospheric heat distortion manifested itself.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The train got closer, and I kept on shooting.

My big news for this day’s walk was that for the first time in literally years, I was using my headphones and listening to one of my beloved Lovecraft audio books. This particular entertainment was a ‘radio drama’ performed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s “Dark Adventure Radio Theater” company, a dramatic adaptation of ‘At the Mountains of Madness.’

As mentioned several times, ever since Covid appeared and the streets got weird, I’ve been avoiding the use of headphones while out walking. This habit started in NYC, and whereas I’ve continued it in Pittsburgh, I needed to let a different set of voices talk in my head for a change, and listen to something other than my horrific inner voice, which is impossible to tune out.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve actually been listening to some music, as well, other than the tried and true playlist which I refer to as my theme music. That inner voice of mine, with its paranoid imaginings and cruel replays of past failures and or embarrassments, has really been getting old and tiresome lately. Best to drown the intrusive thoughts, and fill my head with music, podcasts, or fiction instead – at least while I’m awake.

I know that I’m more than 20 years out of date on a lot of music, but I’m particularly enamored with this 2001 song at the moment – which quite fits my current mood. That’s a real cracker of a rock video too, if you ask me.

One was standing on a bridge while shooting these, a cantilevered span which carries a fairly high speed road, and one whose designers didn’t anticipate camera toting pedestrians running across the travel lanes in pursuit of a photograph. That would have been a very bad idea.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Thereby, the lens was extended out into its zoom range again for this final shot of NS #1825 heading eastwards. As a note, remember when I mentioned rock slides further up the Monongahela Valley? Turns out that a landslide in 2018 just a half mile west of here and which damaged the Mon Line tracks caused a Norfolk Southern derailment, which created no small amount of chaos and damage. Wow.

Level 2… grrr…

Back next week with something different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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