The Coke Express
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The track signals told me something was heading my way, along the Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks of CSX, so a position under the Fort Pitt Bridge was taken up, and I figured out my exposure settings in advance of the subject barging through the scene..
HEY NOW, that’s CSX #3297 passing by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, it’s fairly impossible to guess where one of these trains is coming from, but given the direction it’s coming from and what it was hauling – it was either PA’s Clairton or Irvine.
That’s where you’ll find two of the three huge US Steel plants which remain in the Pittsburgh area. One is designed to manufacture coke from coal, the other to harvest the gas from the process. If I had to bet, this train is coming from the first one in Clairton.
This ended up being a great day for trains. Go, Monday!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The CSX train was heading westwards, towards… Ohio.
Funny to me is how the Pittsburgh people react when you mention Ohio, offering the same sort of reaction that a Brooklynite displays at the mention of …Staten Island… or ‘Joisey.”
That’s the West End Bridge in the distance, which I had walked over and described in posts last week. Scroll down if interested.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My audiobook listening had continued after completing “The Lurking Fear,” and I was now knee deep into “The Thing on the Doorstep,” both audiobooks based on stories by H.P. Lovecraft and read by Wayne June.
Y’know, I wonder if there’s any interest in a list of all of my fave audio books? Let me know in the comments, and if so, I’ll build a list with links to where you can find them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An almost imperceptible glimmer of black vapor was trailing out of the coke express cars. It was moving too fast for the smell of coal to permeate out, but there was still a vague petrochemical ‘taste’ in the air.
There you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Towboat Vulcan was spotted, heading back the other way from the direction it was traveling in when shown in an earlier post. They were also ‘sans barge’ so it must have been delivered to a nearby customer. My guess would be one of the two concrete plants on the western side of the Birmingham Bridge.
Back tomorrow, with even more trains. I know…
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The Newtown Pentacle 
Funny to me is how the Pittsburgh people react when you mention Ohio, offering the same sort of reaction that a Brooklynite displays at the mention of …Staten Island… or ‘Joisey.”
It’s all because of Cleveland, the Mistake by the Lake.
Az Ember Magyar
September 3, 2025 at 10:26 am
union railroad brings coke out of clairton to the csx yard in mckeesport. From there csx takes it west.
Pittsburgh Conductor
September 4, 2025 at 3:16 am
Thank you for the knowledge
Mitch Waxman
September 4, 2025 at 6:24 am