Rear View Mirror
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is stretched a bit thin for content at the moment, given that most of the last month has been consumed by a medical drama experienced by Our Lady of the Pentacle. She’s doing great, after an elective but necessary set of procedures, although I don’t want to puncture her privacy by talking specifically about it here. She suffers enough, my bride, via her husband’s ‘open book’ mannerisms and his incessancy.
Today’s post includes shots which didn’t make it into the daily posts over the last few weeks. Pictured above is the driver’s side POV from the Mobile Oppression Platform, gazing back at a massive traffic jam I found myself trapped in one afternoon after a horrific vehicle collision which occurred about a mile ahead of this position, on a road called Liberty.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since shooting this series of shots of CSX trains rolling past that brewery I like to carouse at, there has been little opportunity for such hedonist pursuit. There’s a whole series of train shots coming at you in the next couple of weeks, many gathered in the short intervals of Our Lady’s Doctor’s appointments.
Moe the dog has been utterly confused by all of this unfamiliar activity, as the world has not been explicitly revolving around his constant need for fun, play, and tiny mammal terrorizing. It’s been a 7 a.m. to midnight kind of deal for me, as you literally can’t take your eyes off of him lest he start chewing on the Declaration of Independence or continue with his attempts to commit Squirrel genocide one bite at a time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve also been uncharacteristically static, not getting my exercises in. All of the internally lubricated parts have stiffened and my knees have started making popcorn sounds when I’m walking up stairs. Luckily, Our Lady has received a cautioned ‘All Clear’ from the Docs and I can soon resume my peregrinations again.
The shot above depicts the Saw Mill Run waterway running through a narrow st the oft mentioned, and nearby to HQ ,‘Seldom Seen Greenway’ trail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before all the drama began, during a visit to the nearby community of Homestead, this absolute unit of a church caught my eye just as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was setting. Can’t tell you much, or in fact anything, about it other than it was quite stout.
I’ll be back, and hopefully will be able to get inside of it for a lookie-loo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One remains fascinated by the T light rail here in Pittsburgh. Can’t tell you why, except to say that street cars are something truly novel to me. You can take the boy away from the subway, I guess, but…
This one had just dropped me off in the Dormont section of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another CSX unit rounding the bend nearby that brewery on the South Side which I’ve been attending, this one from either late August or early September, is pictured above. I cannot for the life of me figure out the schedule these companies abide by. Sometimes there will be three or four trains in an hour, whereas others you can sit there for three hours and nada. At least there’s beer. The Norfolk Southern people seem a whole lot busier here in Pittsburgh, and you’ll see a few examples of that in the coming weeks.
Anyway, the interval of staying at HQ to care for a recuperating Our Lady of the Pentacle seems to be at an end. She’s once again whirling, ever whirling. Back to the streets for me, and the odd out of town day trip every now and again.
Back next week with something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Western Maryland Scenic Railroad
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As detailed in earlier postings, a humble narrator left HQ in Pittsburgh in the early morning hours and piloted the Mobile Oppression Platform along a southeastern vector towards the panhandle section of Western Maryland, and specifically the City of Cumberland where my ‘turn around’ point was. Throughout the morning, I had kept “11:30 a.m.” in mind, since that’s when the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad would be offering a tour on their heritage railway with its historic rolling stock. There’s also a fairly large CSX railyard in Cumberland, but halfway through the morning I had decided that I’d be coming back this way again and would leave that one for ‘next time.’ This location is about 85 miles from HQ, which ends up being about a two hour drive if you don’t make multiple stops along the way, as I did.
I wasn’t going to be riding with WMRR on this day, but plenty of other people were. The Heritage RR operation offers fairly regular excursion tours between its 1913 Cumberland Station and the community of Frostburg. During the holiday season, they use an actual steam engine and fashion the trip along a Christmas theme as “The Polar Express,” as you’ll see in this particularly well shot YouTube video from Blue Comet Productions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After finding a solid place to leave the car, one set out on foot and got busy. As mentioned, this wasn’t the day which I’d be purchasing a ticket and riding on the thing. Saying that, they have California Zephyr Dome cars in addition to executive lounge cars attached to the engine, as well as an ‘open car’ about which their website description offers the caution that you WILL get cold, wet, and dirty while riding in. That’s the photographer centric one, as there are no windows. You can also pony up a few extra bucks if you want to ride in the locomotive engine with the engineer at the head of the snake.
The origins of the Western Maryland Railroad date back to 1852, and like all history associated with rail – there’s a complicated series of corporate owners, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and incremental expansions which you can sort out for yourself at this Wikipedia page. Ultimately, in 1973, the WMRR was incorporated into the ‘Chessie System’ which would later merge with an outfit called Seaboard Coast Line Industries in 1982. The combined outfit would rebrand itself in 1987 as CSX.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the merger in 1987, CSX abandoned the Cumberland to Frostburg tracks and several municipal entities (including Cumberland and Frostburg and the counties they reside in) foresaw creating a tourist attraction so they purchased the corridor and several of the yards and facilities owned by the WMRR in 1988. It runs regularly scheduled tourist trips in modernity.
Right on schedule, at 11:30 a.m., the guy with the flag arrived and stopped automotive traffic. The signal bells started ringing, and the train blew its horn. Me? I was standing on the concrete of the C&O Canal’s tow path (described yesterday), which adjoins the rail tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The steam engine which they’re so famous for was in the shop, and the WMRR was instead running a diesel engine at the front of the train. It’s a General Electric Dash 8-32B model #558, which used to be a part of Norfolk Southern’s fleet, and has been leased from that entity to the WMRR as of September of 2022. It’s painted in WM’s color way and heraldry.
My original intention for this leg of the day trip was to linger around Cumberland for a while, and see what I could get at the nearby CSX yard, but I’d been actively ‘doing my thing’ since 5 in the morning and was beginning to feel fatigued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying that, I’d actually had a full morning. I was at The Great Cross in Jumonville, the Youghiogheny River Lake, and there were a couple of other stops I had made along the way which weren’t all that productive. I still had a two hour drive to get back home, and unlike the morning journey, this time I’d have to contend with traffic and worst of all – school buses. It’s eminently logical to legally forbid the bypassing of school bus traffic, but when you find yourself behind one on a one lane country road… you’re just screwed.
I’m definitely coming back to Cumberland, and plan on riding with them on that Polar Express dealie. Unmentioned in this post, so far, has been the presence of the Great Allegheny Passage bike and pedestrian pathway. The GAP is the same trail that starts in Pittsburgh, which I’ve mentioned many times. An absolutely terrific number of people were observed unloading road bikes to take advantage of the trail, in the municipalities parking lot, where the Mobile Oppression Platform was waiting for our return trip to Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the WMRR rode out of view, I returned to the car, and changed up my camera gear to traveling mode. A quick stop at a gas station was accomplished where the car was fueled up, where I got some much needed coffee, and away we went. On the way home, I stupidly followed a route, suggested by Google Maps, which added a half hour and about thirty miles onto the trip. By the time I was back in Pennsylvania’s Uniontown section, that salami sandwich I had eaten for breakfast was utterly metabolized and I needed a lunch break. McDonald’s, if you’re curious. Here’s a tip – the double quarter pounder is a Big Mac without the special sauce (which you can request they add) and it’s about $5 cheaper than the flagship sandwich.
One of my practices while traveling is to uncharacteristically eat such forms of fast food, since doing otherwise means that you’re kind of throwing the dice as far as food poisoning goes with unfamiliar roadside restaurants. McDonald’s corporate is famously hardcore in terms of enforcing health and safety rules on their franchisees – in terms of “quality,” food storage and cooking temperatures, and facility cleaning standards, so… it ain’t good for you – at all – but McDonald’s ‘fills the hole’ and probably won’t give you a case of the squirts. I learned this lesson about grabbing an ‘on the go’ meal when I was still drawing comics, and had to drive to and attend comic conventions all over the country to promote the books.
After washing the fry and burger grease off my hands, it was time to finish the trip back to Pittsburgh. I think I walked back into the house at about 3:30 p.m.
Whew. Back tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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C&O Canal Towpath
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The extant location which I’d been heading towards all morning, after leaving Pittsburgh at about 5 in the morning, was in Cumberland, Maryland. Pictured above and below is the C&O canal, aka the Chesapeake & Ohio canal, aka the ‘Grand Old Ditch.’ This wasn’t what I had traveled for, but what? I’m going to ignore it? Pfah.
The C&O Canal extends from Washington D.C. to Cumberland, some 184.5 miles. Its construction began in 1828 (inspired by the early success of ‘Clinton’s Folly’ in New York), there are 74 locks along its length, and its current status is that of a National Park. Its designed function was to provide a transportation pathway for coal, mined out of the Appalachian region in the ‘panhandle’ of Western Maryland and Southwestern Pennsylvania, to markets and industry in the nation’s Capital and surrounding area.
The C&O canal was completed in 1850, but was already redundant the day that the ribbons were cut as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had gotten here first in 1842.
Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic Seaboard, however, was connected to mountain girdled Cumberland via this canal, which was a historic infrastructure project originally proposed and championed by George Washington and ultimately funded during the Presidency of James Monroe. The original plan for this canal was to connect all the way to the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, but the rail people had already out competed the canal people on that one, and the Cumberland to Pittsburgh/Ohio River section never happened.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m willing to go out on a limb here, and predict that 100 years from now the United States will be revisiting this sort of intra city cargo transportation methodology in the post fossil fuel era. The way that these canals worked involved using pack animals walking on a tow path which were harnessed to long boats or barges, providing motive power to these vessels and floated along on the captive water.
The boats which used this canal were specified as being no more than 90 feet stem to stern, with a beam (width) of 14.6 feet.
A modern day 40 TEU cargo container’s dimensions are 40′ long x 8′ wide x 8′ 6” high, so…
It won’t be donkeys hauling any 22nd century cargo boxes around, however, instead it’ll likely be some sort of unmanned electric tractor tied off to the barges which will move at a fairly slow but steady pace. The drainage ditches along the interstate highway system should provide a good idea of where such canals will be constructed. These canals would also be handy infrastructure to have, for overflow during heavy rainfall and springtime floods, as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cumberland itself is a city of about 20,000 people found along the Potomac River, and the Cumberland Metro area has about 100,000 people in its extended territory. Found on the other side of the North Branch of the Potomac River in this area is West Virginia. Cumberland was a jumping off point for overland expeditions in the post American Revolution period, has a storied industrial past, and like much of the Appalachian region – has been in a financial and demographic free fall since WW2. There are 318 metropolitan areas – as identified by the Federal Government – in the United States and Cumberland ranks as #305 in terms of wealth. Average median income in Cumberland for a single earner household is just $25,142, and for families it’s $34,500. That’s the 50% mark, I’d point out, as in half of the population scratches by on less than those numbers. Close to 20% of the population in Cumberland lives below the Federal Poverty line, and the city is regionally infamous for high levels of opiate addiction. The population has been declining steadily since 1950, and over the course of the last half of the 20th century it lost several of its major industrial employers. Observationally, it wasn’t all that bad, but I was visiting the city center and historic district – not driving around up in the hills and neighborhoods where these conditions exist.
The good news here is that they have some of the most inexpensive real estate on the east coast of the United States, and that their cost of living is the sixth lowest in the entire country. Saying that, I can now tell you from experience that whereas your rent burden is far lower in this region than it is back in NYC, everything else costs the same – health insurance, services like internet and telephone, all that.
Now, you know I didn’t leave the house at 5 in the morning just to take a few pics of an empty but historic canal, right? Wait till you see what else Cumberland has going on, in tomorrow’s post at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Youghiogheny River Lake
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 1806, the National Road was conceived and funded by the United States’ first President and Congress with the goal of providing an east west route out of Washington D.C., to enable westward expansion, trade, and travel. Today, it’s called Route 40 and it’s a part of the Interstate Highway system, which incorporates several local roads into its path. After visiting the Great Cross in Pennsylvania’s Jumonville (described yesterday), on a day trip out of Pittsburgh, a humble narrator piloted his Mobile Oppression Platform into the corduroy landscapes of the Laurel Highlands. Along the way, in a mist choked ‘hollow,’ the 1944 vintage Youghiogheny River Lake was encountered. I felt the need to pull off the National Road and get a few shots of the lake. That’s the bridge which Route 40 rides across it, in the shot above.
There was a scheduled destination which I was trying to make, in Western Maryland, but as always – I had left HQ in Pittsburgh early and built time into the schedule for moments of serendipity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t venture too far from my route, and these shots were gathered in the parking lot of a recreational marina along Route 40, which sat on a small prominence overlooking the water. The Youghiogheny River is dammed nearby, by a United States Army Corps of Engineers installation that provides flood control, and is also a hydroelectric generating station which adds 12 megawatts of power to the electrical grid.
The Youghiogheny River is a tributary of the Monongahela River, which starts its southeastern journey away from ‘the Mon’ back in the Pittsburgh satellite city of McKeesport. The river is 132 miles long, and the ‘Yough’s’ drainage hinterlands ultimately flow into a watershed feeding into the somewhat distant Mississippi River. There’s a huge tourism and sport fishing industry here at the lake, which is also used as a drinking water resovoir, and the waterfront here draws about a million visitors a year to an otherwise quite rural area.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was shooting these photos, a few codgers were getting ready to lower their boats into the water, off of pickup towed trailers, and they were getting ready to try their luck at harvesting fish. The lake is stocked annually, I’m told, by the USACE and the Pennsylvania Game people with a variety of game species like trout.
This was my first time roaming about in this part of the country, and along the route I encountered something I’ve never witnessed before – National Parklands which were once battlegrounds. In the case of one of these parks, Fort Necessity, the battles occurred before the birth of the United States itself, during the French and Indian War in 1754. Everywhere you go, there’s something ‘George Washington’ related.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was largely a scouting mission for me, part of learning about the greater region which Pittsburgh is at the center of. Pittsburgh is a cultural and financial megalopolis separate and distinct from the massive East Coast’s seaboard megalopolis, with New York at its center, or the Great Lakes megalopolis centered around by the zone between Detroit and Chicago. If you’re unfamiliar with the megalopolis concept, here’s a Wikipedia page that sums it up.
I’m making an effort, at the moment, to explore the edges of my new home. I’m using what the local CBS station’s weather people display on their forecast map as one of my guides to map it out. The weather map I see on the news extends into the middle of Ohio, the north side of West Virginia, Pennsylvania’s city of Erie to the north, and to Western Maryland to southeast. The latter is where I was heading on this particular morning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also found along the route to Western Maryland, but much closer to Pittsburgh, is the Laurel Caverns outfit. I remember seeing photos of the caverns on a View-Master disc when I was a little kid, and I’ve always wanted to experience them for myself. That’ll be one of my winter day trips, though. For you youngsters, an analog version of ‘Tik Tok’ travel videos is what View-Master offered several generations before the digital era happened.
This was actually quite a drive. I had started out at about 5 in the morning, with a thermos of coffee, a full bottle of ice water (and a Genoa Salami sandwich) in the car. For vast stretches of the route, the speed limit along this route is quite high, sometimes it was 70 mph. Other sections go through towns and cities, and the speed limit drops as low as 25 mph, or 15 in school zones. Traffic lights pop up here and there as well. I could have gone a bit out of my way and taken the high speed Pennsylvania Turnpike, but then I would have had to pay a bunch of tolls and missed all the cool stuff I saw without gaining a significant advantage in terms of travel time.
As mentioned – scouting for the future, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, I had extensively researched the route in advance and had a number of saved locations plugged into Google Maps. At one point, I passed by signage extolling the fact that the Mason Dixon line had just been crossed and I was officially in the ‘South.’
More tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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The Great Cross
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is starting to explore the larger region surrounding Pittsburgh, and recent day trip saw me behind the wheel of the Mobile Oppression Platform and pulling out of my driveway in the dark at about 5 in the morning. A bit of a long drive awaited, and I was heading in the direction of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. There’s a United Methodists religious organization site, in a section near Uniontown called Jumonville, which offers visitors the chance to visit with their ‘The Great Cross’ monument. Said cruciform is perched atop one of the Appalachian ridge line prominences common to the area. Specifically, the rood is on a hill called Dunbars Knob, that sits atop Chestnut Ridge.
I wanted to be there at Sunrise, and catch the light. The cloud cross in the shot above was serendipitous, if you ask me, and it ain’t photoshopped in, btw. It was really hanging up there in the sky for a few minutes, just as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was rising in the vault right behind me. It was a bit of a task to keep my, and the camera’s, shadows out of frame.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It took a bit of navigating to find the entrance at Jumonville, which is a Christian retreat and summer camp, but I made it there by about 6:30 in the morning. The day was brightening, but the sun was still rising, and behind a different ridge line. You’re greeted by a sign, after parking along the road, which welcomes visitors but lays out a few do’s and dont’s for the property. Unarmed with specifically proscribed firearms or illegal drugs, however, I set out to see the sight.
It’s a bit of walk to get up the path to the actual monument, a long spiraling path set against the ground at a 7-10 degree angle. I’m pretty sure they designed it that way to offer a metaphorical meaning to the walk – it’s difficult to get to the cross, but easy to walk away from it – or something like that. Religious architecture often incorporates tangible example into its design. It was only about a 15 minute walk, but I really felt the effort in the thigh and calf muscles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I set the camera up for landscape work, with the tripod and a neutral density filter to ‘slow the light’ a bit. The Great Cross is sixty feet high, was erected in 1950, weighs 55 tons and is supported by a 183 ton concrete foundation which contains the names of the thousands of Sunday School kids who contributed dimes to fund its construction. The Great Cross is a bonafide landmark and attraction which is said to be visible on a clear day for some 75 miles, and built of steel and concrete.
Additionally, Uniontown has been vampire free for 72 years now.
This part of south western Pennsylvania is not one I’ve visited before, and it is staggeringly beautiful. The geology of the place involves a series of steeply ridged highlands, which descend precipitously into deep shadowed valleys which will often have water running through them. These valleys are often referred to as ‘Hollows.’ The weather at the top was cool but clear, but a half hour later when I was driving through the valley, the air was choked with pea soup fog and less than a hundred feet of visibility. In my readings about the area, this sort of geology is sometimes referred to as a ‘corduroy landscape.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the last year, and it’s almost been a year now since I abandoned ‘home sweet hell’ back in NYC, my focus has been on learning about my immediate vicinity – basically a 30 mile circle around the center of Pittsburgh. I’ve now got a catalog of spots, and how to get to them, where I can shoot trains or urban landscapes or ‘city stuff.’ The larger Pittsburgh region, however, is what I’m currently looking at. That includes parts of West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio. Jumonville is about 50 miles from HQ, but it’s a long drive – time wise – as it’s all local roads between here and there. The reason I left HQ so early, in fact, was to beat the traffic.
The Jumonville compound itself was immaculate, with well cared for grounds and cabins for the faithful to stay at, when attended an event or retreat. The only concern I had here was that a male Deer might come charging at me out of the tree line, as this was the very beginning of rut season and the bucks can be aggressive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m pretty sure that column of vapor is coming from a power plant, which is found in one of those foggy valleys, or ‘hollows.’
Satisfied with myself, the camera gear started to get packed up, but a few last shots were squeezed out. There was a second leg of my day trip which I’d need to get moving on, and a series of shots I’d miss out on if I didn’t get there within a proscribed interval. For those, I’d be crossing the actual Mason-Dixon Line and entering Confederate territory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The presence of the barbed wire fencing around the cross, and its obvious metaphor, is not lost upon me. Saying that, they’ve probably had graffiti issues in the past and you have to keep strangers from messing with your stuff. If anyone from Jumonville is reading this, I had a very nice experience at your place, and thanks for allowing strangers and visitors on to your land – as you do. Lovely.
Back tomorrow with more from the Laurel Highlands, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 