Abandoned Bridge
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Union Railroad Rankin Hot Metal Bridge #35, aka the Carrie Furnace Hot Metal Bridge, was built in 1900 and has been out of service for some 40 years. Of late, it has been designated as part of the Carrie Furnace based ‘Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.’ There’s talk of Allegheny County rehabilitating this span over the Monongahela River for usage by vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. It connects the Pittsburgh exurbs of Whitaker/West Homestead on the southern bank of the river with the northern connection going to the community of Rankin.
While walking along the Great Allegheny Passage, one might notice a rather prominent fence hole – as a humble narrator did – which leads up to the span. As a note, the bridge is in a deleterious condition, and is quite hazardous. If you’re not versed in ‘urbex,’ or know how to gauge whether or not the next the step you take in a ruined industrial space is either the right one, or the one which sends you to either a hospital or an undertaker… I’d avoid this place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To amplify the caution, there’s several spots where the deck of the thing has deteriorated and the metal decking is nothing more than layers of rust. There’s also quite a number of trip hazards and a few instances where you’re looking through some rusted out hole at the Monongahela River, which is flowing by some fifty feet below you. You never want to have to call 911 for help, even if you could, as that would be an extremely embarrassing situation.
This span was used as a rail bridge, some 483 feet long, and is supported by three stout masonry piers. It was built to connect the Carrie Furnace and Edgar Thomson works on the northern shore to the rail network found on the south side of the river, and it also served as a connection to other nearby U.S. Steel plants in Homestead and Clairton, as well as offering ingress to the incoming rail shipments of coal and coke which fueled the various operations.
There’s lot of sharp edges, drops, and ways to get hurt up here. Also, technically speaking – I was trespassing – but there ain’t exactly a bunch of cops waiting for you up here. Still – it’s a nice spot for photos, and as I kind of know what to look out for, and am also notoriously cautious…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, I was still engaged in my long walk from Duquesne to Homestead along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail. I still had a couple of miles to go before meeting up with a friend at a local brewery for a couple of pints of beer and a session of grousing about the state of the world on that particular week.
The GAP trail reenters the street grid shortly after rounding around the Homestead Pump House historic site, and so did I. One scuttled forward. Ever scuttling, that’s me, God’s lonely man with a camera.
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Love or money
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Man oh man, is it frustrating when you’re walking along rail tracks and the only trains you see are idle. The railfan crowd sports fancy little radios which allow them to predict the comings and goings, but a humble narrator doesn’t have nor does he want one of those things. That is, unless one of you reading this wants to get rid of one of those units, in which case – contact me and I’ll pay for shipping.
After proceeding along the Great Allegheny or GAP trail from Duquesne, one had finally scuttled into throwing distance of Homestead. Wasn’t quite there yet, still had about three miles of walking to get through. This was the ‘slog’ part of the walk – clear and cloudless skies, temperatures in the low 80’s, and the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was irradiating me in the punishing manner of ‘Sol Invictus.’ Shvitz!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The only train witnessed was just sitting there, and there wasn’t even a locomotive attached to it, so these rail cars were basically in a parking lot. No fun. As the title of this post suggests… not for love or money did I get what I was hoping to shoot on this walk. Luckily, the purpose of this scuttle was ultimately about stretching my legs and ‘unclicking’ my back while burning out a few miles in the name of exercise. There would be beer and good conversation at the end of the effort, but right about this point a humble narrator was frustrated and uncomfortably warm. I kept on thinking about that sound Lucille Ball would make after saying ‘Ricky.’
I’ve started carrying a water bottle with me, which is something I never did back in NYC. Back home, you were never more than a 15 minute walk from a bodega or convenience store. Here, you’re on your own and need to be prepared for circumstance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle has pointed out to me that I still refer to NYC as ‘home,’ despite the fact that I haven’t dwelt there or been within the confines of the 5 Boroughs at all since December of last year. My response is “We live in Pittsburgh, but New York will always be my Home.”
I’m still very much in touch with things back home, by the way. Still keeping an eye on the Creek, and Astoria, and watching from afar. There’s a few people whose phones still ring when something concerning happens. Things seem to be going fairly poor for ‘home’ at the moment, it seems, and every bit of news I receive about the latest developments reaffirm the decision to ‘get the hell out of Dodge’ as having been the right move.
Back tomorrow.
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Rock slide area(!)
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking along the Great Allegheny Passage or ‘GAP’ trail between the Pittsburgh area communities of Duquesne and Homestead, one encountered this rather worrying series of signs. The trail is set along a fairly level former rail road right of way, and is generally paved with asphalt or crushed limestone, but looming above it is a several hundred foot high slope which – in certain spots – can be described as a cliff.
Yikes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It didn’t take long to discover that those signboards weren’t a prank, and that the local stones had indeed been rolling down the steep hill in certain spots. This is – apparently – not an uncommon thing hereabouts. A few months back, nearby Pittsburgh’s Clairton section, a multiple ton boulder unexpectedly came rolling down a hill and came to rest right in the middle of one of the major highways which caused a regional traffic hullabaloo for about 24 hours.
I’ve witnessed the municipal curative and methodology as applied to this sort of slope destabilization before, here in Pittsburgh, which involves the installation of steel girders in a fence post formation and the subsequent stringing up of steel cabled netting between them which creates a catch all along the roadside. This is installed after the work crews set off a few small black powder detonations to shake loose anything which is ‘fixin to fall.’ It’s the Appalachian way, I’m told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up the sloping wall of the GAP trail, you can discern several large boulders, and the many smaller stones that are wedged into the soil around them. The geology in this part of the country predates the emergence of animals with lungs, I would mention, and is a fascinating story all in its own right.
Back tomorrow, with more, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Scuttling in Duquesne
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator found himself scuttling about in one of Pittsburgh’s satellite communities, dubbed Duquesne. Like its neighbor, Homestead, which is where I was heading towards, Duquesne was hit hard by the evacuation of the steel industry from its territory in the last quarter of the 20th century and there’s a staggering level of poverty and urban decay which its residents and governmental organizations are forced to deal with. I wasn’t here for a sociological deep dive, of course, and the path I was walking along was one of the ‘rail to trail’ sections of the Great Allegheny Passage which has been mentioned several times.
The trail follows the shoreline of the Monongahela River, and across the waterbody on the northern shoreline is found a surviving US Steel plant called the Edgar Thomson or Mon Valley Works in the community of Braddock. Pictured above are a couple of the locomotives used by USS to operate its privately owned and operated Union Railroad.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before leaving the street ‘grid’ of Duquesne, one had made it a point of scuttling past the switching yard of the Union RR. I have only seen this facility from behind the wheel of the Mobile Oppression Platform, when driving past the place at near highway speeds. This time around, however, one was taking a long walk – as in well more than five miles (actually closer to nine, all said and done). I left the car at home and used a cab to get to Duquesne from HQ. The plan was to execute the long walk, and then meet up with a friend at a brewery in Homestead for a Friday night beer and a ‘bitch and moan’ session about whatever happened to go ‘ass over tits’ for us that week.
This is a pretty cool walk to take, I would mention, although the pedestrian street crossings are kind of terrifying. Once you’re off the street and on the trail, you’re ‘safe as houses’ as the British would say. Thing is, once you’re on the GAP trail, you’re committed and it’s miles and miles until you come to the next entrance/exit to the thing. Most of the GAP users seem to be bike riders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was hoping for some interesting locomotive shots on this day, but trains are kind of a hit or miss thing here. There were a couple of spots along the trail where I stood there and waited, but quite frustratingly, if a train did pass by on the nearby tracks it was generally occluded by vegetation. I had to be satisfied with a long lens shot or two of the USS Mon Valley Works steel mill, pictured above, instead.
More tomorrow.
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We all float down here
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is led to believe, by a bit of ‘scratch the surface’ research, that the Marshall Lake spillway dates back to December of 1933. A partnership between Allegheny County and the New Deal era’s Federal Civil Works Administration built this particularity satisfying bit of infrastructure along an ancestral waterway called Old Pine Creek, which used to terminate in a morass of swampy marsh. Raising the water level caused that marshy wasteland to drown, which in turn and over time formed the 75 acre Marshall Lake found in Pittsburgh’s North Park.
A humble narrator is always fascinated by the sort of technology which doesn’t need to be plugged in or fueled or even actively looked after. I advocated for this sort of thing on and around Newtown Creek back in NYC, but everybody in Government favored technological and electricity hungry solutions to the Creek’s ‘flow’ problem. I like using gravity, as it’s free, and all of the technology and effort you need for the thing to operate is front loaded into the construction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I circled the spillway, getting photos of it from different angles. The first shot looks directly down into it, whereas this one depicts the levels of the surrounding lake. Neat.
Several people asked me what I was doing, to which I replied “infrastructure nerd,” and they gave me a sympathetic smile. To be fair, I was the only person there with a tripod and fancy camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After dropping down from the lake, the water forms up into a waterway called Pine Creek, which flows all the way down to the Allegheny River, in the Etna section of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area. Pictured above is the head of Pine Creek, which is directly connected to the spillway.
One continued his circling and scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, I had set myself up to do landscape style shots on this particular morning. The camera was set to record the scene in a manner which allowed for visualization of the flowing water with a slight motion blur. The one above was captured at ISO 100/f8 for 25 seconds, with a ten stop ND filter affixed to the lens.
The neat thing about this spillway is the highly aerated and biologically rich water which it releases into Pine Creek. Clever, clever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one was f4 for 8 seconds at ISO 100, but I recorded multiple images, with the focal point moving around the frame. One combined them using the ‘focus stacking’ technique.
I had been actively shooting for several hours by this point, and was sorely in need of both coffee and breakfast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I had thought ahead and had a thermos of coffee from HQ back in the Mobile Oppression Platform, which was parked nearby. I dropped off my heavy bag at the car, grabbed the coffee, and then sat down on a rock nearby a boat launch on Marshall Lake’s eastern shore. Even though I was taking a break, there was no reason for the camera to be lollygagging, so I kept on hitting the shutter button.
Back next week with something different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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The Newtown Pentacle 