Ambulans mortem
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was out for an early walk, on a particular section of Pittsburgh’s Great Allegheny Passage trail, found in the Homestead and Munhall areas. After marching to the Whitaker Flyover bridge, which spans a grouping of rail tracks parallel to the trail, I was rewarded with a less than sudden appearance of a Norfolk Southern train set.
‘Less than sudden’ means that they were changing crews about a half mile away, and that I stood there for around a half hour waiting for the thing to move into position for the shot above. Sheesh!
The flyover bridge is a somewhat recent addition to this milieu, I’m told, and was installed along with another trail connector bridge found a couple of miles away in Duquesne, to ensure continuity for the GAP trail and to avoid having the citizenry using the trail crossing the very active tracks down below. I’ve learned this from signage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My schedule for the day was cramped, and I had allocated just a few hours for the outing. Time was short and I was glad of the fact that the crew change finished up and the train started moving. It passed under the bridge I was standing on, and started heading roughly westwards. I altered my perspective, and got blasted with engine exhaust.
Me? After gathering these shots, I changed lenses back over to the big 24-240mm zoom.
The bridge sports a chain link fence, which negates usage of that larger lens. Instead, I had been using a ‘nifty fifty’ at this point, as the size of that lens easily fits into the diamond pattern of standard chain link.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A shlep still stood in front of me, and I had to scuttle back to where the car was parked a couple of miles distant to get on with the rest of my appointed rounds for the day. I had also left my water bottle in the car, and was looking forward to having a good long suckle from its icy content.
Back tomorrow, with something just a little different.
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Mors ac dissolutio
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a warm summer morning which greeted a humble narrator, one recent day, and it saw me revisiting a now familiar section of Pittsburgh’s Great Allegheny Passage Trail. The turnaround point this morning’s efforts would be the Whitaker Flyover rail bridge, a location which has often proved fruitful in terms of there being abundances of locomotive traffic observable in past outings. Well, I also like it, at least.
This was a short walk, and I enjoyed all three hours of it despite it being a very ‘summery’ day, even as early as 11:00 a.m. or so. Humid, shvitzy, strong sun – it was that sort of morning. Feh. The afternoon was solidly booked up with mundane pursuits, so my morning hours were precious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a Norfolk Southern train in the shot above, heading through Munhall, and then continuing on its way through Homestead in the direction of downtown Pittsburgh. It was pretty far away, this train, but that’s where that new lens I’ve been using comes in handy.
I soon broke away from the ‘official’ trail for a bit, and walked along the rail access road, hoping for a shot to materialize before me. A couple caught my eye, but nothing truly novel or obscene appeared.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For instance, that shot above is one which I seem compelled to capture every time I’m here, depicting the Rankin Bridge overflying a set of four rail tracks. The locomotive hardware in the shot above was static and being stored in between missions.
Tomorrow – more ‘Choo Choo.’
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Ferrea via
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator decided it was time to blow off a bit of steam and headed over to the Sly Fox Brewery, found in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh, to quaff a couple of beers with a friend and shoot some passing CSX rail traffic while doing so.
As mentioned in prior posts, another new lens has been added to my kit, a superzoom which allows focal lengths of 24-240mm. This kind of ‘reach’ is something I’ve been craving, and it more or less completes my kit of zoom lenses. There’s officially two camera bag configurations I work with now – the ‘bag of primes’ and the ‘zoom bag.’
The primes are low light or night lenses with wide apertures, as a note, and the zooms are narrow aperture daylight lenses.
I’m very pleased with myself about the shot above, by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same train, different POV for the shot above.
Apparently, #998 up there is a GE ES44AC model locomotive. One does not carry any of this train information in my head, btw, and I’d be lying if I said I did. When I’m shooting, what’s going through my mind is focus, composition, exposure, etc.
Occasionally, I’ll ‘know’ I got something special (hey, scroll up and enjoy that first shot again) but my long time habit is to collect massive numbers of images when in the field and then sort it out when I get home.
I’ve got friends who can look at a passing train and say ‘they used the wrong screws on that horn,’ but that ain’t me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was CSX#148, which was hauling Coke. I normally avoid naming minerals or cargo unless I know for sure what it is, but the cars 148 was pulling were labeled as being the ‘Coke Express.’ No doubt heading for one of the U.S. Steel plants just east of here.
Back next week with more, and I mean “MORE” train oriented stuff at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Temere trio
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been an entirely odd last few weeks for a humble narrator, and my daily round keeps finding me inhabiting odd corners of Pittsburgh. Hence, three utterly unconnected images greet you today. Pictured above is the milieu as observed from the South Side Flats region, looking towards the Monongahela River and the Birmingham Bridge spanning it.
This area is a former industrial zone, as is most of Pittsburgh, one which has converted over (mostly) to residential and commercial usages. Old factory and warehouse buildings become condos and lofts, hardware stores become restaurants and remaining legacy businesses try to hold on as the tides flow through.
Sounds familiar, no? Et tu, Long Island City?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the foot of the Hill District on the ‘golden triangle,’ the St. Benedict the Moor church is hard to miss. This one looks (theoretically) southwards towards the Monongahela River.
I was practically standing on a ‘red line’ right here, wherein racial segregation occurred and a majority black neighborhood was destroyed in the name of building a hockey stadium and a highway interchange, several decades ago. Sometimes, knowing historical facts just makes you angrier and angrier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one was closer to HQ, and shot from the back seat of a cab which I was using to get to an event where there would be alcoholic beverages served. I’ve been pretty hardcore about the not ‘drinking and driving’ thing, and sound almost like a Protestant missionary on the subject. It’s pretty common for people to throw back a few belts and get behind the wheel here, which is a scary situation to me, but then again I’m still new here.
Back tomorrow with something else – at your Newtown Pentacle.
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Inlaetabilis vita
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After attending a Sportsball tournee at PNC Park, wherein the Pittsburgh Pirates contended with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the path back to where the car was parked luckily involved a quick ride on the Gateway Clipper, which was operating as a game day ferry (this is a regular line of business for this tourist boat outfit). It’s been a while since I did any low light/night time shooting, so a humble narrator was stoked.
I affixed the best ‘night lens’ I own to the camera, a stabilized f1.8 35mm, and got busy on the ride. Between the stabilization and the wide aperture, as well as my camera’s fairly spectacular high ISO capabilities, shutter speeds in the hundredths of a second were achieved.
Pictured above is the Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the fountain at Point State Park, which is the theoretical center of Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny and Monongahela River’s combine to form the headwaters of the Ohio River. Gateway to the west… all that.
It was a lovely evening, and Our Lady of the Pentacle seemed quite pleased with her circumstance, at least. We needed to get home to Moe the Dog, as thunderstorms were roiling about, and he’s not a huge fan of thunder and we like keeping our furniture intact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The boat passed under the Fort Pitt Bridge, and just a few minutes later we were debarking from the boat and walking back to the Mobile Oppression Platform, which I piloted on the fifteen minute or so drive back to HQ.
Back tomorrow with something different, 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 