Posts Tagged ‘CSX’
316,800 inch long scuttle, part 4
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with the longest walk I’ve been able to perpetrate since breaking my left ankle and dislocating my foot back in September…
After debarking the West End Bridge and its PTSD inducing staircase, the path followed the waterfront of the three rivers back to the southern shoreline of just the Monongahela River. There’s an arterial street which runs along this path, called Carson Street. In this area, it’s called West Carson, and offers connections to several bridges and a tunnel or three. From what I understand, everything between Carson and the water used to be part of a giant rail yard in the glory days of Steel.
I was amused that they closed the sidewalk and set up protection for the barrier. No accommodation whatsoever for pedestrians. To be fair, the protected barrier was sitting on top of a manhole cover, so the construction people were probably trying to vouchsafe the utility shaft.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
About 3/4 of a mile’s worth of scuttling found me on a waterfont trail that more or less parallels the CSX Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks and which also leads towards that Beer Brewery I haunt. That’s one of the inclines, which I colloquially refer to as ‘the red one,’ but which is properly called ‘The Duquesne Incline.’
The ankle was holding up pretty good. I seem to have put the whole ‘walking like the Batman villain Penguin’ behind me. I was definitely ‘feeling’ the exercise, but it wasn’t painful at all. That’s also a first.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a few trains transiting by on the CSX tracks, which provided me with moments of joy. Well… joy is too strong a word, as it would imply that I somehow have started experiencing the sort of emotional highs and lows which ‘normal’ people do. I really don’t get all that.
My normal existential and emotional state is best described as being a cold gray in color, with the buzzing sound of old florescent bulbs omnipresent, and punctuated by brief flashes of annoying drama and bold colors. I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was very pleased with myself, regarding the shot above. As I was scuttling along, I kept looking over my shoulder to see if anything might be coming my way and saw this train being held in place at a signal all the way back at West End Bridge. That’s the aforementioned bridge in the background, btw.
These are amongst the last ones from this set of locations you’re going to see for a while, regrading the CSX tracks hereabouts. Now that I’m on my feet again, even with the limitations, it’s time to get out and explore again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few people (railfans) have told me that it’s frustrating to them that my interest in trains mainly focuses on the locomotive at the front of the unit. An effort to satisfy these traction enthusiasts will be made.
Look, the train was hauling drywall.
Paint drying, for me. The ‘drama’ shot is in the engine, not the caboose.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A series of tanker cars followed the drywall. According to what’s indicated on the tanks, they were carrying Butadiene. Others were hauling Isopentane. There you go, railfans.
Back tomorrow with the last shots from this scuttle at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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316,800 inch long scuttle, part 3
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with captures from a recent walk around Pittsburgh, as your humble narrator exercises himself back to normal circumstance, post broken ankle. As previously described: one was crossing the Ohio River on the West End Bridge, as folks do.
Along the way, there were lots and lots of interesting things to point the camera at, and amongst them was the Towboat King Conan towing four barges of minerals in a westerly direction after leaving the Monongahela River. The region to the east along that river is locally referred to as ‘The Mon Valley.’ That zone still hosts a fantastic number of industrial facilities, but it’s a shadow of what once was.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call sign WDN4839 is how King Conan would ID itself on the radio, and I’ll refer you to this page at marinetraffic.com for more details on the boat. After a series of floods in early 20th century which wrecked Western Pennsylvania and seriously curtailed the output of the steel industry, the Army Corps of Engineers installed several lock and dam installations along the three rivers to control the water. A fairly major lock and dam in this system is the nearby Emsworth Lock and Dam. King Conan was heading that way, and here’s a page from the USACE describing the facility and its costs.
Really, I’ve been working hard to remain ignorant here, but it just keeps on seeping in. Just last week I met somebody who works at the big sewer plant near Sewickley and… uhnnnn…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back towards Pittsburgh’s north shore while scuttling along one of the West End Bridge’s pedestrian paths, that’s what’s depicted above. One of the severe difficulties you’ll encounter while driving in Pittsburgh is that you need to position yourself before the crossing to be in the lane for your exit. It’s quite an endeavor to switch lanes on the other side, and Pittsburgh drivers are fairly merciless. There’s also the whole ‘vernacular’ thing, wherein the fact that this is a fairly insular community has created a culture wherein the presumption is that everybody has the same knowledge base as everyone else. I mean, you want to go to California Avenue, you get in the left hand lane when you board that bridge – everybody knows that. Vernacular.
The example I always use to describe the Yinzer POV is somebody saying that ‘I’ll see you where Smith’s used to be, after lunch.’
My answer would be, as a foreigner from NYC: bro, I don’t know what Smith’s was or where where it used to be and I have no ‘effin idea what time you eat lunch. Give me an address or an intersection and name a time. Vernacular. They speak in vernacular here.
There’s also the not exactly legal but commonly offered ‘Pittsburgh left’ wherein the lead car on the opposite side of an intersection will flash their brights at you to allow you to make a left turn at the start of a light cycle. This practice works surprisingly well at keeping traffic moving on the narrow and often steep streets hereabouts, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of traffic, the south end of the West End Bridge overlooks the CSX Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks heading towards Ohio, and just as I arrived at one of several ‘Bernie Holes’ in the fencing a train appeared rounding the bend. The term ‘Bernie Holes’ refers to my old pal Bernard Ente from Newtown Creek, who passed away in 2011. You can still find the holes he cut into fences in the dead of night, just big enough to fit a camera lens through, all around the creek, Sunnyside Yards, and various LIRR bridges in Maspeth and beyond.
I had time to get ready and noodle with the camera’s settings and figure out a composition.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yeah, I like this one. Subject is sharp, composition good, and the background environmental detail provides a sense of place. Yay for me.
A problem I’m starting to encounter in my plotting and planning involves ambition, and the desire to forget about the ankle and fully immerse myself back into the ‘mishegoss.’ Just last night, I was sitting there in front of the iPad with. Google maps open considering a scuttle on a natural dirt and rock path down the face of Mount Washington, and on a trail which I haven’t explored yet. Given that this would have been a difficult but productive pathway to move through – prior to busting my ankle – it’s folly to even consider it at this point in time.
Instead, there’s an industrial zone on the north side of the triangle – which is largely flat – that’s ’next.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the West End Bridge on the southern shore of the Monongahela River, you encounter a set of steps. Brr.
Given the PTSD I’m experiencing regarding stairs, one intentionally pointed his toes in this direction in the name of getting past all that.
I actually froze for a few minutes at the top landing, but managed to force myself to start walking downwards. The mental problems forced me to move in a stiff and somewhat robotic fashion, as I ‘protected the ankle,’ and in doing so actually interfered with a smooth passage and caused a terrifying stumble or two along the way down. This PTSD is going to be inhabiting me for a bit, I think, but exposure to terror is generally what makes fear go away.
Back tomorrow with more, at your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Diesel powered hump day
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The terminal stop for a recent and roughly three mile long ‘short walk’ ended up where I often find myself these days, alongside the CSX Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks on the southern shore of the Monongahela River. This is where that brewery I like is found, but given that this was mid afternoon, no beers for me. These days, alcohol induces rapid onset somnolence within your humble narrator, after his long broken ankle related hermitage.
One hung around a little while. CSX #6142 appeared, heading in the direction of Ohio. The internet opines that this is a General Motors GP40-2 model locomotive. Exciting, no?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was a Towboat navigating the Monongahela. Given my current inability to scuttle quickly, which the rest of you might conventionally refer to as ‘running,’ I just had to zoom in on it from where I was standing.
Really, I do enjoy this particular location. Probably a bit too much, and I promise that Newtown Pentacle isn’t going to be solely focusing on this spot forever. Right now, however, as I’m still a bit disabled…
I have limitations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is out of sequence, as it was captured on the final leg of my scuttle towards that fertile location which I like so much. Hey, a sure thing is a sure thing. There’s a LOT of activity thereabouts.
The goal at the moment, however, isn’t novelty or serendipity, it’s exercise, and although I’m actually feeling ok at this writing, a recent spout of rainy weather has fully confirmed that I now have ankle arthritis. That’s even more reason to burn in a bunch of miles, exercise wise. Stretch and strengthen, that’s the medical mantra.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m mentally starting to refer to this spot as ‘Ole Reliable.’
CSX #5256 was next through the choke point. One of the things that distinguishes this spot from nearby trackages is that there’s several grade level crossings which precede this particular spot, so you can hear the chimes of the signal arms in the distance, as well as the train’s horns.
Nothing like an early warning signal, to me at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
#5256 was hauling a mixed up collection of cars – tankers, automobiles, all sorts of shapes and sizes. After this one passed, I decided on discretion being the better part of valor and summoned a Lyft to carry me back to HQ. While waiting for the car to arrive, I waved the camera around a bit.
This one, coupled with the Panhandle Trail walk and a couple of other walks, mostly described last week, saw me finally break twenty miles of intentional scuttling in a single 7 day interval for the first time in better than six months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I mentioned this the other day, but during the first week of June, your humble narrator will be returned to the nest for a few days. The plan is still forming, and I’ve got a lot of people to see, but… the Creek.
The Creek. The Creek. I intend on walking my Newtown Creekathon pathway, that 12.5 mile death march around the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. I need to be ready… stretched and strengthened.
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.
Trailing behind
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular scuttle in Pittsburgh had a simple premise, which was to ‘keep moving.’ The current medical phase of my broken ankle related drama involves ‘stretching and strengthening,’ which basically boils down to a bunch of roadwork. If I was like everybody else, I’d find an athletic field and walk the track (there’s plenty of that sort of thing around these sports happy parts), but I’m an odd duck and easily bored so my interpretation of the Doctor’s mandate to ‘use it’ is instead to walk a different kind of track. Railroad tracks, that is.
After riding the T light rail into the metro core of Pittsburgh, from HQ in the Boro of Dormont, one navigated over to one of the trails which garland the three rivers’ waterfront. I was moving through the Monongahela River coast, on the south side of the so called ‘Golden Triangle,’ and that green painted area in the shots below and above indicates the pathway which this particular trail follows.
This is a fairly ‘complicated’ spot, with an interstate’s off ramps feeding into local traffic. You really want to use the walk/don’t walk buttons on the lamp posts when executing a crossing in this zone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the path, centered between those ‘do not enter’ signs. Given that I’m moving pretty slow these days, and running really isn’t an option, I waited for that red hand symbol on the light to turn into a white walking person icon before stepping off the curb.
It’s ironic, given how much Pittsburgh uses its waterfront for recreation and all that in modernity, that the city is stuck with a (literally) Robert Moses spawned highway design that was rammed in through its downtown and which completely blocked public access to the waterfronts back during the 1930’s and 40’s. Of course, there were steel mills and rail yards in this area until quite recently, and the waterfronts were engaged in commercial activity.
Modernity always presents a false picture of the past. It must have made sense at the time, but a lot of these decisions our grandparents made look awful from the perspective of the tyranny of now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If anyone cared what I had anything to say about it, they’d deck over the highway and create new land for more productive usages than a high speed traffic trench, which is given to flooding during spring spurges of water on the rivers. I suggested this to several of the feudal lords back in Queens, regarding the Grand Central Parkway back in Astoria. Yeah, it would be expensive, but more so than exposing children to a residential exposure to all of that automotive exhaust? What about storm water? Decking a highway and installing a sponge park on the deck plates? Something? Anything? No? Let’s stay with the car canyon instead, and worry about affordable housing which nobody can afford.
At any rate, I wasn’t ’urban planning’ on this walk, I was just trying to maintain a steady walking pace and avoid having to sit down too often. That’s my deal at the moment, along with telling friends that I can’t walk terribly fast and that they should just move at their own pace, I’ll eventually catch up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s where I executed a left, at the Smithfield Street Bridge over the Monongahela River. In the background, you can see one of the two inclines operating, the ‘yellow one’ as I refer to it. After crossing onto the bridge, I heard a train horn sounding off to the west and tried to get myself into a fortuitous spot to capture a shot of the thing.
As mentioned above, running isn’t really an option for me right now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX #7215 was heading south east along the Pittsburgh Subdivision trackage. Like ornithology, it seems that everytime I try to say what kind of a train is I get it wrong, so in accordance with my ‘birds workaround,’ that’s a General Motors rocket sled which is powered by sixty angry kangaroos which are chained to extremely uncomfortable bicycles within. Cruel, but efficient, the rocket sled is.
I made an effort to find out what actual reality #7215 exists in, but for some reason the internet blew a gasket and all that Google wants to tell me about it involves the legal status of the CSX rail cops. I’ve learned a lot about the world of rail from watching ‘Hobo YouTube,’ and one of the bits of wisdom offered by the traveling folks involves total avoidance of the rail cops and at all costs. They’re not nice like regular cops.
Since you likely know what ‘regular’ on duty cops are like, with their complete lack of a sense of humor, imagine that cranked up to level 10. Rail cops.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, a T light rail appeared over the active CSX tracks. I like it whenever I can capture multiple trains in a single shot, especially so when they’re both moving.
Back tomorrow with lotsa Choo-Choo.
“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.
‘Flat’ isn’t necessarily easier
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The final leg of my ‘leg work’ day occurred just as I reached the shoreline of the Monongahela River. One of my ‘sit down’ spots is nearby the entrance to the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which also happens to be right along the ballasted tracks of CSX’s Pittsburgh Subdivision.
Now I was happy, as I had caught a train shot. Thanks #3473.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spring like weather has arrived in Pittsburgh, and despite a couple of anomalously cold days randomly popping up, the birds have returned and the trees are starting to bud. I entirely missed autumn and most of the winter due to the broken ankle, so I’m really looking forward to the next couple of months – photography wise.
This shot looks across the ‘Mon’ to the ‘Uptown’ or ‘Bluff’ area where Duquesne University is found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The last time I walked through here, which must have been in July or August, this trail had become a very well populated homeless colony. It wasn’t just regular camping tents here, some of the people who set up shop here had erected shanties and there was one woman who had set up a catering tent which shielded a sofa and chairs from rain.
The current Mayor of Pittsburgh is entering what’s meant to be a difficult reelection campaign, one wherein he’s being primaried by his own party. One imagines that step one of his campaign was ‘doing something about the homeless.’ That takes the same shape here as it does in NYC – send in the Cops and Sanitation trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the South 10th street Bridge pictured above, spanning the Monongahela. It’s a minor bridge, but it’s visually interesting to me for some reason. At any rate, the light was nice.
My ultimate destination was that Brewery alongside the CSX tracks that I’ve mentioned a million times, but the only train I saw on this walk was the one in the first shot of today’s post.
This time around, I rewarded myself for the walking effort with a couple of pints of stout and a personal pizza for dinner.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
South 10th street Bridge again. Would have loved to creep out onto the abutments and shoreline a bit further, but I still need to remain conservative regarding the ankle. Getting there, but not there yet.
During these walks, the ankle swells up a bit. Nowhere near as much as it would have a month ago, mind you, but on the whole – its gains about 20-30% in volume. The Docs told me this sort of thing is normal and that I can expect it to happen for about the next year. Luckily ice bags when I get home are no longer required, I just need to sit back in my La Z Boy chair and let the limb relax afterwards. It still hurts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a singular tent remaining. Don’t know if it was ‘occupied’ or not. Last summer, there had to be a couple of hundred people sheltering along this trail.
At any rate, this was the end of my ‘leg work’ walk along Pittsburgh’s South 18th street. Not a bad afternoon, and I’m definitely going to head back to St. Michael’s Cemetery at the top of the hill when I’m driving the MOP (Mobile Oppression Platform), a Toyota. Interesting POV.
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.
