Posts Tagged ‘Monongahela River’
Roadslug, baby, roadslug
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now! This CSX train, #2218 specifically, bears a painted cognomen on its side that reads ‘Roadslug.’ I had to check with my ‘rail rabbi’ back in NYC to find out what that meant. His response follows:
“Sweet. Road slug is a locomotive without a prime mover. (No diesel engine to generate power) the electric motors on the locomotive revive power from the “mother.” The other locomotive attached to it. CSX road slugs have a cab for control and the fuel tank is piped to provide extra fuel for the mother unit.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The railfan rabbi continues:
“2218 used to be a GP35 class unit before it was de-engined. It was a cost effective way in the 1990’s to re-use outdated locomotives without needing to buy new locomotives.”
Now… my ‘rail rabbi’ pal… he just has this information floating in his head. That’s what a railfan is, and it’s the reason why I keep on pointing out that I’m not (as I don’t have anywhere this amount of knowledge on the subject) and ultimately – I just like taking pictures of trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were only the two locomotive units on this one. They headed off, ‘towards Ohio’ and I finished my ‘luncheon beer’ at the Sly Fox Brewery. After returning my glass, and then ‘inspecting the porcelain’ again, I adjusted the camera straps and bag, and set off for the last leg of my scuttle.
The ankle was in fine fettle once again, after the 30 minute sit down. Yes, that’s how long it takes me to drink a pint. I’m a nurser.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the path, a T light rail was observed exiting the Panhandle Bridge after crossing the river, heading out in the direction of its terminal stop in the South Hills section. Soon, I’d be on a similar train set and heading back to HQ, where Our Lady of the Pentacle and Moe the Dog awaited my return.
I had quite a job ahead of me at home, roasting a pork loin for dinner.
The effort would yield lunch the next day, and a couple of days after that too. I actually had to give some of it away to a neighbor. Meat, in particular, has grown so expensive over the last ten months or so that I’m eschewing ‘cuts or chops’ in favor of large portioned items which are a couple of bucks less per pound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Smithfield Street bridge was crossed. One last look back at the Monongahela River shoreline and the bike/ped trails which line it.
The last embers of this effort glowed dimly as I made my way to the T’s First Avenue Station on the so called ‘Golden Triangle.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While waiting for my ride back to HQ, couldn’t help but pop out a few shots of the Pittsburgh bound T rail sets crossing the river on the Panhandle Bridge.
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.
Things a-popping, everywhere’s ya looks
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a long interval of ‘have-to’s,’ your humble narrator finally found a little time for the camera’s exercises. I had the car with me, and drove to where I was going, violating my normal habit of leaving the car at home when out scuttling. Since I was hyper-mobile, I checked in on the Rook Yard of the Wheeling & Lake Erie RR outfit while on my way. They were doing ‘something,’ with that train set moving back and forth while workers adjusted the switches. Everybody has something to do.
Our Lady of the Pentacle was out of town, and Moe the Dog was thereby nervous and ‘faklempt’ without her for better than a week. She’s goodness and light, Out Lady is, and when she’s not here all the dog has to rely on is me.
I’m horrible, an intelligence of malign instincts housed in the decaying cadaver of a man, an outsider and abomination which somehow walks and breathes but never seems to stop talking. Poor Moe had to deal with me, but after a certain interval of service to the pup, one needed to get some exercise and wave the camera around lest madness take over.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I drove down to the Monongahela River shoreline, and the Colors Park, where there’s also a parking lot. After the Mobile Oppression Platform was safely stowed, one gathered his gear together and set out for a scuttle. It was just a few miles this time, and I opted for a familiar section of the Great Allegheny Passage trail to focus in on and where I’d slap the pavement with my feet.
The concrete factory next door to the Sly Fox brewery was unloading a minerals barge and piling the stuff up for processing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since this was going to be a short walk, it had been decided to try and walk as fast as I’m capable of these days. Cardio, yo.
It was a warm autumn day in Pittsburgh, with clear skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s. Your humble narrator ‘leaned into it.’ No headphones or audiobooks for this walk, which I’d already capstoned as being ‘Liberty Bridge to Fort Pitt Bridge and back.’ There and back again is just under three miles. A short walk, thereby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back at HQ, Moe had really been working me during Pu Lady’s absence. I’m fond of telling the neighbors that Moe is very much Our Lady’s dog, but that I’m his favorite toy. That played out in an ever tightening circle of annoyance for me, and I desperately needed a break from the inter species dynamic for an afternoon.
Great care was exercised, in terms of moving about the world, given that Our Lady was on another continent and recent experience with the broken ankle revealed that your whole life can be turned upside down unexpectedly. Moe’s life was literally in my hands.
A ‘deadman’s switch’ was instituted with one of my neighbors. If she did not receive a daily text from me, her husband would then be instructed to break into my house after work and save Moe. I told them to just leave my body lying wherever they found it for the coroner to deal with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now! I was hoping a train or two might appear.
That’s CSX #7225, heading away from Ohio along the outfit’s Pittsburgh Subdivision (aka Keystone Subdivision) tracks along the Monongahela River. Tankers, that what it was hauling. Could have been fuel, or chemicals, can’t tell you what was inside. I also fundamentally do not care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I still had a few days of solo service to the dog ahead of me. Our Lady is British, and she had headed home to visit her Dad and Brother as well as her passel of old friends. A hellish interval for me.
I hate the loneliness. I’ve become ‘institutionalized.’ Moe the Dog ain’t a great conversationalist.
Back next week 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.
Skedaddling through the sky
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A wide angle 16mm prime lens had been affixed to my camera while walking over the Birmingham Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, and an attempt was made to tap into the lens’ potential.
You have to be mindful, with a lens like this, of weird optical distortions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s one of them now.
It really matters where the ‘what’ you focus on is ‘in’ the frame with this lens, due to severe barrel distortion. A hemispheric knob of glass forms the lens’ objective, rather than a flat element on the face of the thing.
I wasn’t listening to anything interesting on this walk, preferring to stay cognizant of my surroundings while moving through an area of urban density.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot with the wide angle lens, as I crossed over the bridge and got to the south side of the river. I sat down again, and refitted a zoom lens to the camera. Options.
I looked down and saw a set of rail tracks, thinking to myself that it would be super cool if a train came through just then.
Then I heard a train’s horn…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX was rolling through, hauling a line of mineral cars. Y’know what? It was ‘super cool.’
Sorry, but I’m going to have to say this bit again…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It looks like coal, or maybe ‘coke,’ which is cooked coal. I don’t know for sure, and long practice has taught me not to make assumptions about the things I see and photograph. I can say pretty categorically that it’s ‘minerals’ in those train cars.
This is a practice which I learned to follow on the fabulous Newtown Creek, which is that ‘unless you know for a fact what ‘something’ is, don’t try to ‘sound smart’ and guess.’ The hardest thing in the world for someone like me is to just utter the phrase ‘I don’t know.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a quick stop off at a Saloon for a rehydrating pint of Guinness, accompanied by a quick sit down and conversation with some amiable company, one set off for the final destination of the evening – a restaurant and pub which specialized in British food, of the specifically Scottish variety. Our Lady of the Pentacle is from England, so… homeland chow for her.
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.
Down, up, over
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in prior posts, your humble narrator was recently cavitating through a section of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood known as ‘Millionaires Row’ along Fifth Avenue. The latter byway then offered me egress through the Oakland section, whereupon I arrived at the veritable edge of this parcel of reality.
Fifth Avenue offers vehicle traffic an entrance to a high speed arterial road, called I-376, known colloquially as the ‘Parkway ‘east’ or ‘west.’ A particular annoyance for me is that there is no accommodation in place for pedestrians or bike riders to cross at the entrance ramp to this parkway, so you have to just wait for a break in the never ending stream of automobile traffic bleeding off the local grid and then onto 376. Dangerous.
Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this section of the country, the Governments need to install signage adjuring ‘no pedestrians’ or ‘motor vehicles only’ at on ramps for high speed roads. It may seem like overkill, that, but there’s a pretty sizable Amish and Mennonite population hereabouts. You don’t see them too often in the city, but they’re out there riding about in their horse drawn buggies. It’s also not uncommon for me to see some ‘english’ dude walking along the highway’s service lane or on the other side of the guard rails either, I’d mention.
For the Amish, everyone who’s not ‘Dutch’ is ‘English.’
It’s similar to the way that NYC’s Hasidim see the world: you’re either ‘Jewish’ or you’re ‘Goyem.’ Even other Jews, from different sects, are considered to be ‘goys’ to the fundamentalist eyes of the Hasidim.
Fundamentalists, huh? A bad joke from the neighborhood I grew up in, which was on the border of one of the Orthodox’s ‘zones’ in Midwood, was ‘Now Hasidim, now ya don’t.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inviting pathway, no?
After following this pavement, and then being forced to cross against traffic at a bridge’s off ramps – because a cross walk was occupied entirely by idle construction equipment – one negotiated the shattered pavement of the Uptown area, and began to make my way towards the pedestrian entrance of the Birmingham Bridge.
There’s a lot of obstacles, and zero signage. Luckily, I’ve walked this section before and knew where to go. I was being eyeballed by a ‘creature of the street’ so it was decided to walk a little bit faster in order to avoid trouble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s actually startling how few intentional pedestrians there are here, outside of areas like Oakland. It’s all about the motor vehicle in Pittsburgh.
I’m famously not an ideologue on this subject, but it’s quite startling.
It’s probably because parking is fairly easy in this city. Odds are you’ll find a free or meter spot pretty close to where you’re going, except Downtown or Oakland where you have to pay for the privilege in a garage. Even then, this is not NYC, so commercial parking seldom costs more than $10 – and usually it’s less than that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Me? I like leaving the car at home in the driveway when I can, and getting around on foot. Since I don’t have to worry about getting back to the parked car, thereby, I’m free to wander and indulge in serendipity.
Additionally, if I want to stop off at a bar at the end of the walk and have a beer or two (which is often) I can without having to worry about intoxicated driving.
As you can see, I made it to the Birmingham Bridge. I took the opportunity for a quick ‘sit down’ on that concrete barrier that the lamp posts are attached to, and changed lenses. The zoom lens went into the bag, and a wide angle 16mm prime lens was affixed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crepuscular Rays. That’s what those shafts of sunlight penetrating the clouds are called. You’re looking at the Monongahela River, which is likely pretty familiar to long time readers at this point.
I was heading over towards the South Side Works area, which would then place me within the East Carson street corridor. Both areas have a surfeit of bars and restaurants, and thereby there’s a fairly thriving nightlife economy. East Carson operates and looks a lot like first or second avenue did back in NYC’s East Village.
As mentioned, I was meeting up with Our Lady of the Pentacle for a dinner out, which is a fairly rare thing for us these days. We normally cook at home, in a nicely sized suburban style kitchen.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
Gap Trail: Homestead to South Side, part 3
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator broke off of the Great Allegheny Passage trail during a walk from Homestead to the South Side Flats, briefly, to find somebody willing to sell me a Gatorade nearby the South Side Works development, here in Pittsburgh.
Another ‘used to be a steel mill’ and ‘redeveloped as a mixed use retail/residential zone’ sort of place, this South Side Works area is. CSX’s tracks flow through an underground tunnel here, which you can definitely tell when one is passing beneath the pavement.
Having soon attained a beverage, one set out of the last leg of this scuttle. My Dracula adaptation had run its course, in my headphones, and I opted to pocket the audio device for the remainder of the day.
Situational awareness. This is the start of an area which I colloquially refer to as ‘Junkie Town.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This warm and somewhat humid day was a perfect one for slurping a pint or two of beer, thought I, and then soon reacquired the GAP trail. Passing under the Birmingham Bridge, pictured above and then to the South Side Flats neighborhood towards the Sly Fox Brewery, which is often mentioned here. Sly Fox also happens to sit along a choke point in CSX’s Pittsburgh – or Keystone – Subdivision, with frequent rail traffic.
There were lots of people clustering around the water, and interacting with a loathsome specie of feathered reptile which kids call ‘Canada Goose.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d guess that the photos embedded in these posts from this scuttle represent about five to six miles of distance by this point, but I wasn’t keeping count on this particular day. Now that I don’t have to report progress to a Doctor anymore, it’s a lot less important for me to know it was four miles, or six miles, or whatever.
I’m probably going to buy a bike sometime in the next year, just to increase my range, but I’ll offer my usual complaint about bikes which is the same one that I do about cars – you’re traveling too fast to actually see where you are and you miss the interesting stuff. Things just shoot by you too quickly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is what most of the trail looked like on this stretch, a long and unremarkable vegetation tunnel. At least it was shady.
As I understand it, caring for these trails is a largely volunteer effort, although governmentally sourced from ‘Uncle Sugar’ or the Commonwealth are used for equipment and consumables, like the salt used for de-icing the path during winter months. The volunteers also have to regularly deal with landslide materials which migrate down from the prominences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I managed to scuttle out from the boring section of the walk to a more interesting section of the City, nearby the South Tenth Street Bridge and the Color Park. As mentioned above, I was already thinking about what I would order when arriving at the Sly Fox Brewery.
I also figured I’d be shooting a bunch of trains while there, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Color Park is where you’re supposed to do graffiti or street art in Pittsburgh, and people take advantage of that in the same way that they used to at LIC’s 5ptz, or still do at Astoria’s Welling Court back in Queens.
Back tomorrow with the Choo-Choo’s.
“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 