Posts Tagged ‘Monongahela River’
Gap Trail: Homestead to South Side, part 2
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is a bend in the Monongahela River, found just north west of Homestead during a recent walk, here in the Pittsburgh ‘zone.’ That span in the distance is the Glenwood Bridge, a vehicle bridge which carries Route 885 between the neighborhoods of Homestead/Hays and Squirrel Hill.
The vegetation along the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail thinned out just a bit here, allowing me a chance to wave the camera around.
I had a distinct sensation of being watched, but couldn’t discern where my observer might be. Figured it was probably a security camera or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Norfolk Southern’s #7002 was just sitting there, all inert. Luckily, a window in the verge presented, which allowed for a somewhat clean shot. As mentioned yesterday, this particular scuttle didn’t get terribly interesting for me until the very end, which you’ll see in a couple of days.
A certain amount of my concentration was focused on the actual action of walking. Despite it having been a year since the ankle situation started, I’m still rebuilding the atrophied musculature. You don’t really think about walking, instead you just ‘do it,’ like breathing. When you’re forced to relearn the procedure, it makes one quite aware of how you ‘carry yourself.’
I’ve noticed that my left foot tends to turn outwards by 10-20 degrees during strides, a left over from the ‘protecting the ankle’ period, and I’m trying to consciously fix the gait issue while I’m walking…
…and taking pictures… while listening to Christopher Lee’s unabridged performance of ‘Dracula.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 1894 vintage Beck’s Run Pumphouse, if you’re curious. A bit of signage adorns the fence – here’s a zoom in on it, if you want the official story from PGH2O – Pittsburgh’s version of the NYC DEP – which handles sanitary and drinking water for the majority of the area.
A bend in the river, this is where the Monongahela begins moving in a mostly western direction towards its admixture point with the Allegheny River, where the two waterbodies form into the headwaters of the Ohio River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An office complex of some kind faces out onto the trail. I’m led to believe that there’s ‘Gub’mint’ work happening therein, labors of the sort that one does not pry into. Apparently, there’s a fairly significant intelligence community presence in Pittsburgh. The Rand Corporation is based in Oakland, near the Universities, for instance. Naval Intelligence also has offices in the city, or so I’m told. There’s also Department of Energy facilities nearby, one of two which had ‘DOGE’ land on them.
I continued on. This part of the path was familiar to me, having walked it previously sometime in the last three years.
Still kind of boring, but that feeling of being watched just continued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The King Conan Towboat passed by, on the Monongahela River, handling barges of minerals.
Things get a lot more interesting for one such as myself the closer to the center of things you get. More activity, infrastructure, etc. Points of interest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s when I noticed where that feeling of being watched came from.
I wanted to scoop that kitten up and ‘put it in my pocket,’ but I’ve got enough problems dealing with Moe the Dog to even think about adding anything else to my list of ‘have-to’s.’.
Back tomorrow.
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From now on, nothing but…
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned – one desired the usage of mass transit, for his return to HQ in Dormont, from downtown Pittsburgh. A quick walk across the Smithfield Street bridge, spanning the Monongahela River, was thereby enacted. It’s a Roebling Bridge, partially, and a Lindenthal Bridge too.
It had been a lovely but warm summer afternoon here in Pittsburgh. Middle 80’s in temperature, steady breeze, comfortable humidity. Made me feel all ‘wide angle.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d remind that when this post is being written is quite chronologically disconnected from when you’re receiving it.
Somehow, I’ve managed to regain my ‘lead time’ here at Newtown Pentacle again, and this missive is being written during the last week of August. This sort of scenario is ideal for me, as it’s actually difficult and quite a lot of pressure to oblige publishing dates ‘on the fly.’ I like having the next post ‘in the can’ and especially so when there’s 10-15 posts ‘ready to go and scheduled.’
It was almost exactly a year ago, to the day, that I shattered my left ankle into three pieces during an accident at home. That kicked off a hospital stay and a round of surgery, and then a multi month interval of extreme pain and discomfort which I spent a good part of sitting in a wheelchair. Luckily, I’ve got a ‘deep bench’ of prior posts which I was able to pull out of backup as ‘archive’ postings to have ‘something’ show up here.
It feels fantastic to be firing on all cylinders again, and presenting new posts, just 12 months later.
It wasn’t altogether certain that this was something I’d still be able to do, which is something I haven’t really mentioned in public. This injury was a potential ‘crippler.’ It’s been a long and noisome trip getting back to trim. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me through this journey, it’s meant a lot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One arrived on the southern or Monongahela shoreline of Pittsburgh’s ‘Golden Triangle’ and proceeded to lean into the last leg of this walk – getting to the First Avenue T Light Rail station where I’d catch my ride back to HQ. Had to crack out a few shots of the complex of ramps and highway lanes which line the shoreline here.
Love me them parabolas, I does.
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.
The Coke Express
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The track signals told me something was heading my way, along the Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks of CSX, so a position under the Fort Pitt Bridge was taken up, and I figured out my exposure settings in advance of the subject barging through the scene..
HEY NOW, that’s CSX #3297 passing by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, it’s fairly impossible to guess where one of these trains is coming from, but given the direction it’s coming from and what it was hauling – it was either PA’s Clairton or Irvine.
That’s where you’ll find two of the three huge US Steel plants which remain in the Pittsburgh area. One is designed to manufacture coke from coal, the other to harvest the gas from the process. If I had to bet, this train is coming from the first one in Clairton.
This ended up being a great day for trains. Go, Monday!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The CSX train was heading westwards, towards… Ohio.
Funny to me is how the Pittsburgh people react when you mention Ohio, offering the same sort of reaction that a Brooklynite displays at the mention of …Staten Island… or ‘Joisey.”
That’s the West End Bridge in the distance, which I had walked over and described in posts last week. Scroll down if interested.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My audiobook listening had continued after completing “The Lurking Fear,” and I was now knee deep into “The Thing on the Doorstep,” both audiobooks based on stories by H.P. Lovecraft and read by Wayne June.
Y’know, I wonder if there’s any interest in a list of all of my fave audio books? Let me know in the comments, and if so, I’ll build a list with links to where you can find them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An almost imperceptible glimmer of black vapor was trailing out of the coke express cars. It was moving too fast for the smell of coal to permeate out, but there was still a vague petrochemical ‘taste’ in the air.
There you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Towboat Vulcan was spotted, heading back the other way from the direction it was traveling in when shown in an earlier post. They were also ‘sans barge’ so it must have been delivered to a nearby customer. My guess would be one of the two concrete plants on the western side of the Birmingham Bridge.
Back tomorrow, with even more trains. I know…
“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.
Six mile scuttle continues on, and on
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one may recall from last week’s mishegoss, your humble narrator took a lovely walk in Pittsburgh on a summer day and saw lots of cool things. Many photographs were collected along the way, and now you’re all caught up.
The Duquesne Incline is pictured above, descending from the heights of Mount Washington to its lower station. I refer to this incline as ‘the red one,’ as there’s also a ‘yellow one.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst picking my way along the shoreline, the sound of rock being cut or drilled into began to echo. A cloud of white smokey dust began to billow from beneath the incline’s tracks, and then the incline was being run right through it. Neat!
There weren’t any fire people or cops running around, so I figured that there was no reason to panic. Atmospheric!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I felt obligated to crack out a few shots of this scene, with the one above being my favorite. Glad that I had outfitted the camera with the ‘all in one’ Zoom lens that has a range of 24-240mm. Long reach, that.
This was roughly the half way point on this scuttle, which started on Pittsburgh’s North Side at the terminal stop of the T light rail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Towboat Vulcan appeared, towing a very low in the water barge.
In the background is the Allegheny River, and the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Pitt Bridge would be where I next ‘took up station,’ but I mean beneath it not above. Troll, me. Under bridges, that’s where I can be found. Really, it’s also quite shady down there.
The signals over the rail tracks indicated that something was coming towards me, and there’s a spot I like under the bridge for rail photos, so I walked as fast as I could to it. Post broken ankle, I still can’t run, so I started heading towards that spot as fast as I could manage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A tourist boat, The Gateway Clipper, gave me something to point the camera at while I was waiting for the next train to arrive. It navigated under the Fort Pitt Bridge and away.
Back tomorrow with more from the Paris of Appalachia – 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 universe complied, with my wishes
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Win, win, win. Finally, CSX played ball with my aspirations and sent a train over that rail bridge visible from the Homestead Pump House. It’s called the Pinkerton’s Landing Bridge, by the way, it’s aka the ‘Pemickey’ bridge.
The Pittsburgh Subdivision of CSX, which I often photograph further down the river, nearby the Sly Fox Brewery in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh’s inner core, crosses the Monongahela River here. It used to spur off to the Homestead Plant and to Carrie Furnace, but today its tracks lead to the massive Edgar Thomson U.S. Steel plant a few miles east.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was listening to the radio chatter on my scanner radio, and this was a 260 axle train according to the automated defect detector. That’s a mechanical circuit checker which lets the engine at the front of the train know that they haven’t lost any cars along their path, the defect detector is. Multiple units along the route will report how many axles are present at each way station.
Hey, I learn things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was a fairly rare dusk/evening (these days) photo session for me. My old ‘night owl’ habits in NYC have been completely reversed here in Pittsburgh. It’s been a minute since I shot in low light around dusk and evenings. I get up really early these days.
Pittsburgh is very much an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ sort of place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m planning on returning here about this time of day to see if lightning strikes twice. If it does, and this is more or less when CSX schedules a run across the Pinkerton’s Landing Bridge, there will be a spectacular ‘night shot’ to be captured here in the fullness of time.
It’s right about at this point that Our Lady texted me saying that the event she was participating in was winding up. I fired up the Mobile Oppression Platform, a Toyota, and then hurtled towards Carrie Furnace.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train was mostly hauling shipping containers.
It’s about a 15 minute drive from ‘a’ to ‘b’ but most of that time is spent sitting at traffic lights. On my way over to Carrie, a bit of news filtered in. It seems that some group of lefties decided to decry a ‘fascist, genocidal, zionist’ politician. This time around, it was Bernie Sanders. Bernie. Sanders. Sigh…
Y’know, we have a fairly shallow bench sitting in the dugout on the left side of the field, these days. Maybe two or three of them are ‘stars’ hidden amongst the entire crew of loathsome sentience. Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not a good idea to chip away at these stars, right about now.
As always, however, the American left is compelled to start to eating its own arm in order to guarantee the right its victory. I still think that the Republicans should send Tiffany Caban a thank you note for her introduction of the phrase ‘defund the police’ to the national conversation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another CSX train appeared – heading in the opposite direction and back towards the Pinkerton’s Landing Bridge – just as I arrived at Carrie Furnace for my reunion with Our Lady.
8 to 8:30 p.m., that’s my new deal here. Should be a pretty cool sight as the days grow shorter during the approach of Autumn. On it.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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 