Posts Tagged ‘Norfolk Southern’
West Virginia’s Weirton
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scouting, scouting, scouting.
This shot was actually from the Steubenville, Ohio side of the Ohio River, with West Virginia’s Weirton shoreline visible behind that Towboat.
While shooting these on the Ohio side, a car pulled up and two Juggalo’s got out with a bevy of fishing equipment. They were fully committed to the ICP, as they had facial tattoos of clown makeup and told me they were planning to ‘catch catfish for suppah’ from the Ohio River.
Of course I had to chat with the Juggalo’s. Who am I?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Weirton, on the West Virginia side, the ‘big show’ is the massive Weirton Steel Corporation mill – owned by the Cleveland Cliffs outfit – and it was fully shuttered back in 2024 after years and years of industrial activity. This mill used to be the single largest employer in the entire state of West Virginia. I’ve seen numbers stretching as high as 7,500 – as far as numbers of lost steel worker jobs.
Seriously, this is one of the largest industrial operations I’ve ever seen. Bigger than a battleship, and in fact – if you wanted to build a battleship you’d pretty much have to start doing it right here.
Most definitely going to be coming back this way in the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rail spur travels through the central footprint of this mill, and my advance scouting via the Google Maps service suggested that a small rail bridge was nearby. I parked the car in a municipal lot associated with the local government and walked over to that bridge.
I felt it coming before I heard it coming, and I heard it coming before I saw it coming… Hey Now!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The air gets compressed when a train is nearing, and the thrumming of its diesel engine is palpable. As is my habit, I got my exposure triangle in order for this shot.
Come on already… sheesh… I’m so impatient.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Norfolk Southern #5342 appeared, towing a short line of mostly tank cars.
Again, a member of the railroader crew was observed riding on the nose of the engine and looking intently down at the trackage as they went. I’ve been seeing a LOT of this sort of activity lately, specifically by Norfolk Southern employees.
Any ideas, railfans? What do you think they’re doing?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train continued on, heading away on that spur which leads through the closed Weirton mill. I stopped off at a couple of other spots on my way back to the highway to Pittsburgh, but didn’t ‘get’ anything worth sharing.
About 15 minutes later, I was heading for the road back to Pittsburgh, and saw this train again, in the distance.
I’ll definitely be coming back here for a second taste sometime.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Hey Now, yet again
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was Palm Sunday, and… well, what do y’all think us Jews do when you Goyem are in your churches, communing with your god?
This ‘hebe’ was out taking pictures of trains.
After having captured shots of another Norfolk Southern freight unit hurtling past from a point of elevation over the tracks (yesterday’s post), one scuttled about a city block east at the edge of the South Side Flats zone, and then found a pile of big rocks to sit on while waiting for #872 up there to arrive.
Sated, I moved on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have any sort of plan for this part of the walk, just following my nose and kicking my feet around. Eventually, I’d need to get back to the T Light Rail’s Station Square stop, which is about a mile or so from the spot pictured above. Movement, that’s what I was after.
Hey, I don’t think I’ve walked that way yet, wonder what’s there?
As usual, I was the singular pedestrian.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Street Furniture was encountered, and somebody must seriously regret not dealing with this couch prior to a rainstorm which blew through Pittsburgh the previous night. Sheesh. Hell, back in NYC, this sofa would already be in somebody else’s living room. A lot of people don’t lock their cars up here, or even their houses when they go out. Can you imagine?
My toes were pointed, in the direction I needed to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another view of the South Tenth Street Bridge, complimenting yesterday’s more aerial POV from those high flying City Steps up in the South Side Slopes. I’ve noticed a serious drop off in foot traffic in this area in the last few months. Wonder why?
I figured on being RR greedy, and headed down towards the trackage of CSX, but they weren’t busy – at all. Nothing was coming through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More street furniture was encountered.
Littering and dumping in Brooklyn and Queens was always done in a somewhat artistic way. You wouldn’t just abandon a couch like this, you’d need to ‘eff it up a bit,’ maybe even set it on fire before abandoning it. Paint some obscene graffiti on it. Maybe include a sort of explosive into the plan… something… give the couch a Viking funeral. It’s been loyal.
That sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I keep on reminding myself that ‘every walk doesn’t have to be an exodus,’ and accordingly kept on heading back towards transit. There’s a T light rail unit crossing the Monongahela River via the Panhandle Bridge, which was the last shot from this one.
Back next week with something – completely – different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Descending to… Hey Now!
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start this one off: the peculiarities of the Newtown Pentacle time warp are still in effect, as the shots in today’s post were gathered back on the 29th of March. Just in case you’re wondering why you’re seeing bare trees and all that in mid May.
Your humble narrator had resolved, at the end of the hostile frigid season, to really lean into things when it warmed up and another one of my little aphorisms to simplify life is ‘do what you say, say what you do.’
One found himself, thereby, in the South Side Slopes section of Pittsburgh and scuttling down a steeply graded road called Arlington Avenue. The main goal of this walk was to exercise the big muscle found in the center of my chest, so I was scuttling along at a pretty good clip.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Didn’t have much of a plan, and this walk played out through an area that’s become fairly familiar territory for me. I used the ‘Lauer Way’ City Steps to descend down to the ‘flats,’ rather than following the measured parabola of Arlington Avenue.
The PTSD thing about steps is continuing to recede into an emotional ‘Davy Jones locker’ that I maintain – deep within a section of the brain where I store things away I don’t want to think about anymore. That memory is now neatly tucked away, right between my Dad’s Pancreatic Cancer and my Mom’s end stage Dementia. I’ve got a whole folder of events in there for all the times I’ve been punched in the face, or when I said something stupid or hateful too.
All the fun stuff, it’s found in my box of psychic pain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t so much scuttling here, it was a lot more like shambling. Occasionally, one would turn stiffly at the waist and then gesture the camera at something, while making a sound like ‘urhhhnnnn.’
That’s the South 10th street bridge, over the Monongahela River, pictured above. The location within these hills that I was walking down from would be analogous to Pittsburgh’s South 12th street, if I was standing on the flood plain below where the South Side Flats neighborhood is found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was heading for an ‘ole reliable.’
That’s the 12th street pedestrian bridge pictured above, overflying the Norfolk Southern RR trackage which snakes along the side of Mount Washington on the landform’s Monongahela facing side. I’ve come to understand that Norfolk Southern uses the former tracks and right of way of the Pennsylvania Rail Road. I walk by this spot a lot.
I was outfitted with a ‘railfan’ scanner radio for this one, and radio chatter suggested that ‘something’ was coming this way, so I found an opportune spot and then switched lenses over to something that could easily poke through chain link fencing without occlusion.
Specifically, an 85mm f2 prime lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
Norfolk Southern #4600 thundered past, hauling a line of empty mineral cars. An attempt at squirreling out its model typology and build history ended up getting squished by a more historic NS Freight Train that once bore the same number. Again, not a railfan, I just like taking pictures of trains.
Saying that, of course, there I stood with a scanner radio on a Sunday…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan was to head a block or two away to the east, after achieving flat ground, and hope for another train sighting, specifically of one coming from the opposite direction. It seems that when a train is observed going one way, it’s likely that another one is coming from the counter direction shortly afterwards. Guess they try and time it out that way to avoid roadway disruptions.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Serendipitous Scuttler saying ‘Hey Now!’
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Topsburgh to Bottomsburgh part five:
I mention my concept of ‘serendipity’ a whole lot.
The pinion which my intended usage of that term revolves around is ‘Mitch showed up with a camera, and then cool stuff started to happen.’
A different Towboat, which was heading westerly on the Ohio River, was observed from up here on the pedestrian lanes of the gargantua McKees Rocks Bridge. Serendipity.
About to move on, one decided to hang around instead, and that’s when I noticed another Towboat heading in an easterly direction along the Ohio River, towards the confluence point at the center of Pittsburgh where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers form up into the Ohio.
This Towboat is called the Gale R. Rhodes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Serendipity roared again here. Notice that Norfolk Southern rail unit navigating onto the Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge? Squeal!
I sure noticed it. Hey Now!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I tracked the locomotive across the river, and cracked this one out when both the train and that distant Towboat – doing its duty between Pittsburgh’s Ohio River shoreline and Brunot’s Island – were in frame together.
One was obliged to hang about, thereby, until everything fell into place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I love it when a plan comes together.
Wish that the locomotive engine was mid span on the bridge for this one, but I’ll take what I can get.
Back to scuttling!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I still had a decent amount of bridge left to cross.
After overflying the river, the McKees Rocks Bridges continues inland for a bit. Part of this is to handle the fairly startling difference in altitude between the bridge’s two sides, the other is to not compromise a rail yard and a down on its luck industrial zone below.
Once down on the ground in the McKees Rocks ‘Bottoms’ section, the timer start running out for this walk, but there was still some fairly interesting stuff I wanted to see down there. There was also that rail shot I was desirous of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
McKees Rocks, and specifically the ‘bottoms’ residential side of the neighborhood is pictured above. I’ve been here before, during the first walk that I experienced over this amazing bridge.
Back next week with a couple more posts from this walk and then… man, oh man, the things I’ve seen and the places I’ve been…
“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.
Squeaky wheel
Thurs
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few random shots from the end of a satisfying scuttle. I swear, the working guys have no idea how esthetically pleasing I find these sorts of arrangements they leave behind. They’re artists, and don’t even know it.
I was moving through the area surrounding Allegheny Commons Park, which has a trench running through it for the railroads.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Norfolk Southern #1832 came through, heading north/west. It was hauling short blue cargo boxes, of the type which sewer solids are shipped within. Likely heading towards the sewer plant nearby the McKees Rocks Bridge, or Ohio. A lot of things nobody else wants end up in Ohio. I’ve been there, and really – they pretty much sent their best to Washington in Vance.
Stay out of Ohio, you’re not ready for what you might see there.
Regardless, one haughtily scuttled on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This truck caught my eye. I was intrigued by those Doberman silhouettes silk screened on the thing. Also, that’s one crazy truck, yo.
My steps carried me into the ‘ceremonial center’ section of the Coty of Pittsburgh, where the Stadiums are found, and where there’s coincidental opportunities to board the T light rail service and ‘get out of dodge.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
See that mound on the right side of the shot? Coal mine’s historical entrance, as it turns out.
As I mentioned a few posts ago, this coal thing suddenly brings everything into a place where it makes sense. I’m not ‘smart enough’ to really delve into the topic here yet, but I’ve started reading up on the Pittsburgh Coal Company Trust, and others.
Heck of a story there. Eventually, I’ll know enough of it to point y’all at primary sources on the subject.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T station came into sight, just as one of the light rail units rose out of the tunnel that it travels under downtown within, and climbed up the truss to the terminal stop opposite Acrisure Stadium.
Most of the Yinzers I meet ‘poo-poo’ the T, but I ride it all the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My chariot arrived, and as soon as those doors opened, I was ensconced in a seat. This was about a six or seven mile walk, all told. I had a nice time, and nobody threw any rotting fruit at me, for a change.
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 