The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One has been hunting for this set of shots since the leaves began to turn. Allegheny Commons Park, and the 4 track railroad trench that runs through it nearby the National Aviary on Pittsburgh’s North Side, is where this particular location is found. The trees which line the trench are Ginkgos, a specie whose leaves turn bright gold in the fall. The primary source of traffic on these tracks is the Norfolk Southern rail outfit, whose trains are primarily black.

Kismet, huh? Black + Gold = Pittsburgh.

That’s Norfolk Southern #4243, heading south east on the trench’s track #2. 4243 is a rebuilt GE AC44C6M model locomotive, providing 4,400 horsepower worth of traction.

These were actually a surprisingly difficult set of shots to get. I had to keep returning and returning to the location, as I was completely out of sync with the comings and goings of locomotive traffic. One day, I sat there for more than an hour and nothing. A couple of days later, two hours and nothing. On a third day, I showed up with a sandwich and a thermos of coffee determined to just wait it out.

That’s the interval during which I got the shots in today’s post. I keep on saying ‘it’s a lot like fishing, this rail thing.’ You show up, drop your hook in the water, and hope you get a bite.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Norfolk Southern is a HUGE company operating literally hundreds if not thousands of locomotives on North America, and their rolling stock is a quite commonly sighted commodity around Pittsburgh. Less commonly witnessed is the Allegheny Valley Railroad, a feeder line rail outfit local to the Pittsburgh area, pictured above.

I’ve been hunting for these guys too, and have described it to my new friends here in Pittsburgh as being a bit of a ‘white whale,’ as far as rarity and my desire to get a shot of them. I’ve hung around their tracks in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville, but have never spotted one in the wild.

Luckily for me, one appeared here on the North Side, heading north and westwards on the trench’s Track #1. AVRR #6006 was hauling empty mineral cars and garbage containers.

#6006 is a 1993 vintage locomotive, part of a group built for Conrail, but ended up being owned by Norfolk Southern. AVRR’s 6001-6006 locomotives were rebuilt and upgraded before coming into the smaller outfit’s service, and came online for AVRR in 2021.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Track #3 was suddenly occupied by Norfolk Southern #7663, which was headed southeastwards. There are multiple ‘rights of way’ which Norfolk Southern uses in Pittsburgh. These particular tracks lead to a junction, one which allows egress either along the north shore of the Allegheny River or to a crossing of the Allegheny at the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge which allows access to a set of tracks which are run through the center of the city (and are the same ones that Amtrak uses).

There’s another NS right of way found along the Monongahela River on the south side of the city. #7663 is a GE ES40DC locomotive built in 2007.

A group of ‘old white guys with expensive cameras’ – aka rail fans- had formed up at the point of view which a humble narrator had been stalking.

I had a few nice conversations while we collectively waited for the action to start. One fella had driven in from Ohio, and a father and son in law combo had come in all the way from Baltimore.

A couple of Pittsburgh natives were there too, including one talented fellow who clued me in to a couple of POV locations which I’m going to explore over the winter months.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Track #4 saw a return trip of AVRR #6006 occur, which was hauling what seemed to be a full train’s worth of cargo rather than the clearly empty one that it had had taken north west. In between shots, I ran over to use a nearby Porta Potty to blow some ballast.

I cannot mention this enough – as a former New Yorker – the wonder I continually experience in Pittsburgh regarding the fact that they deploy Porta-Potty bathrooms at nearly every public space you might find yourself at, including nearby the spot I was occupying.

Acknowledging human biology and public health by funding a simple solution for keeping people from having to piss in the street like dogs, without spending tens of millions of tax dollars on ‘comfort stations’ (which are seldom open) in random parks… just imagine that.

They do a lot of things right, out here in the Steel City.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

All of these leaves have turned to slime and rotted away by the time you’re reading this in early December.

There was about a ten day interval during which the Ginkgo leaves were golden. One of my fellow photographers was armed with one of those radios that serious railfans carry which allowed him foreknowledge of when a train might be approaching and he announced that this was going to the end of the show for a couple of hours.

My desire to capture this scene was sated, and I packed up my kit in preparation of heading back to HQ. One informed the two fellows from Baltimore about the Brewery location along the CSX tracks on the South Side which I’ve shown y’all several times. This was information which they eagerly received, and I offered my observations to them about what time those tracks seem to be busiest.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is a wider version of the squared off shot of NS #4243 in the first shot, and presented ‘out of sequence,’ but I really like it. Captured seconds prior to the square cropped one in the first/preview image.

I’ve been trying to mix things up a bit lately, as you’ve likely noticed. Any reaction to these experiments? I think the square ones are a little friendlier to ‘the phone’ format, or at least they render up a bit larger than the horizontal landscape shots do.

As always, if you want to take a closer look at any of these photos (or… ahem… buy a print from Flickr and help support a humble narrator) click the image, and it’ll open the Flickr page which hosts it and offers a mechanism to order. I’d make a few cents on the transaction.

Back tomorrow.

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