Posts Tagged ‘railroad’
CSX parade
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX #62 was the first locomotive to pass by the Sly Fox Brewery, here in Pittsburgh, as a humble narrator ‘rehydrated’ himself with several pints of beer after a long walk on a hot day. As a note, regarding anything I’m passing along about these trains in todays post – make/model etc. – is based on a ‘scratch the surface’ level of google search. I freely admit that this subject is one that I’m absolutely not an expert on. I like taking pictures of, and having a general knowledge of, locomotive stuff but that’s it. If something is incorrect here, please share the skinny in the comment section.
Supposedly, this is a ‘GE AC44CW’ model 4,400 HP locomotive, built in 1995. It was hauling a staggeringly heterogeneous load – tankers, cargo boxes, etc. That was the first one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was CSX #5426, a ‘GE ES44DC’ which was loosed upon the nation’s rail system in 2007. It was also hauling a mixed up collection of various forms of cargo boxes. Both of these trains were heading towards the Ohio River side of the city.
Right about this point, I headed into the brewery and ordered a second beer and a cheeseburger. I had earned that burger, dammit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the opposite direction, heading away from the Ohio River in the direction of McKeesport, CSX #7247 hurtled past the lens. I’m led to believe that this model is a ‘rebuilt GE CM44AC’ but I have no real idea what that means.
It was also hauling a conglomeration of random cargo cars.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up, and heading for the Ohio, was CSX #5209. This train is the same model GE ES44DC as CSX #62 in the first shot, and I’m told it has been hurtling around North America since 2005.
Burger quaffed, second drink guzzled, I headed back inside the brewery to purchase more fortification, as well as a tall glass of ice water. It’s critical to mix some water in when you’re drinking beer. It’s nice to catch a buzz, I always say, but being drunk is a miserable experience. At least it is for me.
A fumbling idiot with no dexterity, absolutely zero emotional or behavioral barriers, fairly useless.
That description is applicable to me when I’m still sober, by the way. Drunk me… that can be chilling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heading the other direction, away from the Ohio, CSX #5101 showed up next. It’s a GE AC44CW, same model as #62, and I have no idea when it started juggernauting around America’s rail system. Other than that it was built sometime between 1993 and 2004, when General Electric was still producing this model of locomotive.
I should mention that I had some company, two young guys whom I had struck up a conversation with on my way into town on the T. They were talking trains, and when they said ‘heritage unit,’ I realized they were railfanning, I turned them on to my ultimate destination at the brewery and they met me there. Turns out the two guys I was hanging out with were employed in one way or another as Railroaders. One of them was a sales agent who booked space on a competing company’s trains, and the other worked as a freight train conductor for that same entity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time that CSX #7238 appeared, I had basically spent as much time at the brewery as I had done walking around. The bar was closing up, and we were bid a fond adieu about 9:30 pm.
That’s a ‘GE U30C’ model train, and nearly as old as I am having come out of the factory in 1969. It was doing mineral hauling, with cars that were emblazoned with the logo of ‘coke express.’ That means that they had been working on delivering the stuff to a steel mill further up the Monongahela River, and were heading back to the Ohio side empty.
I took the ‘T’ back home, and Our Lady of the Pentacle was floored when she saw that my normally grim visage had been replaced, as I crossed the threshold by a hideous imposture of a smile upon my face.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
It’s a bit like going fishing…
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Railfanning has never been my ‘thing.’ I certainly like taking pictures of trains, but the whole hobby of driving off at 5 in the morning to some remote trackway in order to see a train roll through is just counter to my whole dealie.
Keep moving. That’s my thing. If there isn’t a train going through between when you arrive and depart, it isn’t ‘meant to be.’ Standing around with a camera dangling off of you makes you ostentatious, and the meaner elements of street life will become attracted to you. Crooks or cops, who needs the trouble.
Tsuris, amirite?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is surprisingly difficult to get a decent photo of a moving train. It’s moving faster than the human eye would suggest, the machine itself is huge and literally bigger than a house, and there’s a ton of fiddly details which are vibrating about and also moving independently as the thing rolls by you. You have to set up the shot in advance; get the exposure right, figure out a composition, aperture and ISO. Even then…
I have a trick for vehicles of any type, which is to focus in on the strut at the edge of the windshield closest to you, which the intersecting plane of the driver’s side window trails away from. Learned that one when shooting the long running ‘cool cars’ series of posts I had going back in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of the train shots in this post were gathered over something like 30-40 seconds, which speaks to how fast these things are actually moving. Each exposure is in the neighborhood of 1/1000th of a second, at ISO 800 and F8. That’s when the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself is floating directly overhead in late afternoon/early evening, and light is bouncing around everywhere. Like I said – ain’t that simple shooting trains.
Back to railfanning, that’s not what I’m doing with this latest fascination of mine. Instead, I’m trying to conquer a difficult subject and develop a muscle memory for the act so that when I encounter it happening in the future, an understanding of the settings are intuitive. Like I said, these trains really are moving quick. Additionally, Pittsburgh sits squarely in a nest of rail tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX 968 (an ES44AC-H, I’m told), wasn’t carrying anything too exciting, mainly cargo boxes and tanker cars. One is still working out when the most frequent activity takes place along this Pittsburgh Subdivision of theirs, but limited experience suggests that it’s early mornings and evenings. There’s traffic all day, of course, but in terms of frequency I’ve observed a lot more activity at the edges of the day.
For a few years before COVID, I’d developed an acumen for what times of day the NY&Atlantic outfit in Long Island City were most likely going to be doing something along Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The head of the snake, as mentioned, is the singularly interesting section of the train for me. I’ve seen shots of these trains moving military equipment around – tanks and the like – and that’s a sight I’d like to record, so I do pay attention. Mostly normal cargo, followed by a coal or coke train, rinse/repeat, that’s what you mostly get here.
As the title would suggest, I keep on having the sensation you get when fishing a waterway for the first time. You drop a hook, dangle the bait, and hope for the best. Sometimes you get one train over the course of a couple of beers worth of time (I’m a nurser, drives my friends crazy. They’re starting their third and I’m finishing my first) and sometimes you get five. Seriously, I don’t know how the foamers do it, I don’t have the patience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All fixed up after a couple of belts, and with several photos on my camera card, I gathered myself together and headed off for the T light rail and a ride back home. That’s a blue line one crossing the Panhandle Bridge, I live along the Red Line.
Back tomorrow with something somewhat 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.
Second GAP: Part 2
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in yesterday’s post, one visited the Great Allegheny Passage trail on the south side of the Monongahela River again, but this time from the Duquesne side of things. That’s part of the United States Steel Mon Valley Works pictured above, which is found on the north side of the river in a community called Braddock.
The steel mill is fired up using coke and coal, and what that means is that there’s one heck of lot of railroad activity going on in its vicinity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Union RR Port Perry Bridge pictured above, with multiple locomotive engines working together to haul a series of coal cars to the furnaces. Union Rail Road is a Class 3 switching railroad which is ultimately owned by US Steel.
Port Perry used to be an actual town, on the north side of the river, but it essentially got swallowed by the steel mill as the operations there expanded. Saying all that, it’s not just Union RR that uses these tracks, the big boys play here too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A second rail bridge is found here, the PRR Port Perry Bridge, which carries Norfolk Southern’s Port Perry branch over the Monongahela River. A Class 1 railroad, Norfolk Southern has been in the news a lot over the last few weeks due to a spectacularly mishandled derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
A friend of mine, who has a trench warrior’s mentality when it comes to his politics, recently spent a bit of time with me on the phone blaming the current President for this. The political partisan bait I was supposed to take would have seen me blaming the last President for this so then we could argue about stolen laptops, party islands, and all that.
Unfortunately for my pal, I actually know a little bit about this subject. Republicans only want to argue about what they’re currently mad about, so he was upset. This week, they’re going after Hershey’s Chocolate for being “woke” because the candy bars are “her” and “she.” I’m not kidding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First off, there hasn’t been an American President ever who wasn’t on the side of “management” regarding the railroads. That includes FDR, Harry Truman, and the rest. Union shmunion, they’ve all broken strikes for their sponsors in the board room.
Given the number of freight trains moving around the United States at any given time – there’s has to be somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand MILES of trains (deliberate underestimate) speedily moving about as you’re reading this – the East Palestine disaster stands out because it’s actually kind of rare. A statistical anomaly in terms of the total numbers.
You drive a car every day, for instance. You drive that car for ten years, never having a problem, but one day the car doesn’t start. That’s one day out if 3,650. 1/3650th downtime is what you’d call a statistical anomaly, not a pattern. Saying that, if you were to now define the entire ownership period based of that car on a statistical anomaly… that’s sort of where the national discussion is going right now on the subject of trains. Things went horribly wrong in East Palestine, just like in Canada’s Lac-Mégantic, but again – anomalous in terms of the total numbers of trains and miles involved. The fact that trains don’t derail every day, especially given the criminally low amount of money which the regulatory bodies require RR’s like Northern Southern to invest in infrastructure is certainly a testament to something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should mention that the train pictured above is not the same unit seen in the prior two shots, instead I got this one early in the afternoon. The shots are out of order for storytelling purposes. I wasn’t in the right spot to capture this shot for the second train pictured coming over the bridge above.
I’ll say this, if your hobby is “rail fanning,” the GAP trail here in the Duquesne area offers excellent opportunities along a fairly comfortable path. I met a couple of blokes who were doing just that, and they filled me in on a few spots elsewhere in Pittsburgh where I’d enjoy waving the camera around. Apparently, Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park and ‘Panther Hollow’ is now on my list.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Norfolk Southern train was hauling empty mineral cars, ones which olfactory and visual inspection revealed as having recently been full of coal. This was a sunny 70 degree day, in Pittsburgh, in February. Hell, this post should’ve been about that – as that’s a statistical anomaly all of its own.
Back tomorrow with something different from the Paris of Appalachia, at 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.
Second GAP: Part 1
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So much fun was had by a humble narrator on a recent unseasonably warm afternoon that it cast a shadow over the rest of my week. As mentioned here in the past, one of the most surprising public facilities in Pittsburgh’s neck of the woods are a network of ‘rail to trail’ paths which snake around the rivers and neighborhoods in the Right Of Way or “ROW” footprints of defunct railroads. One of these liminal spaces that I’m exploring on foot at the moment is called ‘The Great Appalachian Passage’ trail, a path which I could theoretically walk along all the way to Washington D.C. Right now I’m doing it in sections of between two and four miles at a time, thank you very much.
A while back, I offered several posts (Part one, Part Two, Part Three) from the section of the GAP stretching from Homestead to a point directly across the Monongahela River from the USS Mon Valley Works on the northern side of the waterway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Parking the Mobile Oppression Platform (my Toyota) at a designated parking lot for the GAP in the community of Duquesne, one gathered up his old kit bag and crossed a secondary arterial highway at an incredibly terrifying intersection. There was a light, yeah, but terrifying. Smile, smile, smile.
The GAP in this section is found somewhat inland from the Monongahela River’s shoreline. There’s an entire industrial zone humming away on the side between the path and the water, whereas on the other there are several sets of railroad tracks which all seemed pretty active as I was scuttling through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A pipe yard is one of the many attractions hereabouts. This might be a great spot to get all artsy fartsy sometime. That’s what a humble narrator pondered for a moment, but I kept on moving. There were acres of these pipes stacked neatly.
My goal for the day was to get to the spot I had walked to from the Homestead side and take a look at what sort of photo opportunities existed in the stretch closer to Duquesne. I’m looking for vantage points overlooking the USS Mon Valley Works, in pursuit of gathering cool photos of it from a distance.
I found and subscribed to a great YouTube channel offered by Pittsburgh Photographer Jeffrey Bowser, called “Fort Frick,” which offers several startlingly well done time-lapses of the Mon Valley Works that exploit the sort of ‘POV’s’ which I’m anxious to find. Check out the Fort Frick channel here. I’m a fan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So why the pipes? Seems that US Steel manufactures gas at a nearby plant in Clairton and the pipes carry it over to the furnaces at the Mon Valley Works, or at least that’s what I think is happening. The pipe yard is where they store the old and new ones. I’m probably wrong about something in there, so not sure and ‘dunno.’ What I can tell you is that when a charge of gas goes through those pipes and you’re standing directly under them – it’s disconcerting. That’s basically the Shofar of Hephaestus blowing hydrocarbons right there above your head, all American style.
The sound is something like “floooooomph pufffffassasss” followed by a deep vibration which echoes out of the pipes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not just gas that’s getting pushed towards the steel mill, there’s also high voltage transmission lines snaking out of the hills and pushing current towards the place. It seems that there’s a nuclear generating plant about fifty or so miles west of here, right along the Ohio border.
Duquesne, the community which this pathway is found in, used to have its own blast furnace – at the time the largest on the planet. Its post industrial period, however, started in 1930. Today, Duquesne, like it’s neighbor Braddock across the river deals with a declining population and a whole lot of challenges. Average median income in Duquesne is about 25k a year. AMI indicates the 50% mark, so that means that half of its citizenry survives on far less than that number.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Mon Valley Works, which still incorporates Carnegie’s 1875 vintage Edgar Thompson blast furnace into its operations. I knew about the air pollution issues associated with the three surviving steel mills in the Pittsburgh area before moving here., but in person… They burn coal and coke, which produces a significant plume of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Depending on which way the wind is blowing on any given day, you might catch a slight whiff of a rotten egg smell where I live, which is about 10-15 miles from here. For the communities which actually neighbor these plants, it’s a real and ever present problem. Here’s where the emanates of the steel mills are blowing towards today.
Back tomorrow with more from the GAP. Trains! There’ll be trains.
“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.
fourth harangue
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A final post from the excursion I was invited to join in on to the NY Central Railroad’s abandoned Glenwood Power Plant in Yonkers.
These shots are from the boiler building, where coal fired furnaces were stoked, which heated the boilers that steam powered the generators in the building next door, which then electrified the NYC RR Hudson Line tracks leading south into Grand Central.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in earlier posts, this 1907 plant was abandoned in 1971 by its new owner – MTA – after they took over the commuter and rail service on the Hudson Line from the bankrupt NY Central (which had merged with its longtime rival Pennsylvania Railroad into the unwieldy PennCentral RR), due to an MTA preference to buy the electricity from suppliers like Consolidated Edison rather than generate it themselves.
The plant went feral. It’s rumored to be one of the sites where the long rumored “Son of Sam cult” would meet up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fellow who was guiding us was the engineer responsible for shoring up and making these structures habitable again. Due to it being exposed to the elements for five decades, there’s a lot of rot he and his crews have to deal with – rusty and water damaged structural steel, shifting foundations, you name it.
I kept on shooting while he was talking about the immensity of the task.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s in places like this that you’re reminded that giants used to stride the earth in New York City and it’s surroundings.
The day trip was beginning to wind down, and as the group began to filter towards the exits, I kept on shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I have limited or one time access to a location, this is my practice. Keep the camera busy until the very last moment.
Finally, that moment came.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We gathered outside, and the rest of the group became interested in some pile of rusty steel, so I kept on keeping on.
Something somewhat different tomorrow – 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.
