Posts Tagged ‘South Side Flats’
Trio impedimenta
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A warm Friday night revealed that a humble narrator was back at the Sly Fox Brewery, in Pittsburgh’s South Side Flats neighborhood, photographing passing rail traffic while inhaling a couple of drinks. This time around, it was a cream ale which struck my fancy, rather than the Pilsner I normally favor. It was a fairly productive evening, and Our Lady of the Pentacle was there as well. Me?
Can’t resist a train shot. I’m particularly pleased with the shot above, wherein light and circumstance conspired to offer a dramatic moment as CSX #170 rolled into frame.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX #170 is a GE AC44CW model locomotive, one of 2,834 such units built sometime between 1993 and 2004 by General Electric Transportation Systems. On this particular summer evening, it was also nicely lit as it hurtled along the tracks.
It’s odd to me… the locals here in Pittsburgh don’t even seem to notice the trains flowing past, except as an inconvenience which interrupts the flow of automotive traffic. I guess when you’ve grown up with something so ubiquitous, it just fades into the background. Sort of the way that pausing a conversation while the FDNY is screaming past your house in NYC seems normal.
Wonders, I tell you. Wonders!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My understanding of things is that these tracks are called the Pittsburgh Subdivision by CSX. The right of way here was originally established by the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR back in 1879. Said tracks, which long time readers will tell you I’ve been haunting since moving here at the end of 2022, seem to be busiest in the late afternoon and early evening although there’s intermittent traffic moving along them all day long.
Back tomorrow with more Choo-Choo.
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Ferrea via
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator decided it was time to blow off a bit of steam and headed over to the Sly Fox Brewery, found in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh, to quaff a couple of beers with a friend and shoot some passing CSX rail traffic while doing so.
As mentioned in prior posts, another new lens has been added to my kit, a superzoom which allows focal lengths of 24-240mm. This kind of ‘reach’ is something I’ve been craving, and it more or less completes my kit of zoom lenses. There’s officially two camera bag configurations I work with now – the ‘bag of primes’ and the ‘zoom bag.’
The primes are low light or night lenses with wide apertures, as a note, and the zooms are narrow aperture daylight lenses.
I’m very pleased with myself about the shot above, by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same train, different POV for the shot above.
Apparently, #998 up there is a GE ES44AC model locomotive. One does not carry any of this train information in my head, btw, and I’d be lying if I said I did. When I’m shooting, what’s going through my mind is focus, composition, exposure, etc.
Occasionally, I’ll ‘know’ I got something special (hey, scroll up and enjoy that first shot again) but my long time habit is to collect massive numbers of images when in the field and then sort it out when I get home.
I’ve got friends who can look at a passing train and say ‘they used the wrong screws on that horn,’ but that ain’t me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was CSX#148, which was hauling Coke. I normally avoid naming minerals or cargo unless I know for sure what it is, but the cars 148 was pulling were labeled as being the ‘Coke Express.’ No doubt heading for one of the U.S. Steel plants just east of here.
Back next week with more, and I mean “MORE” train oriented stuff 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.
Quid habeo
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a short walk on a very warm and humid afternoon your Humble Narrator settled into a pint of Cream Ale at the Sly Fox Brewery, in Pittsburgh’s South Side Flats. Eagerly, I awaited the chiming of railroad signal arms at the grade crossing of the CSX tracks found alongside the business.
There are outside tables here, in an urban park setting alongside the Great Allegheny Passage trail and the Colors Park. I didn’t have to suffer inactivity long before I heard the bells and horns, and those signal arms started to move.
First up was CSX #4736, an EMD SD70MAC model locomotive which was built in 2003.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the opposite direction, CSX #4050 soon thundered into view. A rebuilt EMD SD40-3 model engine, it was built in 1981.
As a note, I was using that new superzoom lens, mentioned last week, to shoot these photos. Thereby, these qualify as ‘test images’ wherein I was pushing the thing’s cooperation with my camera’s autofocus systems and try to see where the thing fails.
It performed like a champ, I’d mention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also from the same direction, CSX #3312 next appeared. It’s a GE ET44AH model train engine, one of General Electric’s ‘Evolution Series’ locomotives which have been in production since 2003.
All told, I drank two of those Cream Ales and then began my journey back to HQ.
Back tomorrow with something very 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.
Vagantur
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After walking down a set of steps leading away from the South Side Slopes, and encountering a Smash Truck, the next thing which caught my eye on this increasingly random pathway was Pittsburgh’s South Side Market House. Pictured is the 1915 replacement for an 1893 version that burned down, but sits in the same footprint, and it’s a protected historical building according to the National Register of Historic Places.
Neat.
My scuttle, which was being perpetrated on a very warm afternoon, began growing uncomfortable due to a humble narrator becoming quite ‘shvitzy.’ As is my usual habit when in this neighborhood – I was heading towards that nearby brewery I like, the one with the train tracks alongside it.
Hydration… yeah, that’s it… hydration.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Street furniture was encountered along the way.
The route I used to take through this ‘zone’ involved accessing the waterfront trail, but in recent months a huge homeless encampment has sprung up along that section of the trail. I’m not overly worried about personal safety, but this particular encampment also hosts a pack of not so friendly dogs which are running around off leash. Factor in the dogs, an abundance of used drug needles, and the bags of human poop now littering the trail’s sides…
No thanks. It’s best to just walk around potential trouble.
‘That’s none of my business’ is something I’m trying to use as a mantra these days. ‘Nothing matters and nobody cares’ is the lesson I learned during the Covid seasons back in NYC, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Eventually, my scuttle led to that brewery which has become a part of this particular walk. I ordered some kind of micro batch Cream Ale, which was icy cold and yummy. I settled in at one of the ‘sit outside’ tables and set my camera up for the somewhat inevitable appearance of CSX branded freight trains.
I’ll show you all that next week. Choo-Choo!
Back Monday.
“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.
Monstrum has
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… I’m scuttling along in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh when I happened across this fantastic vehicle, whose driver was executing its function – which is to smash things.
A friend had mentioned this service to me in the past, but it’s best described by the ‘horse’s mouth’ at the company website: monstersmash.com. There’s video.
In a nutshell, they’ve got a giant spiked roller mounted on the end of a hydraulic arm, and said setup is used to compact materials which are already in a dumpster at a job site. Awesome sauce.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond their absolutely fantastic cartoony style branding, the service is meant to save some space within the dumpster by compacting boxes, boards etc. Pretty clever, if you ask this humble narrator.
Also: Who doesn’t like to see a giant spiked cylinder tearing stuff up?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t interact with the driver, other than shouting ‘awesome’ and ‘yeahhh!’ at him while popping off a few photos of the action. The only thing that would make this better would be they also had a big mallet that beat the stuff in the dumpster down into dust.
COOL!
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.
