Posts Tagged ‘The T’
Shiny, happy, Pittsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A comedic attempt at ‘cleaning things up’ has been underway for a bit here in Pittsburgh. Anticipation of the NFL Draft event has driven the local Government into a paroxysm: cleaning hillsides of trash, power washing the graffiti away, breaking up homeless encampments…
If they put this much effort into things regularly…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the final steps of a fairly long scuttle, and I think this one was about 8 or 9 miles – walking up and down hills, and then long empty streets, and then to the terminal stop on the T Light Rail.
Days like this one involve a one way cab ride to the top of wherever I’m going that day, and then picking my path back to mass transit if at all possible. It’s mainly about cost, this, and not bookending my day with $20+ cab rides.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying that, what you’re going to seeing in the next couple of weeks involved exactly that. Pittsburgh is a motor vehicle based city, after all.
I don’t drive when out on my excursions, usually, as I’d have to find my way back to the car and that limits how far I can wander away from it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the street from Acrisure Stadium, and the entrance to the T light rail station above.
I’ve been enjoying these north side walks, incidentally. Physically challenging and revelatory in many ways. There’s a couple more of these in the pipeline, so hoping that y’all find them as interesting as I did.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘Upstairs’ at the T station, and my chariot is arriving.
I’ve also ventured out of the state since these photos were captured. Used the car for that, obviously, but you won’t be seeing those posts for a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I poured my pre corpse into a seat, onboard this Red Line T.
A bit of organization needing handling as far as my camera bag goes, a task which was accomplished while riding the service.
Soon, I was back in Dormont where Moe the dog squealed as I walked in.
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.
Precipitant parading
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Owning a car can be a real pain in the neck, sometimes.
Mentioned about a month ago, there’s a ‘recall part’ which Toyota is obligated to replace under the hood of my car, and the last time I made an appointment for the work to be done the local ‘stealership’ it turned out that they had neglected to order the replacement part.
That’s how and why I found myself up early in the morning and dropping the Mobile Oppression Platform off at the mechanic a month later, and then walking down Pittsburgh’s (Route 19 Truck) West Liberty Avenue during a thunderstorm, again.
This storm was accompanied by a sudden and noticeable change in climate, and it had actually become quite warm and humid at ground level. I was shvitzing, but I was still all wrapped up in insulating garments and ready for winter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some jackass in a pickup truck was driving through here at 80 mph recently, whereupon they lost control of the vehicle and smashed into several utility poles. Knocked out power for hundreds of homes and dozens of businesses for an entire day, that Yinzer did.
If you ever find yourself driving around these parts, give the pickups a wide berth. Something happens to drivers behind the wheels of those things, wherein they want to teach strangers ‘lessons.’ Not allowing other drivers to merge towards highway exits, or signaling a right turn when they’re going to make a left, if they happen to use the directional indicators at all. Driving about like self entitled jerks, in general.
It’s one thing when somebody has to drive a truck for work, and there’s plenty of those folks on the roads, but what you really need to watch out for are those ‘somebodies’ who pull up next to you in a giant vehicle covered in ‘don’t tread on me’ or ‘let’s go brandon’ stickers which they paid north of 50-70k for, and which only gets 26 mpg. The truck is used exclusively for driving to and from an office job, on a high speed road, despite wearing ‘mud tires.’ This sort of vehicle is referred to as a ‘pavement princess’ and conspicuous consumption is why it was purchased. This is the sort of truck which wiped out at 80 mph on a local street and knocked out electricity to an entire neighborhood.
All of this represents high levels of cognitive static, to me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sweet signage, I’d mention.
My plan for the morning was… well… it was to wait for the mechanic to tell me that their repair process had finished. Wasn’t expecting ‘the call’ until the afternoon, at any rate.
It seems there’s a sort of master cable which electrically connects all the disparate computer controlled mechanisms under the hood of the car. It also seems that the initial ‘manufactured and shipped’ version of this cable is quite vulnerable to salt corrosion, and Toyota is on the hook for replacing them all due to a lawsuit. I haven’t had any problems with the thing, so the repair was proactive.
No matter what happens, I always end up walking in the rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My rainy walk carried me over to a spot called ‘Dawn Avenue,’ where a series of overlaying infrastructural bits can be observed. It was an extremely unpleasant spot to be on this particular morning, due to the rain and concurrent muddy conditions. I had decided to ‘give it a half hour’ and see if I’d be lucky enough to spot a Wheeling & Lake Erie locomotive moving through here, but came up empty again.
At least I got to peel off my coat and hat, and cool off while sheltering from the rain under that elevated causeway, which carries one of Pittsburgh’s Busways as well as a right of way for the T light Rail. It made for a sound umbrella.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up Dawn Avenue, towards a residential pocket in the Beechview section. I really have to get up there and explore that section, one of these days.
There’s some very fresh content coming down the pipeline, I’d mention. I’ve visited a few really interesting spots, since this rainy day morning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a fruitless half hour, one slopped his way up a set of stairs, shambled horribly across the busway, and then cast my putrid shadow upon the innocent pavement while waiting for a T light rail unit to arrive, and carry the pre-corpse back to HQ in nearby Dormont. The car was ready later in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t my only car maintenance chore for the week.
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.
Remains, my day
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily for my aching feet, a construction project was underway and performing maintenance on the T light rail’s track beds, so I had to tack on a bit more distance in order to get to one of the stations which wouldn’t be affected by this project. First Avenue Station was the new goal. Lean into it, I did. Yes, I could have taken a bus, but that would be cheating.
Luckily it’s all downhill from here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of the ‘main drags’ in Downtown Pittsburgh, dubbed ‘Liberty Avenue.’ There’s a T station under that building with the ‘KL Gates’ branding, but it was one of the stations receiving the maintenance attentions from the T’s parent agency – dubbed PRT.
I headed through the thick of things, towards First Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dark shape on the left is the US Steel building, currently occupied by the healthcare giant UPMC, and beneath it is found the ‘Steel Plaza Station’ of the T, which was also under construction.
Center of the shot is the newish BNY Mellon building. To the right is the entrance to the Koppers tower, which I’ve been on the roof of, during a tour.
Behind it is the sun, which is a self perpetuating thermonuclear reaction happening in space that pumps heat, light, and other forms of radiation away from its celestial body.
Captain Obvious has thereby spoken, to which General Vocabulary replies ‘indubitably.’ Sergeant Pedantry has some notes they’d like to discuss, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking down Pittsburgh’s shadowy downtown, and you can really see the price paid for not insisting on building setbacks in towers for Pittsburgh’s building codes. ‘Perma-shadows.’
They had a Rachel Carson out here, not a Jane Jacobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, one had First Avenue Station in sight. Ffft.
I will fully admit to the practice of ‘drag assing’ at this stage of my scuttle. Luckily, there’s a working escalator at this station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I got to sit down again, on the T.
As the crow flies, this scuttle was something like seven miles, but with all of my peregrinations added in, this ending up being about a ten mile long scuttle – at least according to the phone app which I use to measure such things.
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.
Slideways, then down, not up
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with photos from a short scuttle in Pittsburgh, on a day I got fairly lucky, were the subject of passing freight trains to come up. Your humble narrator was loathsomely crossing the Allegheny River upon one of the ‘Three Sisters’ bridges. I was busy with the self loathing and all that, so one barely even noticed the weather.
It was a lovely day, with temperatures in the high 50’s and a stiff breeze. The sky was partially overcast, but there was plenty of sunlight. My bad ankle was happy, for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, when a municipality hangs a traffic sign on a bridge, it’s telling you what you can’t do. The signage above seems to indicate to drivers that they can do pretty much whatever they want. That kind of fits with how Pittsburgh drivers operate their vehicles, observationally.
I headed over towards a T Light Rail station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the scene Downtown, from Liberty Avenue. On a weekday afternoon. It’s like a zombie apocalypse has occurred. Where is everybody?
I pointed my toes towards the T’s Wood Street station, where my chariot would soon arrive and carry me across to the South Side area. For once I didn’t have to worry about which line I was boarding, since I’d be debarking the thing at the first stop on the Monongahela River side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One descended into the narrow depths, using a moving staircase.
A quick ‘sit down’ ensued, while waiting for the train.
During this interval, I observed the behavioral tics of the humans Yinzers in the same manner as I’d observe zoo animals. ‘Look,’ a dominant male… and over there, that breeding age female must be in estrus, based on the veiled reactions to her from that teenaged male over there… ‘that one’ looks sick, and ‘that one’ is wearing a MAGA hat. A woman over there… she seemed to have two prosthetic legs but was walking without a cane. As it happens, I was midway through my annual listening of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album while waiting, and these were the songs which were playing.
I’m all ‘effed up. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘On the other side’ is at The T’s Station Square stop, and as I was debarking the facility a Pittsburgh bound T unit rumbled into scene.
The final steps of my day were all about greed.
I’d been very lucky all day in terms of syncing up with passing trains, and was thereby desirous of seeing whether or not my luck might hold out. It did, but that’s tomorrow’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A passing Towboat caught my attention while walking along, as it was all framed up by the Panhandle Bridge. Luckily, I can report to you that this was the last of my ‘rinse and repeat’ routed scuttles, wherein I was constrained in movement by ice and snow. The weather has since ‘cured up’ a bit, and all of the paths are once again clear.
I’ve also allowed my ‘lead time’ to evaporate a bit, in terms of how far in advance these posts are scheduled. These photos were captured better than a month ago, on February 13th. These words are being typed on the morning of March 13th, a Friday.
Back tomorrow with Choo-Choo’s, and a ‘Hey Now!’ or two.
“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.
Hey Now!, North Side Pittsburgh
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of my ‘short walk’ days occurred, and one soon found himself shambling up the hill and towards the T light rail station in Pittsburgh’s Dormont. The transit service soon deposited my pre-corpse onto a platform at its terminal stop, nearby Acrisure Stadium, on the city’s north side.
Your humble narrator slopped out onto the platform, in the style of a bucket of guts being poured into a pig’s pen. After gathering myself together and arranging the various bag and camera straps about my fecund torso, one scuttled forth – a localized condition of entropy autonomously moving about on a sunny day, while wrapped in a filthy black raincoat. Don’t look, you won’t like what you see. I don’t.
It had warmed up in Pittsburgh, finally, which saw those omnipresent occlusions of ice and snow which had been annoying me finally dissolve away and go down the drain. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My first instinct was to follow the river path, and cross one of the bridges over the Allegheny, but instead I headed north. Have to follow your nose sometimes. As it would turn out, this ended up being a pretty lucky outing for a creature as malefic and horrible to behold as myself. I caught my reflection in a car window, and then that pane of safety glass cracked as the gustation and sensory stalk jutting out of my T-Shirt was turned towards it. ‘Hissss,’ I said, and moved on.
My toes were pointed northwards, and then I suddenly had to urinate.
Such is life, huh? In between seasons for the sports enthusiasts, Pittsburgh does not stock the streets hereabout with Port-a-Potties, as they do during the months when the athletes gambol and toss balls to each other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I headed off to a spot where I might find the 90 seconds of privacy required to ‘water the plants.’ Luckily, that was in a parking lot nearby the Clark Building, which has been mentioned here before, along with the neighboring Merchant Street Rail Bridge. A few very frustrating attempts to roam around this ‘zone’ in prior weeks were blocked by ice conditions on the pavement.
One leaned into it and soon found himself looking at the Merchant Street Rail Bridge, and that’s when I heard that particular diesel ‘thrumming’ sound which indicates a freight train is getting close.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
Norfolk Southern #7001 appeared, with somebody inside the operator’s cabin keeping an eye on something external to the train. Any ideas, railfan types? The train was moving extremely slowly, if that means anything. I’m told that it’s a rebuilt EMD SD60E model locomotive, one which is a combination of two older models. Neat!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the first of several times I’d get lucky with trains on this particular scuttle. I’d like to think that I’ve finally figured something out regarding the subject and its habits, but the reality is that I just got lucky with my timing. Serendipity, as I often say.
Saying that, I often lose when playing Solitaire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train was heading more or less eastwards, towards Etna or one of the multiple rail bridge interchanges which the rail company maintains along those tracks which provide egress to the central peninsular section of Pittsburgh.
After #7001 passed through, I spun on my heels and decided to be all greedy. I wanted more.
One headed over to the rail trench in Allegheny Commons Park, which is where 7001 had just came from, and sat down to wait and see if anything else was going to happen. It did.
More on all that 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.
