Rust Belt Abstracts
One sunny afternoon recently, my old wanderlust came over me, and I found myself trespassing on Norfolk Southern railroad property in Reading, PA. This is the site of the old Outer Station of the Reading Railroad, now nothing more than a memory and a property you can acquire while playing Monopoly. The omega-shaped horseshoe (or lyre) expansion loops in a long-dormant overhead steam transmission caught my eye, and I made a few images...
I'm no steam engineer, but my understanding is that these graceful loops are installed at intervals on a steam transmission line, to allow for metal expansion when steam is passing through. They also make an appealing abstract image -- to me, at least.
The folks in charge take a pretty dim view of civilians prowling around this place, because there's still a lot of heavy rolling stock moving around. While I was there, a freight train was being made up, as you see on the left above. The sounds of rail cars being coupled and uncoupled is a pretty impressive staccato drumroll. It's comforting to see that there's still some railroad activity around here. Maybe not what it was in the 1880s, but I'm not either.
One sunny afternoon recently, my old wanderlust came over me, and I found myself trespassing on Norfolk Southern railroad property in Reading, PA. This is the site of the old Outer Station of the Reading Railroad, now nothing more than a memory and a property you can acquire while playing Monopoly. The omega-shaped horseshoe (or lyre) expansion loops in a long-dormant overhead steam transmission caught my eye, and I made a few images...
I'm no steam engineer, but my understanding is that these graceful loops are installed at intervals on a steam transmission line, to allow for metal expansion when steam is passing through. They also make an appealing abstract image -- to me, at least.
The folks in charge take a pretty dim view of civilians prowling around this place, because there's still a lot of heavy rolling stock moving around. While I was there, a freight train was being made up, as you see on the left above. The sounds of rail cars being coupled and uncoupled is a pretty impressive staccato drumroll. It's comforting to see that there's still some railroad activity around here. Maybe not what it was in the 1880s, but I'm not either.
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