Fading memories and beautiful names.
Lackawanna. Mikado. Nickel Plate. Southern Crescent.
The rail lines that linked far-flung rural communities
and the jewels of engineering that were created under adverse
conditions are fading away - the noises and odors of railroads that
once were the nation's vital lifeline and skeleton - indeed, the arm
and sinew of the U.S. expansion, which stretched across
mountains, plains and deserts.
A simple image of a rail cut and left on the spot has for me the disturbing
effect of a cold forensic specimen. An abstract structure made of poles reaching
to the sky suggests the vestige of an alien civilization; a railmaster's log book
scattered on the floor of a long abandoned switch-house that is now overgrown with
vines and bushes evokes the sadness of a sinking ship. A rail and an emerging bush
peering out of the snow, as if refusing to be obliterated by time and weather, offer
a natural zen composition.
Seeking out these images became a sort of archeology, and sometimes
the discovery of an abandoned tunnel, roundhouse or a section of rails
that goes nowhere
are the reward of the day.
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