It Is Getting Closer...

What is it exactly that gets us interested in trains? For many it is the circle of track running around under our Christmas trees. Or maybe it is from looking at our early picture books or the reciting of The Little Engine That Could, night after night before bedtime. Some of our interests stem from our parents or grandparents who lived through the years when trains seemed to be everywhere.

    I believe my own interests come from a combination of all of the above. Trains were a part of my family in more ways than one. My grandfather worked in the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse in Verona, PA. He later drove a streetcar on the rails through town. My father and my brother made an HO train layout of the Kiski Junction, a location across the river from Freeport. 

     My father had taken many pictures of trains during his lifetime. In 1924 he had the opportunity of riding in the cab of a steam engine, an event he documented in one of his albums. “Over sixty miles an hour!” Some of his pictures grace the walls of my library.

    I imagine that it was inevitable that I would become a rail-fan myself. Being a photographer, I fell right into the hole. There is an anticipation I feel while waiting for a train to come. The feeling rises as the engine comes into sight. The noise increases and the train seems to get faster as it nears. The loud blaring of the whistles sends a shiver through me. It is a rush I feel, one that continues to draw me back time and again. The "pictures" may only be an excuse to hang out at railroad crossings…

    The Union Pacific’s Big Boy, steam engine #4014 has been taking up a lot of space on the internet. Facebook’s algorithms put numerous postings on my pages daily. The train is in the second half of a cross-country trip. It has been to the West Coast and will soon be entering Pennsylvania. It is scheduled to be in Philadelphia for the 4^th of July, our country’s 250^th birthday. It will be returning to its home base later, going through Pittsburgh in the process. (July 11^th)

    This steam engine is a monster! Weighing over a million pounds, it is 133 feet long. It has 16 driving wheels and because of its length, the frame is articulated to allow it to round bends. It was built in the early 40’s, engineered to pull very heavy loads. The 4014 is one of 25 engines built by the American Locomotive Company. (ALCO) Only eight of these massive engines remain and only the 4014 is still in operation.

    The engine worked until 1961, twenty years and during this time it covered over one million miles before it was retired. It was eventually rebuilt, converted from coal to oil and then returned to the rails in 2019.

    Needless to say, there are many, many people looking forward to seeing this engine, myself included!

    While we wait for this monster engine to steam into Pittsburgh, I have been searching for a spot to photograph it. My rail-fan friend Frank and I have been scouting out various places, checking out the lines of sight, the ease of access and whether or not there are any nice background buildings or rail signals. (Having a nice background can make or break a picture!)

    We are looking for a spot where there will be a minimum of people. Spots where the train will be stopping or where it goes through towns and cities will probably be overrun with spectators. Granted, no matter where we see it, it will be worth it, BUT, we would like to get some good pictures at the same time!

    This coming Thursday, we will be going out again on another scouting trip. The weather forecasters are predicting a day of clouds with minimal chance of rain. Hey, we’ve been out in the rain before, a little rain never hurt anyone. Hopefully, rain on the 11^th will be non-existent.

    While I am waiting, I go out and take more pictures of trains, practice, practice, practice! I also search the maps, imagining how shots from along the lines might look. I find that as I sit and watch the TV or read my book while lying in bed, a portion of my brain is thinking about camera speeds, locations to visit, B&W or color, or both, what to bring along and a multitude of other things. I’m not complaining, it’s all part of the fun of being a rail-fan photographer!

Searching for Who Knows What

 

This morning my buddy Frank and I took a ride. As is always the case, we were armed with cameras and GPS’s. We had a rough idea of where we were headed, and our purpose was to find some interesting things to photograph. Nothing in particular, we'd know it when we saw it. Our destination was the Turtle Creek and Braddock area.

    The day was perfect for photography. The sky was a deep shade of blue dotted with puffy white clouds. The polarizers on our lens made the sky appear even darker.

    We did a cache in Wilmerding, (You know, “There are no Winky’s in Wilmerding!”) across the RR tracks from an old building that Frank used to work in, many, many years ago. We were right beside the tracks and sadly, saw no trains go by.

    Since we were in the area, we stopped to take a few pictures of the George Westinghouse Memorial Bridge. The conditions were perfect!

    Opened in 1932, it was then regarded as the longest concrete span bridge in the world. It is approximately 240 feet from the deck to the valley below. After we took some pictures from one side, and watched a train go by, we went to the opposite side to see what it looked like from there.

    While the shots from this side were nice, they didn’t compare to the view from the opposite side. While we were there, we watched a set of 4 Union RR MP15 locomotives pull a line of cars into the mill, crossing a long bridge. Next, we decided to see what the view was like from on top of the Westinghouse Bridge.

    To do this involved a bit of walking. Naturally, we couldn’t stop the car on the bridge, so we had to find a spot to park and then hoof it to the center. We strung our cameras around our necks and started walking. Ten or more minutes later we were nearing the center. The sun was hot overhead and cars and trucks were zipping past us just a few feet away. Thank heavens there was a sidewalk! The noise was loud to put it mildly, but it was definitely worth it once we got out in the middle of the span.

    Kennywood could be seen off to the left in the distance, its yellow roller coaster standing out against the green hillsides. The huge USS Plant grabs your attention in the center of the view. Turtle Creek was below, lined on either side by railroad tracks. A dam could be seen almost directly below us, with a flood gate hanging over the stream. The Norfolk and Southern RR tracks could be seen going under the Union RR Bridge and the Braddock Avenue Bridge, disappearing into the trees to the right. During the height of the steel boom this area was supposedly the most active railroad area in the county! 

    Back at the car, we headed into Braddock where we stopped numerous times to photograph old, abandoned buildings and Churches. One of the Churches no longer had a roof and the windows were all broken out. Sad how such a nicely built building, once weekly filled with people, now sits empty with only (?) pigeons living in it. We photographed a few houses that were surprisingly still standing, the end of their lifetimes rapidly approaching.

    We passed a train and hoping to catch it further down the line, pulled into a funeral home parking lot. We framed our shots and waited…and waited. After waiting 10-15 minutes we gave up and continued on to where we started our journey.

    Without a doubt, it was a great morning! Trains, caches and decrepit old buildings, what more could you ask for? And, so far no signs of ticks or poison ivy! What a great way to spend a sunny morning!

Time Passes so Quickly

 Looking at my calendar, I saw that the anniversary of my father’s death was rapidly approaching. I was surprised to see that tomorrow it will be 50 years ago that he left this planet. My dad, Roy Breidenbach was born 121 years ago in 1905. He passed away on May 20^th, 1976 at the age of 70.

    In some ways, this shocks me; I know it has been a long time, but a half of a century, it's hard to believe! I had just passed my 21^st birthday when he died. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to know him better.

    He inspired me in so many ways. In astronomy, I still have the telescope he gave me when I was in grade school. Literature, I have many of his books, including his cookbooks still on my shelves. His love of reading has been in my genes from before I knew how to read. For this I am forever thankful! He taught me about appreciating music, both good and bad. There is evidence of him all through my life. 

    I was looking for some pictures of him and quickly realized that he is rarely in any of the family pictures. It is because he is the one holding the camera. Through this, he has helped put faces to many of the relatives I never met. Photography, another gift he bestowed on me.

    He was a writer, penning many letters in the later years of his life, but then again, that is how things were done back in the seventies. Texting and social media were things only in science fiction novels. He was a collector and my attic still has boxes of things he didn’t want to toss. Broken watches, old pipes, knick-knacks and coins, they give example of the vast areas of his interests. Perhaps that is why I tend to do the same…I’ve learned through example. Maybe it is another type of genes he shared, those of a pack rat.

    He loved the outdoors. He was a landscaper and it seemed as if he knew everything about plants and trees. He knew their names, both in English and Latin. He knew how and when they would grow and knew what plants would look good with others. He transformed our yard into a year-long show of color. I remember him telling me that a weed was only a plant that was in the wrong place. Dandelions could look good if you wanted them there, in the same way, a rose could be a weed if planted in the wrong spot!

    He told me shortly before he died that he had been lucky enough to see men leave the surface of the earth in airplanes and was also able to see men go into space and land on the moon!

     Fifty years is a long time. I am now in my 7^th decade and thank heavens I can still remember him! I treasure the memories I have of him. There are so many times when I’ll see something and he will pop into my mind. He may have left the planet fifty years ago but in many ways, he is still here!

XXXXX           XXXXX              XXXXX

I wrote a short narrative about him 5 years ago, if you’d like to read it, here is a link.

Notes from a Reading Addict: Weeding with my Father

Pennsylvania Turnpike Sights

 On a recent trip, Ann Marie and I took a portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We really aren’t big fans of driving on limited access highways, preferring the freedom of changing our routes on a whim. Granted the roads we take are a bit slower, but we tend to think that they are filled with more opportunities. Different sights to see, a wider variety of places to eat and a whole slew of things we’ve never seen before.

    Heading home we had driven as far as Harrisburg when we ran into a large traffic tie-up. We decided to take the turnpike. We hadn’t been on this section in years. It was a nice change of pace; we didn’t have to worry about slowing down when we came into towns and there were no traffic lights or traffic congestion that slowed us down.

    I enjoyed seeing the various sites I used to look forward to back when I used the turnpike more often. The farm with the “Drink Milk” sign, the water tank painted to look like a world globe. The variety of barns sitting off to the sides; some with Mail Pouch Tobacco signs, others notable for their craftsmanship and a favorite of mine, the red barn with the “World of Pigeons” sign on it. The sign has been gone for over a decade, but it’s still up there in my memory. The tunnels are landmarks that help monitor how far we’ve gone. I still look for evidence of the small farm airport that used to be on the eastern side of the Tuscarora tunnel. As a child I remember seeing a windsock flying above a metal shed with the runway bordering a field. The metal shed still stands but the windsock has long ago been shredded by the wind. The site is still considered an emergency airstrip!

    There are the windmills visible from the Somerset Travel Plazas and the Laurel Highland Trail Bridge that crosses the highway. Of all of these sites, I think that my favorite is that of St. John the Baptist Church in the small community of New Baltimore. When heading east this church sits on the right side, at the bottom of the mountains, below the Allegheny Tunnels.

    There used to be stairs going up to the church from the highway. There was a pull off on both sides to allow visits. It was one of the few, if not the only spot where you could get off the turnpike, leaving your car behind. Sadly, recent widening of the road has eliminated this access.

     The community of New Baltimore was first settled in 1829 in the county of Somerset. A railroad yard had been planned to be built there in the 1880’s but unfortunately, it never came to pass. Their hopes of becoming a major railroad yard fell through. The church was built in 1890, replacing a smaller church. This was in anticipation of the railroad moving into the community.

    When the turnpike was built, in 1937, they needed the land that the church owned. With the agreement that they provide pull-offs and steps to the church, the land was given. The church was essentially cut off from the rest of the community by the highway and so a bridge was also provided. The steps allowed travelers to attend Masses and also stop in for prayer and relaxation during their drives. At one time, you could actually catch a Greyhound bus at these steps.

    Recent renovations to the turnpike have removed the steps. Widening the highway and removing some of the sharp curves on the section leading up to the tunnels has rendered the church inaccessible. They have also put up sound barriers which hide New Baltimore from sight. Sad, but at least the church is still visible!

    Ann Marie and I visited this site in 2010 on a trip to Philadelphia. We parked alongside the road and worked our way up the steps, through deep snow. We found a geocache in a near-by covered bridge and then returned to the church to attend Mass along with 5 or 6 other people. We then climbed down the steep treacherous steps to the car and continued on our trip, refreshed both physically and mentally.

    The twisty section of road leading up to the tunnels has changed quite a bit in the past decade. It had more curves and it was a bit narrower than it is now. I could see the cuts where the road used to go as we drove up the mountain side.

    I remember one trip returning from Philadelphia. It was close to midnight on a Sunday night. There was a full moon in the sky that illuminated the road. There were no other cars on the road with me. I was alone as I drove up the mountain, going from one side of the road to the other as I cut the corners. For a short while, I turned off the headlights as I traversed the slope. It was a brief drive that I’ll always remember. Once I got to the tunnel face, it was over; I was back on the turnpike, back to reality. Now that the road has been “modernized and made safe, all I can do is remember the fun I had racing up this mountain side so many years ago.

    Change is one of the things that is constant in our lives. The things we become accustomed to, the objects we use as milestones on our journeys, the landmarks we search for as we drive familiar roads, they all eventually change in some way. It makes me feel sad when they disappear, but I really don’t have any say in the matter. I’m just glad I saw them and still remember them!

My Dogs

I just  finished a book about one of my favorite subjects, dogs! Entitled “The Best Dog in the World”, it is a collection of essays compiled by Alice Hoffman. They are stories about how dogs can change a person’s life.  They are about all sorts of dogs, big, small, show dogs and rescue dogs and the ways they influenced their owner’s lives. Granted, not all of them are happy stories because sadly, their masters usually outlive their charges. There is lots of humor in the book also because any time you have a dog in your life; it usually brings happiness along with it!

    I am the type of guy who moves across the street when he sees a dog approaching. Not to get away from it but to get closer to it and hopefully, to pet it. I have always believed that to get a little dog slobber on me in the morning will help make my day a little bit better. Big, small, it doesn’t matter, as long as they will let me pet them!

    There haven’t been a lot of dogs in my personal life but each one of them has left a bit of themselves with me. They have all loved me without question. The first dog my family got was Villi. (Villi Von Veenersnitzal) He was a black Dachshund. I think he came from a shelter and he wasn’t trained. He and I got along great. I was probably in first grade when we got him. We’d wrestle, run around chasing each other and play tug-a-war. We became great friends. Since he wasn’t trained he didn’t think there was anything wrong with grabbing my hand or arm with his mouth. He never bit down or broke the skin. Some of my friends took this to be aggressiveness rather than playfulness and a couple got scratched, their parents were not happy!

    After a couple times dealing with frantic mothers and neighbors, Villi went to live somewhere else. I came home from school one day and he was gone. I was devastated, my heart was broken.

    Our next dog was a Basset Hound. Romeo was a rescue dog. On a Sunday near Saint Patrick’s Day there was a picture of him in the Pittsburgh Press. He was wearing a plastic hat with a shamrock on it. Even though it was a black and white picture, we knew it was a green hat! His right paw was cocked off to the side as if he was posing and his sad looking eyes and droopy skin made it look as if he needed to be saved. He needed someone to love him. After a lot of begging, we went down to see him and surprisingly, we came home with him.

    While Basset Hounds are quite lovable, they are also quite loud and they love to bark. Wow do they love to bark! They also drool a lot. Strings of saliva started appearing on the floors, furniture and even us. Showing him a dog treat could cause this and whenever he drank some water, not only did his jowls get filled with water, his long ears often hung in the bowl and soaked it up also. We learned from experience to stand back whenever he shook his head.

    He quickly became a part of the family. He loved to be petted and to have his loose skin pulled and rubbed. His eyes always looked so sad but I knew he wasn’t. When we were together he and I were both happy. He lay beside me on the floor while I watched TV, my hand rubbing his soft ears, both of us obliviously in the comfort zone.

    My mother had raised cats, and I had grown up with cats sleeping on the bed with me. When Romeo came along, the cat quickly lost her spot!

    Being a Basset Hound, a hunter by nature and by being blessed with a very sensitive nose, we quickly discovered that his nose was more in control of him than we were. When he smelled something, he let us know it. Loudly! He also loved to run, we had to be careful letting him outside, if he slipped out of our hands before we got him on his run…he was gone. Perhaps that is why he was named Romeo, because he loved to roam.

    I don’t remember how Romeo left my life or maybe I’m just blocking it out. I’m pretty sure he is buried in my backyard along with other pets, cats and dogs, mine and others. It is never easy when you lose a loved pet.

    I didn’t get another dog until the late 80’s. My daughter was just over a year old. I can remember watching her hold onto a small fence looking at a bunch of running, jumping, squealing Weimaraner puppies. One of them, Axel, (Axel Gutterzig Grauhunt) soon became a part of our family and Chelsey’s best friend. A beautiful grey color, he looked regal, he was a great dog. Watching him in the backyard, we could see how he loved to move, his lean body stretching out as he ran. He filled our lives with love and joy. 

    As time passes by, we as humans tend to forget the bad things and remember mostly the fun stuff, at least I do. I believe it’s human nature. I tend to forget about the times we went to the vets because of illnesses or accidents and remember more of the good times, such as when he got a small pumpkin stuck in his mouth, his teeth sinking into the rind and wasn't able to spit it out. Or the time he walked off the back deck, not realizing he was 6 feet off the ground. Oh, he made us laugh… He, like Romeo, loved to run and explore, when he got out, it was tough getting him back before he wanted to.

    As he grew older he started encountering some medical problems. At the vets one day I was told that it might be best for him if he was put out of his misery. I made a decision that I quickly came to regret. I brought his body back home to be buried in the back yard. Like a fool, I hadn’t given any thought to how my daughter would take this. It was just like what happened to me, she came home from school to find out her pet, her friend had gone and she never had the chance to say good-bye. I had lost a pet, but even worse, I had let my daughter down. This was a bad day all around!

    It is very hard to get over the loss of a pet. I found myself saying, “Never again, I just can’t do it! It just hurts too much!"

    It took a while but eventually another hound entered my life. I was simply going to go to the shelter and help walk the dogs, that was the plan. There was a class that needed to be taken before this could be done. Not a problem. Whenever I would go there, before I’d walk them, I’d visit the dogs in the kennel and give them treats while I talked with them. The more I visited the more the idea of another dog grew.

    Not long after I started, Red entered my family. Red was a Redbone Coon Hound. His coat matched his name. He was named by a class of school children, the name fit and so it was never changed.

    Red was a big dog, bigger than he thought. He considered himself a lap dog and that could hurt at times! He quickly claimed a spot on my bed and if I didn’t exert my dominance, he’d claim the larger portion of it. He had a loud howl and wasn’t afraid to use it.

    We went on many adventures. He even came along with us to chase trains! Ann Marie and I endured hours of howling as we drove to hikes or vacations. We even tried ear plugs to tone down the noise. Luckily, we always managed to tire him out and he’d sleep on the way home. Those drives home were so nice and quiet!

    Like the others, the good memories remain. The time he stole a sandwich out of Ann Marie’s hand on a hike or the time he thought that water lilies were solid ground and disappeared into the water after running onto them. I don’t need to remember the bad memories; it’s the good ones that are important!

    Time finally caught up with Red, I took him to his final visit with the vet and another tough decision was made. He didn’t like visiting the vet and often gave them trouble. This time he was too sick and tired to fight or even howl. This time he slowly walked away. I was asked if I wanted to go into the back with him while they prepared him but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t see him go. I was a coward, I couldn’t watch it happen. I already felt terrible bringing him there and agreeing to that terrible decision.

    To this day I regret not going in with him and comforting him as he was put to sleep. It has been over 5 years since he left and I still miss him. I still have that “never again” attitude, I find it extremely hard to overcome. The pain of losing a pet can be disabling. There is so much that you lose; friendship, companionship and love to name just a few. We have to remember, there is also a lot we can learn from our four-legged friends, trust, the idea of unequivocal love, devotion and how to share these things without saying a word.

    Thank heavens for memories. And also, thank heavens for the dogs I meet that are being walked around the block and for the owners who so happily share their pets with me, helping me overcome the sorrows that buried themselves so deep into my psyche.

    This book has helped me remember the joys of dog ownership and the benefits of having a four legged friend in your life. Perhaps someday, there might be another visit to a shelter in my future...

A Morning Respite

I woke up early this morning, well before 6. It's a bit earlier than my normal wake up time. Usually, I close my eyes and slip back into my dream world for another short trip into my imagination, but today I got dressed and took a walk around the block. The sun was less than an hour away from rising, so I had no problems seeing as I walked. Due to a slight haze, only a couple stars were visible in the sky. Traffic could be heard in the valley below me but after a couple minutes, the songs of the birds overtook it.

    The street was empty, no cars were “warming up” and no one was walking their dogs. It was only me and the birds. Returning to the house, I sat on a chair on the front porch and watched as Arcturus slipped between the limbs of a tree as it neared the western horizon. Lights on neighbors' houses turned on and off and the birds continued to chirp, heard but not seen. I sat and watched the sky as it brightened, and the last stars disappeared from view.

    I went into the house, back to where the radio was broadcasting noise about shootings, accidents and the weather to come. I brewed some coffee and went back outside to the quiet, the calm and the peacefulness. I sat down with a copy of The Sun magazine and read a story. While I read, robins chased each other around the yard. Woodpeckers rapped on tree trunks and dead limbs. The coffee smelled good and tasted even better. Two robins flew within inches of my leg as they played.

    Slowly the sun neared the edge of the hillside and colors returned to the edges. My morning respite was starting to turn into my Saturday. I took another sip of coffee and then headed back into the house, ready to continue with my day.

A Training Day

 It was 5 o'clock Tuesday morning and I didn’t think that I’d be going back to sleep soon. I got dressed and went out to see if I could find a picture or two worth taking. There was no specific plan, I was just going to take a ride and see if anything popped up.

  While driving along I am always watching the scenery, looking at the shadows, the people I pass, the buildings. I’m never sure what “it” might be but I’m always looking. It is amazing how many times I see something whenever I don’t have my camera with me! The chances of seeing something worth taking a picture of increases whenever I leave the camera behind! When I see something, I stop and take a picture. Sometimes they are good, other times, worthy only of deletion.

    I drove towards Pittsburgh going through Lawrenceville. Passing the “Doughboy Statue” and heading towards the railroad bridge, I saw my subject. I saw a line of hoppers slowly crossing the bridge. I turned the car around and started searching for the front of the train.

    It turned into a slow chase. We were both going in the same direction; the train was four or five blocks closer to the river than I was. I could see it as I passed side streets. While I had to deal with traffic and streetlights, the train just kept on going… As I gained on it I started to hear the whistle as it came to road crossings. I finally got ahead of it as we neared the 62^nd Street Bridge.

    While driving, I was mentally going over the various spots I could go to get a picture of it. I decided to go under the Highland Park Bridge for my attempt. Luckily, the train was moving slowly, and I had plenty of time to set up my tripod, frame my picture and take a couple test shots before the train came into sight.

    The headlights were what I saw first. I could feel the anticipation. The Carload Express engines passed followed by a long line of bouncing and rocking cars. Perhaps this was why the train was moving so slowly, the cars were swaying back and forth, the rails weren’t very straight or flat.

    After the train was gone, I returned home. I had gotten some pictures and I was happy. It was now time to get back to the regular day, time to tackle my chores.

    Later in the day after eating dinner, I was sitting at my desk when I heard it, another train whistle! It was still light outside, so I grabbed my camera and ran (?) out to the car.

    The train had just passed the crossing in Lower Glenshaw. Leaving the neighborhood, I heard the whistle as it came to the next crossing, just past the tunnel. As I drove, I started considering the places I could go, along with their advantages and their disadvantages. Some were far enough away that I could easily reach them long before the train did, but I wasn’t sure what the lighting would be like. Another spot was much closer, but the background would be a hillside of trees, in the shadows. The train might fade into the background there.

    I ended up going to my favorite spot, Bryant Road in Hampton Township. There weren’t many cars on the road and so I arrived rather quickly. I went down a dirt road towards the tracks where I could catch the train crossing the bridge over Pine Creek. I set up the tripod and framed my shot, took a couple test shots and then waited.

    A car pulled up and two guys got out. I was wondering if they were railfans or fishermen. They turned out to be the latter. We BS’d for a minute before they continued on to the stream, stopping briefly to touch the tracks to see if they could feel the coming train. The noise of the engines was getting louder.

    Just as they reached the bridge, the locomotive came around the bend. The lights of the engine came first, illuminating the curving rails. As the first engine passed, the engineer gave a couple short toots on the whistle to me as he went by. Of course, I waved back… it is what you do when a train goes by!

    The sounds of a train are always exciting to me; the noise of the engines, the squeals of the wheels on the rails, the knocking and bumping of the cars and especially the piercing blasts of the whistles. I have taken pictures of trains from above as they near a crossing, those whistles are LOUD!!! WOW, what a rush!

    I returned home happy and content. A train started my morning and then one ended my day. I've said it before; it doesn't take a lot to make my day! Some days you just get lucky and this was one of them!