The Real Terminator
pendulum
As time goes on, I'm seeming to become more and more reflective in my thoughts. While this concept covers all things in my life, one part I can easily tie in here are, of course, railroads. When I started taking train pictures some 10+ years ago, they were nothing good - very bad, in fact. I'm still glad I took those pictures, though - nothing is the same in railroading today. What I've found is that it's much easier to look back, or even ahead, than it is to look in the moment. Railroads have reached such an interesting state now that things quite literally change daily - whether it be layoffs, the addition or annulment of turns, or even something as cliche as the retirement of locomotives.
As I said, it's hard to see "in the moment" - railroad or not, with anything. So something simple, in this case locomotive retirements, sets the scene here.
Last night I had gone out on walk - it was a beautiful evening and I didn't care whether or not I'd shoot anything, just wanted to get out of the house on foot. Well, I stumbled across IHB 2924, an SD20 originally built WAY back in 1960. The three SD20s have been endangered for a few months now, so figured I'd try to get a nice sunset shot of it. Flash forward three hours later, a Facebook message would tell me that an IHB employee said 2924 will be gone in two weeks. The other two will remain, but too many problems plague this one. Gone, 2 weeks from this photo.
Why do we shoot trains? An alternative art form yes, a passive hobby yes, but what about documenting history? Something a lot of us "younger generation" fans don't think about. Perhaps it's time we start thinking more about this.
Pendulum Man - Bark Psychosis
pendulum
As time goes on, I'm seeming to become more and more reflective in my thoughts. While this concept covers all things in my life, one part I can easily tie in here are, of course, railroads. When I started taking train pictures some 10+ years ago, they were nothing good - very bad, in fact. I'm still glad I took those pictures, though - nothing is the same in railroading today. What I've found is that it's much easier to look back, or even ahead, than it is to look in the moment. Railroads have reached such an interesting state now that things quite literally change daily - whether it be layoffs, the addition or annulment of turns, or even something as cliche as the retirement of locomotives.
As I said, it's hard to see "in the moment" - railroad or not, with anything. So something simple, in this case locomotive retirements, sets the scene here.
Last night I had gone out on walk - it was a beautiful evening and I didn't care whether or not I'd shoot anything, just wanted to get out of the house on foot. Well, I stumbled across IHB 2924, an SD20 originally built WAY back in 1960. The three SD20s have been endangered for a few months now, so figured I'd try to get a nice sunset shot of it. Flash forward three hours later, a Facebook message would tell me that an IHB employee said 2924 will be gone in two weeks. The other two will remain, but too many problems plague this one. Gone, 2 weeks from this photo.
Why do we shoot trains? An alternative art form yes, a passive hobby yes, but what about documenting history? Something a lot of us "younger generation" fans don't think about. Perhaps it's time we start thinking more about this.
Pendulum Man - Bark Psychosis