Jackson Alexander
Poof, it's Gone
The Concord tower on the B&M main through town is no more. A fire broke out inside of it recently, and although local historical groups have been trying to save it, CSX deemed the fire inside a concrete and brick building rendered it structurally unsound. Just the excuse they needed to mush it into a pile of memories so there was one less shelter for the increasingly problematic amount of people forced into homelessness in the city to call home for a night.
This photo was taken on one of the absolute worst trips that actually resulted in a train I've ever been a part of. My buddy and I wanted to shoot NA-1 because it runs through some interesting spots and usually utilized MEC 507 which wears the freshest Guilford paint on the roster. We were well aware she was a slow girl, but what we weren't aware of is that we were about to have the word slow redefined for us that day. 5 mph "chasing' when you have to hop a good way between interesting spots is absolutely mind numbing. We didn't get the unit we wanted but nowadays a Pam Am widecab is just that, a Pan Am widecab. You don't avoid shooting it. We spent half the day talking about completely unrelated topics while waiting to see this poor locomotive bumble its way North. Eventually we stomached enough boredom to make it to Concord, where the main photo interests of the day were.
While waiting for them to run around their train, we sat behind a Market Basket in the parking lot shooting the breeze in my buddies car. I had purchased a 32 ounce can of cheap disgusting teenage partying alcohol on whim at some point in the trip and it was sitting in the back on the floor. Somehow when one of us threw a bag back there, the can got punctured and made it's newfound hole very obvious by emitting a pissing sound from the rear of the car. The next choice I made was an obligatory one for a man who had spent his day in the passenger seat of a Subaru wondering why he chose the hobby he did: I shotgunned the entire thing behind a strip mall. Now I'm not old but I'm exactly not at the age where you do that anymore, I'm surprised I was able to stomach the damn thing. Of course, before I could even come to terms with that decision, NA-1 departed south.
So we end up here, at the tower I wanted to shoot all day, and I'm not exactly stumbling like a fool but boy I was having a good time. After exchanging a few glances with the local folk hanging around and a quick glance at the tower, NA-1 finally showed up and somehow I was able to frame up a usable image. Now that this tower is no more, I'm very happy we stuck with our little sad train the whole way north on that February day, otherwise I'd have never even seen the tower.
I still know how to have fun.
Poof, it's Gone
The Concord tower on the B&M main through town is no more. A fire broke out inside of it recently, and although local historical groups have been trying to save it, CSX deemed the fire inside a concrete and brick building rendered it structurally unsound. Just the excuse they needed to mush it into a pile of memories so there was one less shelter for the increasingly problematic amount of people forced into homelessness in the city to call home for a night.
This photo was taken on one of the absolute worst trips that actually resulted in a train I've ever been a part of. My buddy and I wanted to shoot NA-1 because it runs through some interesting spots and usually utilized MEC 507 which wears the freshest Guilford paint on the roster. We were well aware she was a slow girl, but what we weren't aware of is that we were about to have the word slow redefined for us that day. 5 mph "chasing' when you have to hop a good way between interesting spots is absolutely mind numbing. We didn't get the unit we wanted but nowadays a Pam Am widecab is just that, a Pan Am widecab. You don't avoid shooting it. We spent half the day talking about completely unrelated topics while waiting to see this poor locomotive bumble its way North. Eventually we stomached enough boredom to make it to Concord, where the main photo interests of the day were.
While waiting for them to run around their train, we sat behind a Market Basket in the parking lot shooting the breeze in my buddies car. I had purchased a 32 ounce can of cheap disgusting teenage partying alcohol on whim at some point in the trip and it was sitting in the back on the floor. Somehow when one of us threw a bag back there, the can got punctured and made it's newfound hole very obvious by emitting a pissing sound from the rear of the car. The next choice I made was an obligatory one for a man who had spent his day in the passenger seat of a Subaru wondering why he chose the hobby he did: I shotgunned the entire thing behind a strip mall. Now I'm not old but I'm exactly not at the age where you do that anymore, I'm surprised I was able to stomach the damn thing. Of course, before I could even come to terms with that decision, NA-1 departed south.
So we end up here, at the tower I wanted to shoot all day, and I'm not exactly stumbling like a fool but boy I was having a good time. After exchanging a few glances with the local folk hanging around and a quick glance at the tower, NA-1 finally showed up and somehow I was able to frame up a usable image. Now that this tower is no more, I'm very happy we stuck with our little sad train the whole way north on that February day, otherwise I'd have never even seen the tower.
I still know how to have fun.