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The Tracks
They’re gone now, the tracks, for some reason, a sad sight, an overwhelming image, of the heavy metal tracks cut raw and jagged at the roads edge by a strong welding cutting tool in the middle of the night by men wearing dark coloured overalls, black oil stained steel toed safety boots with layers of sweat rolling down their cheeks to the edge of the mouth where the taste of yesterdays beer settled on a thirsty tongue, as muscles torked the hardened steel tools’ well worn handle and sparks flew into the night sky like Dominion Day Fireworks, or akin to the sparks by welders at the Ford plant in a photo taken by Yousuf Karsh.
Who will remember the tampered sounds of all those feet trudging rhythmically on top of the creosote laden railroad ties, for many, a chance to encounter a pittance of danger between steps, for those brave enough to go foot in front of foot on the slick track itself while counting the paces to enter in the lifetime track walking achievement awards, who will remember.
Will anyone recall the old forlorn pissy smelling drunks sitting often by the edge of the rail line, sipping Kelly’s Sherry in the mid day sun, I, too shy to impose the lens on this scene of unusual calm and peacefulness. Across the road the graveyard weeps along with these men lost in life, what do they grieve, lost loves, their sorrows, what do they grieve, they grieve a life that will be forgotten when the tracks are gone, I doubt they will install benches for those to sit and ponder the mid day sun, I doubt they will.
Those tracks could tell plenty of tales of days gone by, when the factories were a plenty and the box cars ran full of goods for those plants where men and women, mostly now retired would wait on those goods so transported and turn them into a variety of articles for sale, for commerce, those jobs too are long gone, gone, some say to other countries who envied us and now we envy them with unkind unfounded jealous slurs, not knowing that when the going was good here, it was as good as it could ever be.
The embankment at the end of the street below the train line near Ray Avenue was the closest thing to a park in my young life. Would I have been five or six or so, playing in shorts and black rubber soled running shoes, a striped t shirt. In the pants pockets I would carry some toy treasures, a couple of faded steel Matchbox cars for sure, perhaps a nail that took the place of a forbidden jack knife, boys things. For hours I would sit there making indentations in the dry soil, like the boys in the old film about the French Foreign Legion, Beau Geste. At dinner time, mom would send someone down the street to find me playing alone, content, under the boughs of trees this side of the tracks. Later as I aged I got more daring and would climb under the weak rail fencing onto the track area itself. One time we found sticks of flares along the rail bed, red, one foot long flares with nails in the ends to stick into the rail ties and light, I suppose to warn the other trains of this obstacle. We took the flares to our hide out that wasn’t hidden very well in a dying oak tree that grew or had grown between the two sets of tracks, one for each rail line, the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific. Somehow we had built rickety steps up ten or so feet to a fort that was quite dangerous, nevertheless, it was our fort and no one could go on it except us. We’d put pennies on the track from time to time just before the supper time train would go by then rush over to find them on the side flattened out to the size of a quarter, still warm from the heat of the trains wheels and sheer weight. A penny, they’re gone now, would buy something back then, a candy that looked like a black marble, a piece of Bazooka gum, a book of matches. Pop bottles could be found around the factories where they were building new places, the regular size bottles got two cents the bigger bottles were worth a nickel, a popsicle cost a nickel at Furman the Germans store.
Down from our fort the older guys, Billy Wilson who was a lot older than us had a real underground fort, his brother Dougie took me there one day to show it off, he’d have been in deep shit if his older brother Billy found out. Billy was one of those guys like a no name biker, who didn’t own a motorcycle but looked like a motorcycle guy, like them Black Diamond Rider guys. All them guys had curly Q hair dos with duck tails, they rolled up the cuffs of their Carharrt blue jean pants, and were good at looking tough, that was the fifties, at least what I can remember of it. One day, we went to the underground fort and it had been bulldozed in by the railroad workers, someone said it was dangerous and that it could have caved in and killed someone. Then further down the factory area there was another fort that the Wilfords were using, they were a big family like ours, but protestants, I went there one day with Duke the boxer dog, and two of the Wilfords were there and they were starting to jerk the dog off and I thought that was a bit weird, doing that to a dog, I took off and never went back there.
If you wanted to be alone, the tracks was a great place to go, you’d hardly ever run into anyone, and if you did, well, they wanted to be alone as well. I remember my old mom telling me as I would head out to school, ‘don’t do anything wrong, cause I have a little bird following you’, mom, bless her soul. It was a fifteen minute walk down the tracks to the big street Eglinton Avenue which ran beside the Kodak factory, an immense assembly of buildings. Come to think of it, walking on them tracks, the silence, except for the sound of nature, being there was maybe my first Zen experience.
Somehow, I came across a stack of old mens magazines, the kind you weren’t supposed to look at and I pleasured myself down on the tracks behind the Moores factories, I don’t know what come over me, but I liked it. One time a gypsy girl who lived on my street, placed her hot lips on mine, I was only eleven, I know cause dad was still alive and somehow he found out that Zeila was kissing me, probably from one of the younger brothers or my sister Suzanne, and dad was pleased as punch about this, so pleased that I got teased and have never forgotten that kiss on the tracks between the two rail lines, nor my blushing.
I guess, a lot of guys and girls lived by the tracks over the years, working class children, I should ask them all, the few remaining, their stories of the tracks. A few years later those same tracks hid me from the cops as I ran away from that incident on the Hearst Circle when Hish and I had taken that 56 Chevvy on a joy ride from Dennis Avenue, I remember clearing the fence at the Ferranti Packard plant and walking along those safe tracks to home, only to have the police knock on the door at two in the morning, after Hish ratted on me and they piled me in a car and took me downtown to the Juvenile Detention Centre on Jarvis street, I may have been fifteen…mom, dear mom, she had to come downtown and get me out, which was a real burden for her, having those other kids at home to look after, the younger ones, Sue, Kevin, Shane and Barbara. I remember her worrying about getting back to the house, poor soul.
So yesterday, when I saw those tracks gone, here in this town, it kinda spilled open the jar, I couldn’t understand, for some time what I was mourning, but I now know, I mourn for all of us who lived and played by the tracks, our park, our early experiences. I mourn. And to the weeping man born in a boxcar overseas, I mourn our short lost friendship, I mourn.
Shot for the Mission24 group. This weeks mission. "Track". In order to stay on track as an agent I needed to get something submitted. I havent been off track since joining back in May. Hopefully Bill is keeping a track record of all my submissions. Some day I will make spook.
Veel half-tracks die na de oorlog in europa achter bleven werden hergebruikt door aannemers en het bedrijfsleven. In Nederland was een bedrijf dat deze voertuigen modificeerde voor civiel gebruik.
Op de foto een Autocar M2 halftrack verbouwd naar een vracht-kraanwagen, intensief gebruikt door aannemer I.C.Kooijman in kust- en oeverwerken.
Dit is hetzelfde voertuig als te zien is op deze foto van de berging van een Landrover in het drijfzand.
Op de foto staat de Halftrack op een bak om afgevoerd te worden naar de wal. Het lot van dit voertuig is onbekend.
Nog een voorbeeld van een dergelijk voertuig in gebruik door een aannemer is hier te vinden.
Hier nog een Halftrack omgebouwd tot brandweervoertuig.
5/10/2022 © Mike Orazzi
Track & Field, Shepaug, Litchfield High School vs Northwestern Regional High School in Winsted, Conn.
andyarthur.org/adirondacks/vanderwhacker/blue-ledges/phot...
Blue Ledges on Saturday May 4, 2013.
Copyright (c)2013 Andy Arthur. Creative Commons License.
I haven't seen many other Test Track photos on here so while walking past the long line, i noticed the lighting above. I had this great idea to create the starburst effect through my lens. It looks like it worked pretty well!
Track panel replacement north of Queensboro Plaza on the Astoria N/W lines on Sat., August 4, 2018, the second of three weekends of work. (G.O. 5448-18.)
Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit
Railroad spur track highlighted in late afternoon light against shadow.
Available for licensing on Stockafe
Some more work on the Krauss Maffei 7/1 flak half track. Finally got the tracks assembled, painted and put onto the chassis. Painting those rubber blocks on the tracks took ages!
Walking the Race Track as part of a Fundraiser for the local Food Bank & the Canandain Cancer Society.
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*CINELLI* gazzetta complete bike
BLUE LUG custom
SPEC
Frame: *CINELLI* gazzetta complete bike
Front Wheel: *H PLUS SON* × *HALO* track hub
Rear Wheel: *H PLUS SON* × *HALO* track hub
Tire: *GRAN COMPE*ss tire (orange)
Brakelever: *DIA-COMPE* 122(silver)
Pedal: *THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY* ravager pc pedal (white)
Stem: *CINELLI* ant stem (white)
Handle: *CINELLI* pepper rised bar (white)
Grip: *OURY * mountain grip (orange)
Seatpost: *KALLOY*
Saddle: *CINELLI* unicanitor saddle (white)