Living near six abandoned railroads (if you don’t include the horsedrawn line) in a town that has not seen a train since 1989, doing the old “stopping by the tracks to see if anything is moving,” kind of railfanning, I am limited to some of the grittier areas of LA, as they are the only things within less than a hour’s drive.
Here are three shots to share… oddly although recent, already of locomotives that I no longer see in service.
First is of a pair of GP35s pulling baretables over the Los Angeles River in Vernon. While I like this shot, the bridge that I stood on to take this shot is not a good place to hangout. Way too many homeless around on the weekends, and no place to park on the weekdays.
Second is of the same set of GP35s headng under the Olympic Bridge. This is also and in and out shot, as there’s really no place to park or hang out here (although the shot is taken from the public road).
Finally, we have some Dash 8s entering the street running section of McFarland in Wilmington. As noted in the caption, when I stopped to wait for this train (on a public road, at a spot where parking was legal), two junkyard dogs came up to the car. They only moved off when a police cruiser pulled up behind me and questioned me (the conversation was very pleasant and the police said that I could keep shooting).
Great shots Charles. I feel ya’. I worked at Century cable, 2939 Nebraska, for many years. There wasn’t much to see near by. Spent a lot of time building HO models insted of railfanning though [;)][swg] I did spend a lot of time exploreing the LA / river area in some of the most ‘sketchy’ areas around. I didn’t sweat the neighborhoods too much, but I also didn’t break out my camera in those spots [:O].
The only exposure most of us have had to the areas where you indicated the photos were taken is on the little screen [TV] and in movies. At best, not any neighborhoods I’d want to spend much time. Thanks, for taking the time and chance to shoot some interesting photos.
Mostly, what is seen of some of your photos around here is the graffiti part. You have to wonder if the neighborhoods where you shot your pictures are where some of tha’railroad art’ originates. I was caught at the crossing in Mulvane last noight when a merchandise train came through. I lost count of the number of cars decorated, not to mention, a whole bunch of pretty white BNSF reefers. Even the DPU helper cut in about thirty cars from FRED was tagged!
Do not want to lead off in another direction or take anything away from your photos. Thanks, for sharing!
While I doubt all of it comes from downtown LA, I would say that downtown LA is a tremendous source of the grafitti scourge.
I can only hope I am around to see the day it goes away, the way it went away from the New York City subway system (where it used to be unbelievablly bad and is now barely a problem).
Great shots, Charles. It has been a long time since I have had much desire to head north to LA; Orange County is bad enough. I suspect that most Angelinos see the Olympic bridge and its brethren on TV or at the movies, if they see them at all these days.
I notice in the first shot the top of the Sears Soto Street building peeking up over the bridge. ABout fifty years ago, I accompanied my dad to pick up some darkroom gear out of the Sears Catalog. As I recall, he placed the order down on the first floor and we waited for close to an hour for them to pick the merchandise and bring it down from the upper floors. Thus started a period of my life where I actually got to enjoy the smell of acetic acid and mild sulfur dioxide fumes, from which I apparently suffered no long-term ill effects (contrary to any spousal opinions).
I still miss the Sears catalog, and for that matter the black widows that I would hear a couple of miles from the farm as they made their way to and from Plaster City.
Dang! I’m running low on my Geritol. Must head to the general store now.
as to Chuck’s post, I too miss the Sears catalog… as a child I loved the toy section… as a very young adolecent I liked the young woman models… hard to blieve that such a standard from our lives has gone away…
the building itself has long supposed to be turned into condos (with the retail store remaining open on the bottom floor)… not sure what has happened to it, but the environment for such conversations has turned, so don’t hold your breath.
love the smell of acetic acid and sulfar dioxide… but I don’t miss that fact that I was terrible in the darkroom (scratches and dust on everything I did).
I’ll add one to that: I can still remember the excitement I got when the {red}, flashlight shaped like a lantern type light arrived from sending for it in the catalog…With 2 D batteries sitting side by side perpendictular to the front of the light. 2 chrome wire type handles on hinges on it’s back side, to hold on to the light…Price: 39 cents…!! I’m going way back…probably right around 1940.
I was reasonably decent in the darkroom after a while, though I really did have to get pretty adept with Spotone and a brush. I did have a mystery one time, where several prints came up with crisp fingerprints, which I first attributed to somehow getting fixer on my hands, which turned out to be a cut that was bleeding and I was leaving red fingerprints on the paper before I exposed it. They sure never mentioned that possibility in Popular Photography!
As for the Sears Christmas catalog, over which I drooled more than any later issues of Playboy, the big thing was the Gilbert Chemistry sets. The big one was always my dream. Unfortunately, my folks were probably correct in never getting me the “big one” which I am sure is one of the reasons our house survived as well as it did.
Oh, and the train sets were pretty cool, too, and I did get a couple of those that bring back fond memories. (Just to sort of keep this on topic.)
Sitting in the Midwest like I am and having never seen locomotives that have been tagged by the graffiti artists, I would have to say that is one major indication that you are in a less than desirable neighborhood. Think I’ll stay away.