Rainy Day

Photographically, this may not have much to offer, having been taken through a rain-spattered windshield with a camera phone.

But at other levels it may say a lot.

The spot is probably my favorite rainy day trackside lurk. Not far from home, low key. There are better places for sunny days, and photography, so it is trackside, and doing "something different," which ameliorates the rainy day funk a bit.

This stretch often makes me think of other places I have been with similar arrangements. I once paced a steam locomotive (DB class 44 2-10-0, If I remember correctly) hauling a heavy coal train for several miles toward the Luxembourg border near Trier, Germany, in the late dusk along a similar arrangement of raised train track and screening trees. There are also the raised tracks in Tacoma toward Ruston. Many other places, over many years.

I also quietly admire that this is new: the recent double-tracking of the short stretch of single formerly here meant widening the roadbed, so from this angle at least, this is a new embankment, with new box-culverts. Not all change is loss.

Trains may not currently dominate my interests as they have for much of my life, but I still spend some time each week with railway books, be they about British branch lines, German Straßenbahnen, the cement & coal lines of Northeastern Pennsylvania, or whatever. I still go trackside, often to the same stretches of track.

I still enjoy taking pictures, sometimes with the big camera, sometimes with my phone.

Trains are still worth watching, still worth taking pictures of. Rain or sun.

Camera Phone

I got a new phone two weeks ago today & have been enjoying many things about it, not least its camera.

Duckunder

The pre-ship canal GN main, now Ballard Terminal trackage, ducks under the BNSF mainline near the locks.

Image from May 12, 2010. It took a while to grow on me.

Seaview

One of my favorite view spots is on Seaview Avenue Northwest, across from the new crossovers.

Today I had no sooner parked and opened my book when I heard a suspicious sound approaching.

Not only was it a train, but it was a rarity: a train of company business equipment, either inspecting or in transit.

This is a better place for watching than for photographing, especially to get more than just the locomotive(s).

So I went up the hill for a full-train shot. Hazy through the rain, but again, it is a favorite spot for watching, not photographing.

Away

Beach

Rocks

Builder

Once or twice a week I go to the Richmond Beach Library, and then down the hill to sit by the railroad tracks for a while. Sometimes I see a train, but mostly I don't react quickly enough to take a picture. Today the camera was already out and sitting on the console, and I had just enough warning to open the car door and make a snap shot through the gap next to windshield pillar. Had to be straightened & cropped, so the result is just a snapshot, but it does prove that trains still go by.

Sounder

Many mornings I have the objective of trying to get down to the beach in time to watch a Sounder or two go by. Sometimes it happens, but not often enough, and when it does, I don't often get pictures.

I get down in the evening even less often, but did today.

I wasn't in position to get the image I might have wanted but decided to take a shot anyway. And with the light not being what I wanted, I thought it was a great opportunity to play with conversion to black & white.

I think it turned out better than the color version, below. The color has been tweaked to make it look more like Spring & less like Autumn. My monitor is so bad that I'm not sure how the results will look to someone with a good monitor. But then you never know how the colors will look to someone with a lousy (or badly adjusted) monitor, so there you are.

Streetcar

I have been admiring the Streetcars from downtown to Lake Union since they started, and have made several visits, somehow without taking pictures or with only "inadequate" pictures.

This is an "inadequate" picture taken through the windshield of my car.

But I kind of like it.

I thought maybe by posting it, I would be more motivated to return to make more of an effort. Maybe even ride.