Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Thrall Car and Thunder Clouds


I read in the local paper that many of the burned-out rail cars sitting on the tracks near Commercial Street have recently, finally, been scrapped. As I mentioned a while ago in this blog, they posed a safety hazard when drifters sought shelter in them and started fires. I went over to see what was still left a few days ago, just as the electric storm clouds that were to ignite so many fires were forming overhead. This Thrall Car must have passed inspection.

9 comments:

Nathalie H.D. said...

Nice photo and interesting comment.
I really enjoyed reading your widownmaker post about redwood too.

But of course the big news is the fire. I hope your mom's home emerges untouched. You must be going through some pretty trying moments. Fingers crossed.

Olivier said...

j'aime les photos avec de la rouille, cela donne de belles couleurs

I like the pictures with rust, it gives beautiful colors

Kym said...

I agree about the beautiful colors. That is one of my favorite photos I've seen on your blog!

Hope all is well with your mom.

Knoxville Girl said...

I can't understand how people could stay in these cars - they must get hot as blazes. But Olivier is right - the rust color is actually very attractive.

Meead said...

Elain, sorry to hear about the fire! I hope all is well with your mom and others in the city.

I missed your blog for a few days. Nice pics! (specially the Acorns)

Pasadena Adjacent said...

I like how the strong vertical lines of the composition dissect the photo into three near equal parts. The soft light and primary colors. Lovely.

Dina said...

Don't tell my mother, R.I.P., but when I was little my two friends and I sneaked into the nearby freight yards (in Chicago) and played on and in the boxcars and caboose. The boys jumped off the top of the boxcars into a lower one loaded with sand. I was not so brave (or stupid). Lucky for us the trains never started moving in the middle of our games. Those were the days of the coal-burning locamotives. Anything about trains was exciting.
Thanks for the picture to remind me.

Petrea Burchard said...

This is my favorite sort of photo, and you excel at this kind, USE. It has an understated perfection to it, a symmetry of entropy (one of my favorite words, as Palm Axis knows). I think this is a beautiful shot.

USelaine said...

Thank you all for coming by. As you will see from my fire posts, my mom and her house are fine.

I find the backsides of things appealing too, and rust, and weather-worn scenes and objects. I have a dozen more shots like this, but I like to keep a mix of things on the blog. When things are less busy, I'll try to take more advantage of my Overflow blog. You are all so kind.

KG - This is one sort of car the transients couldn't get into, but there were passenger type cars nearby as well.