In preparation for cross season I’m forcing myself (like it’s a chore) to ride my cross bike more often. So I took it to work and gave the fixed the day off. It’s funny how I have 3 routes for work, depending on what bike I’m on: fixed, road, or cross. No matter what bike I choose, a third of my commute is through downtown Baltimore but the cross bike means I take some short dirt paths around a junkyard, along some train tracks and under I95. Below are a few photos from tonight’s ride home.

Arby.

Below: After blasting a tiny section of dirt path, behind a book binding factory, completely littered with , well, everything you could think of, I pop out on the tracks and travel across a bridge spanning a nasty river. When I get to the other side I see the usual: cars full of munched up scrap metal. I climb, I snap, I keep moving.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420077.JPG

Below: Looking into a car - I think this is what Huffy uses for their tubing...
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420076.JPG

Below: A mile down the tracks I find a string of old dead Chessie Cat cars and I take the standard bike-in-front-of-stuff photo.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420075.JPG

Below: That Chessei Cat logo is cool I think.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420074.JPG

Below: One end of the string.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420073.JPG

Below: I'm going to go back and shoot this again, because it has potential, but someone wedged this painting on masonite in the step ladder of this super ancient locomotive.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420072.JPG

Below: The super ancient Locomotive.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/2007/traincommute/july2420071.JPG

Great photos.

Abandoned old industrial stuff is sad and neat at the same time. When I first saw the C&O Canal I realized it is an abandoned industrial site-sad and neat.

Great post and a good place to go back to with the good camera.

Art work on trains seems to me to be the biggest gallery that life offers for free because where else do you have such a large audience? Good stuff!

Arby nice stuff; I'm glad you are posting again. Cheers.

Great shots. Amazing stuff.

How's your Pista these days? Don't seem to be seeing too much of it.

Great shots. Amazing stuff.

How's your Pista these days? Don't seem to be seeing too much of it.

The Pista's good, she's due for a new chain and chainring but other than that she's just fine!

Cool photos! I like old trains.

That locomotive is a GG1. It was an electric locomotive built in the late 1930s to early '40s. Some remained in service into the 1980s.

Cool photos! I like old trains.

That locomotive is a GG1. It was an electric locomotive built in the late 1930s to early '40s. Some remained in service into the 1980s.

Thanks for the info, I was curious about that myself. I saw the electric "contactors"? on the top and was wondering what was up with it. Also, there is a door on the very front of the locomotive that I crawled up and looked in. What I saw was a toilet. I have the photos at home. I wasnt' expecting to see that. The nose of the train seemed to be relatively empty.

Arby.

Also, there is a door on the very front of the locomotive that I crawled up and looked in. What I saw was a toilet.The crew had to pewp somewhere.

The GG1 was a well known design because of the sleek bodywork. I did some digging and apparently the unit you saw is one of 16 surviving examples. Here's another pic:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/GG1/prr4876.jpg

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRR_GG1) says:

PRR 4876 — B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, MD (as of Spring 2006, in rapidly deteriorating condition); the GG1 was languishing in a CSX Yard south of downtown Baltimore (seen from Interstate 95 northbound between Washington Boulevard and Maryland 295), but as of summer 2006 has been moved back onto museum property. Restoration plans are unknown.


Here is another picture of GG-1 #4876 in the lobby of Washington DC's Union Station in 1953:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/CrashedGG1.jpg

This incident slightly disrupted President Eisenhower's inauguration ceremonies. Amazingly, the locomotive was cut up, removed, re-assembled, and returned to service. So you actually stumbled on a little piece of history there. :thumbsup:

That's awesome! Thanks for digging that up! Are you just a train nut or do you work in the rail industry? (and are a train nut) I work for an engineering firm in SW Baltimore that designs, manufactures and installs the interiors of Amtrak rail cars.

Back in my salad days when I was working on Capitol Hill between college and law school (1980), I went on a congressional tour to test the AEM-7, the successor to the GG1. We went from DC to New York on a train pulled by the AEM-7 and then returned on a train pulled by a GG1. There was an elegance and subatance to the GG1 that the AEM-7 just did not have. But, the GG1 was a dinosaur even then and all of them were retired soon thereafter.

I know some people who have connections at the B&O railroad museum. The next time I see them I will ask what their plans are for PRR 4876.

Just a train nut. This stuff was sort of fresh in my mind because I was reading some stuff about the GG-1s just a couple of months ago.

Nice stuff. I love the old trains. There's a bunch up here at Virginia City. I should ride over and photograph 'em. Maybe this weekend. . ., but I love your pics of it all. My problem is I like crawling all through that kind of stuff. Gets me in trouble some time.

That is good stuff Arby.

Awesome historical info. As an English teacher I am big on context (I teach a lot of history along with the literature). The context here adds to the enjoyment of the pictures.