Criss-Cross ...

Criss-Cross ...

... or tracking the elusive electric Bumble Bee ...

I have long enjoyed shooting trains at various spots along the
Northeast Corridor with long telephoto lenses from high viewpoints.

The attraction is the inviting abstracts created by tele-compressing the complex, almost chaotic, patterns of overhead high voltage wires, insulators, and other infrastructure elements that make it all function. When I say “chaotic,” it is not to be taken literally, for since the Pennsylvania Railroad initially electrified its line from Washington to New York, the patterns of catenary speak to a huge engineering feat. Indeed, this would be true of any high-speed electrified mainline.

But the tele-compression does indeed create a complex angular maze in which the eye can — willingly — get “lost.” All the more so when one is looking down on the broad throat of Washington’s Union Station, where the catenary must follow all the complex cross-overs and interlockings to allow trains to often snake their way from full-left to full-right (or somewhere in-between) to access their assigned arrival tracks, on two levels.

What I like so much about the graphism of this particular “criss-crossing” of lines is the presence of the Amtrak “Bumble Bee” (former-) Metroliner control cab from which the engineer is controlling the ACS-64 “Sprinter” high-speed electric locomotive at the “back” end (which will be the front end, departing northbound in about two hours.

I should point out that this Amtrak consist is not the only diagonally striped equipment operating at Union Station, as both the MARC and Virginia Railway Express communter lines do have diagonal safety markings on their cab control cars, but the Amtrak consist is “special” here. While common on some Amtrak lines north of here, this trainset operates only on Sundays, as Train No.121, New York to Washington, and Train No.122 in the opposite direction. (Yes, of course, I stayed to shoot that movement as well — and many in between.)

©2024 Steve Ember