Selkirk - Rochester - Buffalo - Cleveland - Selkirk

[anost]

Dropped off on Bridge Street under the inbound overpass, staying in the shadows past the bright lights of the South departure yard. Intermittent drizzle and 8 hours of waiting. Junk heading east, two NJ bound double-stacks at once, nothing for 4 hours, not even the screech and bang of humped cars. Junk from Hamlet NC, 3am, soggy spirits and mirages on the horizon. Come on! Come on! Lights in the distance on inbound track, backpacks on. Trash empties from Oak Point. Let down.

4am, our saving grace. Q161 outta Selkirk on a rainy Thursday morning. Lucky day, one rideable 48. Mohawk river during morning twilight, fog along the Erie Canal. Amsterdam, Fonda, Utica, Rome, Onieda, Syracuse, little Clyde . Train slowed down enough through E. Rochester, bailed on the fly. Visited some old friends, Wegmans, explored some abandoned subway tunnels, met some artists down there, fire on Durand Beach, learned to forage for wild plants and mushrooms, got so much good food on the cheap at the Saturday Market. Left on Sunday for Buffalo c-c to try and get back to Selkirk for Memorial Day.


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2am, mainline not far west of Depew. Dying flashlight, scanner channels all locked out, fucked up while trying to ride a waiting IM 1 mile into Frontier. All empties, picked up speed too fast, shoulda known better. Goodbye Buffalo! Ohio bound. Full moon ride and a nice sunrise over Ashtabula, Ohio. Ended up in Collinwood at 7am on the dot. Lesson learned, don't be lazy. Quickly realized I didn't have the page for Cleveland EBDs in my CCG. There's never good times for bad things to happen, and comparatively, this was not our day.

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Broken fence bordering I-90, we walked closer to the yard. Gawked at, hard, by every Monday morning commuter on St. Claire Ave. One driver tipped his hat. Spotted by a hand switching worker by the fuel station while peeking out behind the billboard "jungle". Broad daylight. Fuck this place. Walked down to 168th. Sand dunes. Wrong spot! EBD changed crews further ahead. Walked to 179th, hopped an unneeded fence. Two EBD IMs stopped. Shoulda been a cakewalk. Lot's of exposed piggybacks and one mini well. Someone at the yard office across the tracks spots us between strings. Starts investigating. Fuck this. Run further up tracks, find a ravine behind a building.

6 hours laying low, patchy sleep on broken glass, tahini out of the jar, non use of train symbols on the scanner, not much of anything on the scanner, Auto-rack pulls out, EBD IM flys by, junk pulls up, rain starts. 3 pm, Canadian grainer down the way, hide in there. 10 minutes later, Q010 pulls up next door. UPS piggies, one with long side wings. Fuck riding junk, grab the piggy, tear outta Cleveland rocking and bouncing. Cigarettes running low, covered in axle grease, salmon outta the can, flying through eastern Ohio, Erie wine country, Buffalo during the golden hour, sunset through Rochester, cold and sleep to Utica, Cleveland to Selkirk in 10hours. Happy Memorial Day.

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[Matt Derrick]

nice story man, i fucking love the pictures!

it's crazy, ive been to that subway tunnel, i have a ton of awesome pics i need to put online. here's one of my favorites:

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[anost]

Thanks, I really lucked out with the gold light. Those tunnels were pretty awesome. My friend mentioned them earlier that weekend, but didn't give a detailed description. I was poking along the river walkway and stumbled on the aquaduct entrance. Rochester is surprisingly full of awesome, hidden gems. Those tunnels must be great at night. Nice photo.

 

[Tude]

My town!! And yeah there are a lot of pretty cool things here. I was just down by the old subway this past week - saw a few people there as well. Couple weeks ago was pretty wild here --- main street was shut down as they were filming a new spiderman movie here - chase scenes and lots of shoot outs - this is supposed to be the first 6-8 minutes of the movie.

 

[crustythadd23]

Thanks for sharing. Great Pics!

 

[wildboy860]

ive been to those tunnels a few times. you have to walk all the way through them to get the full effect. somebody took this hazsmat suit and hung it up over the pipes way high up, its a lil creepy but it was fun.

 

[anost]

We walked all the way through. The ending was pretty abrupt. They get a little creepy once you get to that staircase to nowhere and the grates letting a little light in.