I don’t know if railroads take me back to a time when life was simpler, or if it’s the giant engines pulling hundreds of tons in goods and people, or the way tracks hold trains to an immutable path, but they get to me. I want to catch the steel wheels of the great steam engines or the motion of a high speed train against the invariable background. I like subways and elevated trains, monorails, and would love to catch up with a MAGLEV train. I want to honor the men who built these rails against extraordinary odds and under constant oppression, and those who continue to ride the railroads.
Train photos, for me, make up more than the engine and cars. Tracks and crossing gates and switches…everything about the effort it takes to move behemoth machines of steel and graffiti around a web of rails, wood, and spikes…seems photogenic in detail or on the whole.
Someday I want to take a train across this continent, or another. I’d love open air cars where the varied landscapes could all be taken in and photographed with their accompanying scent and sounds, and without the restraint of soulless glass. I’m probably about 100 years too late for that…