Fragment by Chipka
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Description
As one approaches a set of railroad tracks leading into what must surely be a scene from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, one passes a remnant of Chicago’s industrial past. This remnant of the old city lies within the boundaries of the old Hay Market; history, however, means little to the current residents of that western interstitial space: there are factories and warehouses: grim and ugly buildings, oozing with history. Newer constructions have erupted from the history (and blood) sodden soil. These are gleaming, angular growths: they’re miniaturized versions of those vast, domed arcologies so common in classic science fiction. They are worlds unto themselves: enclosed environments gleaming with blue glass.
I’m not interested in those: not when there are dead, rusty things nearby. There are living, rusty things as well: tanker cars detached from parent-trains. One may smell them long before they are seen. They exhale the scent of raw, unprocessed chocolate: it is an acrid, nutty redolence; it bears more in common with coffee and char than it does to the sweetened, brown, over-sweetened stuff often wrapped in garish packaging and emblazoned with names like Snickers and M&Ms. Chocolate beans pour from the undersides of tanker cars and vanish into street-level gratings. I shudder to think what may blow into those underground holding pens along with cocoa-beans, especially since so much of the region is filthy with desiccated industrial offal. I do like the desiccated industrial offal, and the enormous hunks of metal one may find, on occasion, when the toasty, acrid scent of raw chocolate looms in the air.
In taking this photograph, I thought that the immense tanker car was simply an abandoned piece of railroad equipment. I had no clue that it was a functional piece of cargo containment. I didn’t recognize its relationship to the scent of chocolate. I saw the stains and corrosions of salt, rust, and cryptic chemical ichors. I didn’t see the ancient tracks upon which this tanker car sat, and upon subsequent visits to the region, I’m amazed that trains (or at least fragments of them) are able to navigate those ancient, sunken, fossilized tracks. (When one exits the “pretty” parts of the city, one encounters the strange: it’s often as heavy as metal, tinged with rust and salt, and—on most days out of any given week—it is acrid with the scent of roasting cocoa beans.)
As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.
Comments (14)
beachzz
Pieces of things are always so interesting, especially when they're old, rusted and abandoned. All those details add to the wonderful quality of this shot---something about trains, too!!
rangeriderrichard
Excellent capture, and great description - I can smell it from here!
wysiwig
What an extraordinary example of industrial decay. It gives the strong impression that, like humans, when they have lived out their productive life, has been cast aside to end its days as a rusting hulk.
durleybeachbum
You would never guess what this reminded me of! We had a tennis court marker that got pushed with the white stuff coming out over the wheel to make the lines, a lot like this when it reached its dotage.
kgb224
Superb capture my friend. God bless.
photosynthesis
Why do we find images of rust & corrosion on old metal machinery so fascinating? Is it purely the visual richness & complexity or does it have something to do with the symbolism of decay? I'm thinking it's a little of both & this photo is a very fine example of the genre...
giulband
Beautiful image !!!!!
helanker
A beautiful shot of this nice rusty item :-) I like rusty things alot, maybe because I once had the luck to work with an archeologist for two years. Digging for bones, pottery and rusty things or even brass buckles. The best work I ever had in my intire life.
treasureprints
Cool rusty fragment!:)
Faemike55
love the rust!! I've always been fascinated by the rails and all that traveled on them, living and non-living to see them cast aside with no more thought of their potential is, in my mind, maddening - Where's the recycle, reuse. repurpose? Here we have giant machine gouging into the earth seeking these metals, when in reality, they are right there already pretty much cleaned up to be melted down and reused
MrsRatbag
Well done, Chip; what a great find, and so much beautifully textured flaky rust. Still in use? Amazing to me...great capture!
jendellas
Another interesting pic & thoughts. xx
KatesFriend
Ah yes, the seemingly abandoned rail car on an equally abandoned siding. This is such a common sight in so many places that still insist upon calling themselves places. When I think of the expression "rust belt" this is the kind of image to which my mind strays. Things that used to move much in a bygone era, now move only when you are not looking at them. Like ghost that still cling to the world in places who's names are slowly fading from the maps. Some say, this used to be an important place called Cataract or Limehouse. This image also brings to mind the last "in street" freight train I ever saw. The line was a forgotten remnant of a small city's (Waterloo, Ontario) former streetcar network. The spur had double duty moving freight in the off hours so it was retained when all its sister tracks were ripped out of the streets. The train itself looked like it might have been left over from the same era. Looking as physically neglected - rusted wheels like your shot - as the tracks it groaned over. Dead slow as they say, on a "quiet" Sunday afternoon the engine belched poorly burned diesel fumes into the muggy afternoon air. I can't imagine the shock and horror of the automobile driver who ended up directly ahead of this monster. Imagine looking in your rear view mirror and seeing a full fledged diesel locomotive trailing your bumper at the red light.
RaykesPictures
As a railroad man i like this one :-)