Steel That Goes Left, Steel That Goes Right-Pt. 2

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Ghost rails.  Not a "ghost train", which is a fairly popular form of literature, but ghost rails, which once were there, led somewhere and sadly are no longer there.

Proof of the transitory nature of reality - even the one that is just outside our doors, experienced like I'm experiencing the laundromat I'm typing in - lies in the picture at right.

The Union Train station is gone - the Union Square Plaza, Portland's most useful shopping mall - is in its place.  Only one track is left from all the lines that headed West - even the ballast on the right of way is coming undone, loose and gravelly.  

This is where I came out after meeting with our Brothers of the Underpass.  I had been walking on an active rail line to this point.  Now I was encountering leftover places - places that had could be put to no use anymore, places just sitting and mouldering.

I enjoyed it.  Perhaps the very fluidity leading to their abandonment would bring something new and unexpected in their place.  At the very last the bridges, rocks and trees were an impromptu canvas for all kind of new artworks - not only spray paint tags but improvised sculptures of rocks and rails, intentional or not.

So I did get a lazy, low-flying eagle-eye view of traffic at the end of Park Street, where the rebuilt McDonald's rears its caloric head.  The legality of my POV wasn't exactly clear and I was certain a carload of Portland's finest would catch me up and drag me off for trespassing.

I worry about a lot of things.  None of them important, that's how I keep up such a large number.

The bridge also overlooks Hadlock Field, home of Portland's own Sea Dogs - and a huge new toy that's been calling out to me during each of the twenty or more years I've lived in Portland - namely the iron truss bridge for the Back Bay spur line.

It actually has a very thin catwalk.  You almost have to cross from tie to tie in order to stay upright.  This makes it a little nerve-wracking.  It also makes it fun.

Very quickly the rails lead you into an urban jungle, rails overgrown and almost invisible with grass, vines and even small trees.

There is a path running along the side - people obviously use it as a shortcut - I can imagine bicycles racing down the path starting at Deering Oaks, continuing behind the Ballpark.

Groundskeepers work on the field - even two weeks after the Sea Dogs were knocked out of the playoffs.  You can see the guts of the lighthouse that rises for homeruns by the hometeam.

I-295 closes in on your left.  You can almost reach around the bushes and touch the cars going by at turnpike speeds.  

Then Fitzpatrick Stadium, home of the Portland High School football team, out in force running scrimmages for both varsity (in the stadium) and junior varsity (on the practice field of Deering Oaks).  I managed to get some shots of both, particularly some special teams practice for kickoffs.

You can see downtown - City Hall and the brick facade of Portland High School itself from the rails.  It's a strange vantage point, one that you don't see unless you undertake such galavanting about.

The contrast affected me deeply - how odd to see and feel such energy; the highway, the new rails, the city and all of the students working out all in the moment, all heading forward.

And, at the same time, the passing, rusting rails.  They weren't passenger rails but freight.  The line would continue across Forest, the town's main East/West artery, behind the post office and through the now-developing Bayside area.  It must have been busy and it must have been important - enough so for a two-track bridge to carry it across Park Street.

Simple observation tells me that a lot has changed - even in the twenty years of my residence here, a lot has changed.

Maybe, just maybe, this rings so deeply with me because I have changed.  Taking my new job, writing new music and living my life with a new depth - all might make me more sensitive to transitions, to seeing things as past, present and future.

The Cherokee language has several ways of expressing an experience of time that is continuous.  Perhaps this expresses itself in my interest in the layers of life around me.

Well, the rails end and so did my walk.  There is one more side to the city I have to walk, along the water to the old bridge by the bean factory.  I'm very curious as to what it will lead me to.