Pond

This pond is behind Waverly Park Apartments in southwest Lansing, Michigan; it's at the center of this aerial photo. There's a story.

Sometime in 1988 I discovered that Waverly Park (my home at the time) has a diagonal boundary because the property line was originally defined by the Lansing/Jonesville branch of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, a line which was laid in 1869. Although the right-of-way was abandoned in 1940, the trace of that line still shows on the land; for instance, the right-of-way straightened the far edge of this pond. I rather like to imagine a New York Central 0-6-0 puffing by with a short passenger train in tow; it should be whistling for the crossing at what was then called Packard....

This photo dates from 1988 or 1989. The camera was a point-n-shoot 110. Not bad for a cheap camera....

This track has traces for 60 miles. I imagine I'll show you more of them as I stumble across my photographs.