Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: U.S.A.

There isn't anything important about this photo, also from the video camera. Notice that an Extra Value Meal is listed at $579. Weak dollar.... :-) :-) :-)

This was my first train photo in the U.S. in a long time. I took this in Fonda, NY, because I noticed that the gates at the Broadway crossing were activated and walked over to see if I could get something. I took video initially, and this is a still capture that my Panasonic can do. This was a work train, sitting in the siding, and the crossing gates kept going on a off, which I'm hoping CSX dealt with eventually. The locomotive is an EMD SD50-2, which is a rebuilt SD50 downgraded to 3,000 horsepower (from the stock 3,500). CSX primarily uses these on MOW (work) trains at the moment.

This is the other projector. I don't know if it was one of the two originals, but it seems likely.

I took this in the Strand Theater, which is really a cinema, in Old Forge New York. This is one of two 1930's Simplex projectors in their collection, but this one was actually installed in the cinema in-period, in 1934. They claim to have had two, but I don't actually know if the other one was theirs in the old days. They would not have been the originals, though, as the cinema dates to 1923, according to the website. A new Simplex projector was supposedly acquired in 1993 to replace the two old ones.

Here's a detail of the second projector.

Here's the station building in Harrisburg. I don't know the date of construction, but it's obviously from the 1920s or 1930s, and built by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It now hosts primarily Amtrak passenger services.

Yes, this really is New York City. A few years ago I saw an amazing panorama of lower (southern) Manhattan from a JetBlue flight, and kicked myself for not photographing it. I've been trying to get another chance ever since, and once again this year I failed. I did get a little bit of the lesser-known parts of New York, though. This is upper (northern) Manhattan, and you can see the north end of Central Park down there, featuring the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, not used since a year before it was named as such. It was built in 1862, meaning it was in service 1862-1993, receiving water from the famous Croton aqueduct, as it was never big enough to be a collecting reservoir.

Yeah, yeah, I know that this photo is overexposed a bit. I didn't have any studio lights, so I had to use my built-in flash. I still wanted to post this in order to show everybody one of the few interesting things still made in Central New York. :-) Saranac is not actually a brewery, but F.X. Matt's most popular brand of beer. To be more precise, the name is used on many, many different beers marketed by F.X. Matt, and now makes up the vast majority of sales. I just found a couple of sixpacks to photograph, one of "Season's Best," which is only produced (to a different recipe every year, or so I've heard) at Christmas, and another of Saranac Smooth Lager. On March 17th of this year the brewery suffered a fire during a construction project, but only the bottling plant was damaged and as of this past Monday it was back in operation. Although there was $10m in damage, making it, supposedly, the most costly fire in Utica's history, the brewery received mass support from the public, and not only continued to enjoy success, but also received visitors on its brewery tour before production even restarted. Less happily, it is one of the only factories in Utica which still runs, and Saranac is now one of the only brands of anything still associated with Utica, NY.

Here's a shot of Amtrak #166 (on the left), which is a G.E. Genesis P42 diesel, and an unidentified AEM7 (on the right), coupled to some Amfleet cars at Harrisburg. The sign in the foreground is, of course, the station sign, sporting the post-1999 Amtrak logo.

I had surprisingly good luck with my Contina on my Carousel trip, and it was actually a good thing that I brought it, since I had originally not known about Destiny USA or any of the absurdities associated with it. Again, nothing against American Eagle, as I suspect the situation in Syracuse would coerce them into locating at Carousel regardless of their preference. I was just at Carousel to shop for Christmas, and I found the whole thing thoroughly amusing to boot. All of the greenwashing was so preposterously, transparently dishonest that it was like something out of The State, The Daily Show, The Onion, or Monty Python, except, it was real, which maybe made it far funnier. I think the only things that kept me from laughing insanely were that, first of all, it was all so depressing as well, and that second of all, when you're under constant surveillance and harrassment from security, even taking photos can be risky, so the combination of photography and laughing is sure to subject you to serious trouble. Human emotions aren't allowed in malls, you know. :-) In any case, to explain what I love about this photo.....First of all, I was amazed at how well the Contina was able to deal with the limited indoor light, but on the other hand there are those massive skylights overhead, which illustrate how natural light has a far stronger effect on film than artificial light. The whole mall is quite bright in the daytime, and I'm sure that if the power went out, it would only be a serious problem for the cash registers and the computer/electronics stores. A very hot or cold day might present problems for climate control, too, but not until the indoor temperature change, which could take awhile. Therefore....if Destiny USA were serious, first of all about the environment, and second of all about profit, they would only use the lighting after dark................. Look carefully. Right under one of their greenwash signs, in the upper left, is a light blazing in broad daylight, under the skylights. Look around the photo carefully and you'll see that all of the other lights are lit, too. This is no doubt costing Pyramid (and the other businesses involved) a fortune, in addition to wrecking the environment by raising demand for electricity, something that nearly every environmental group has been begging people to deal with since the 1970s. If you combine this with the cars, the lack of public transport, and so on...you get the picture. The whole thing was a living satire, and it reinforced the impression I get whenever I'm in the U.S., that ever I go back, the problems have gotten worse, with little action done except to make them worse.

I didn't do too much train watching on my most recent trip to the U.S., but I did manage to snap some pictures in Harrisburg on my way through. These material handling cars are used by Amtrak for mail and parcels, and are coupled to Amtrak's regular trains. Basically converted boxcars his makes them the fastest boxcars, and the fastest non-passenger cars, in the U.S., as some operate (in mail service) as fast as 110 m.p.h.

When I was at Carousel at the end of 2007, it was undergoing a renovation into a new complex which will be called, in Orwellian fashion (When are we going to come up with a better metaphorical author than Orwell??? I'm sick of him.) Destiny USA. Pyramid Companies, who own Carousel/Destiny, hope that when complete, the complex will be larger than the Mall of America, which could easily make it the largest such facility in the U.S., and probably the world. As one can see from the condition of Ontrack, and from all of these electric transformers to feed the mall's 24-hour lighting (see the next picture), environmental concerns seem to be the dead last priority, in spite of massive propaganda to the contrary. They aggressively present their (meaningless) environmental awards on their website, such as Greening USA: www.destinyusa.com/ and I would provide the specific link, except for that their website seems to be so poorly designed that Firefox interprets its actions as being equivalent to malware, blocking all the popups. Hmm.....wouldn't it just be better to do additional pages, whether in Flash or HTML???? In any case, while there, I found inadequate public transport provision (although Centro does provide bus services), too many cars, ironically inadequate parking (probably due to lack of public transport combined with the transformers seen here, above ground and in the way) and massive waste of electricity. Why can't they bury the transformers??? I'm not an expert, so I don't know. I do wonder about the fact that the whole site is a brownfield, though. If I were a construction worker, I wonder if I would ask my union to say no to digging there. A much longer and better description of Carousel Mall (albeit one that predates construction) and its problems can be found here however: eddyburg.it/article/articleview/6786/0/221/ This link was censored on Facebook, as a source cited on it (but not included on the site in question) was deemed "abusive." I have no idea what that means, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was merely critical of one corporation or another. Incidentally, I have no idea what the Sports Authority think of all of this. No offense is intended. They're probably just locating where they can make money (Carousel has been accused of gutting the downtown, thus making the location of businesses anywhere but Carousel unprofitable), so none of this is really about them. In addition, this photo, is not very interesting. The next one is much funnier......

Originally a church, the Kirkland Art Center now hosts concerts, dance classes, and just about anything else having to do with the arts in Clinton. Too bad there's a Scion out front. :-)

The village of Clinton is part of the larger Town of Kirkland, and this is the town library on College Street in Clinton. Part of the Mid-York library system, this library building was originally a school, with the top floor serving as the gym. I tried to find some quick historical info online, since I've forgotten most of it, but I didn't have any luck. I've had video presentations there before, but no slide shows yet. I may have some in the future, but that remains to be seen.

Lumbard Hall, which dates to 1926, houses offices for the Village of Clinton, although going through the websites for the village government I was unable to determine if it still qualifies as a village hall.

I thought of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad again a couple of weeks ago when, to my astonishment, I found that Ceske Drahy, the Czech Railways, were using a photo of the Adirondack to promote one of their special services. Even more surprising, it was this locomotive, #8223, which was featured in their ad. I worked on and behind this locomotive many times while I was a volunteer on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, so it brought back a lot of memories. I think that this photo was taken on the day that the Adirondack Scenic Railroad reopened to Carter. I'm not sure if this was taken that exact same day, but I'm fairly certain it was around that time, and in any case this photo does give a pretty good idea of what it was like to be at Thendara that year, even if there were often far more people around than seen here! Since this photo was taken, the entire yard has been resurfaced and the tracks have been completely replaced, meaning that it does look quite different today.

I took this as we were approaching Scranton, and met an NYS&W excursion leaving Scranton. The same train had taken NRHS members from the Central New York and Utica & Mohawk Valley Chapters to Scranton for the weekend, although the convention, as usual was week-long. Months later, the engineer in #2400 (who I knew) commented that he had seen me taking the picture, and couldn't fully believe that it was me, as he thought I was on his train.

I haven't marked the loco under "locomotives" on this one, simply because it isn't actually visible. This is really more about the train departing into the sunset. :-)