After an afternoon of striking out, Liyah, Brine, Granuaile and I decended upon Hudepohl Brewery to catch a photo of the Cincinnati sign, since it's an easy location. The building has been recently completely gutted, and we had all been probably a dozen times, but the rooftop view is awesome, and the sign was supposedly purple and black in honor of a fallen firefighter. The sign is more than an eyesore. Blocky, lazy design, with needlessly lowercase i's. It's kinda a slap in the face to the skyline behind it, but since it's a rare opportunity, and I had a "new" $30 1980s Vivitar super zoom to test out, I was nonetheless excited, although I had no idea how interesting the night was going to be.
In true Cincinnati fashion, we were all of course too late to catch the sign purple. It had returned to it's usual dull grey color. But we hung out anyway to enjoy some smokes, in the comforting breeze of an oncoming storm.
That's when it happened. Our attention was diverted a block over to the train tracks, where a train was slowing down. Suddenly, 5 of the loudest bangs I have ever heard in my life echoed throughout the whole city as the train cars started violently crashing into one another. "It's derailing!!" After that the scene was eerily silent. Brine shouted "We gotta go!" as the rest of us kinda stood in disbelief. It was a little hard to see at this angle and I had to be sure if it actually happened, so I zoomed in and took a quick picture. Sure enough at least 4 of the cars are pretty fucked. Liyah and I stayed and took a Couple more shots as Granuaile and Brine booked it. We soon followed. We knew we had a narrow window to get out of there.
We ran and met them at the scene, where surprisingly no one was there, or seemed to notice, save for one guy who parked his car and was taking surely useless photos with his smartphone flash. Brine called it in to police, as apparently we were pretty much the only witnesses, and we weren't sure if the Conductor even knew.
About 5-10 minutes past. As the rain began to come in, it was then we saw the reflection of police lights on the trailers. We had time to take one last shot before having to move, so it had to be great. Success?
As Liyah and I continued to shoot away. The police were very polite, and gracious with letting us stick around and shoot pics. There was somewhat of an excitement in the air as this was their first train derailment too, peppered with a hint of "Oh shit well what do we do about this?" It was a shift change. They had all pretty much just gotten to work. Needless to say they had an interesting day. We all did.
"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..." -Dr. Suess
Posted by Harvestman Or gotten rid of all the loose asbestos they had in that one room?
I took a few garbage bag-fulls of it home. I know it's stealing and looked down upon on here, but i hear it makes great bedding material for my hamsters, and i can't find it at any of the local pet shops around here.
Last I saw the loose asbestos is still there. They've lately removed the big sign with the ladder off the roof and gutted the HVAC system. It will likely be coming down next. The West half still seems untouched.
Posted by relik I took a few garbage bag-fulls of it home. I know it's stealing and looked down upon on here, but i hear it makes great bedding material for my hamsters, and i can't find it at any of the local pet shops around here.
Have you tried smoking any? I hear it tastes like cocoa.
Oh good, my slow clap processor made it into this thing.
That's just insane, man. It will be hard for anyone to top this story. And those pictures are amazing.
By the way, did the cops take your statements? I would think they would want to interview the only witnesses. How long did you shoot there?
[last edit 6/1/2015 8:58 PM by Aran - edited 1 times] "Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
In hindsight,he and I should not have ran over to check it out ( who knows what was in those train cars) . The hissing sound of those break lines was crazy. Being able to see it from every angle before the cops showed up was pretty neat though.I'm glad we got to witness it and no one was hurt. Awesome pictures man.
"First rule of space travel, kids, is always answer distress beacons. 9 out of 10 times it's a ship full of dead bodies and free shit."
Thanks for the kind words everyone. Surprisingly, no. The cops, and news didn't seem to care, though the police remarked "What does the news have a derailment alarm?" Since we had thoroughly documented it before they even got there. I shared my selfie with a couple news agencies (since it proves we were there and I wasn't going to send the good shots first) and no one was interested in the story. Shame. I could have been the next Antoine Dodson. The cars were all carrying grain. I never heard the followup of what caused it but I assume it had alot to do with those brake lines.
This is true. Seeing crazy shit is becoming somewhat common for me. I witnessed a crack induced street fight a week prior while scouting a church, and we all stumbled upon this 15 minutes into VCXPEX2 3 years ago. Cincinnati is a crazy place. All I can say is get out and explore! You never know what you'll find, even at the most basic or played out locations.
Goddamn! Reminds me of that video from a few years ago where some guys were trainspotting (without heroin) and the train just suddenly went off the tracks.
Fucking Cincinnati man. You're like a good luck charm for interesting stories. That crackhead street fight was a nice introduction to the city for me. Hahaha. I need to get back, and soon.
[last edit 6/4/2015 1:00 AM by IndoAnomaly - edited 1 times] Every time you read this, I become more powerful.
Ethics
