Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Truck


AMTRAK SUPERLINER I TRUCK, GLENWOOD SPRINGS, COLORADO, JANUARY 12, 2009

Pentax K10D
SMC Pentax-DA 50-200 at 109mm
1/20 sec. f11
ISO 200

Here's a vintage commonplace nobody ever looks at closely: a massive and heavy Industrial Age railroad passenger car truck made of cast and machined steel. It's a 19th century invention refined in the late 20th century by German engineers for the first generation of Amtrak's double-deck Superliner cars. Those huge coils in the center originally were air bags for smoother riding, but they wore out so fast Amtrak replaced them with classic springs of a design Casey Jones would have recognized.

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