At The Ready

Black And White Photography, Don, Photography

They are in tall stockpiles in rail yards. And you can see them in small stacks spaced out along railroad mainlines, secondaries, and spurs. They are railroad ties waiting their turn. From a distance they are carefully arranged stacks of lumber. Move in closer and patterns and textures start to become apparent. Look even more closely and those patterns and textures come into sharper focus, and you realize you have a picture.
Railroad ties have a finite life and have to be replaced with some regularity. Hence the stockpiling. These stacks of ties, complete with the baseplates that the rail sits on, were in a small train yard about 40 miles southwest of Houston, Texas.

Antique Buckboard Wagon

Black And White Photography, C.S. Young Jr., Photography
Antique Buckboard Wagon Composition
Antique Buckboard Wagon Composition

The buckboard wagon is a distinctly American four-wheeled utility wagon of simple construction meant to be drawn by a horse or other large animal. The only suspension is provided by the flexible floorboards of the body and a leaf spring under the seat. Over uneven terrain the, floor can flex and “buck”, which contributed to its name. Some historians consider the buckboard wagon the precursor to the modern utility pick-up truck. This buckboard was captured at the Cedarock Historical Farm near Burlington, North Carolina.

See more from my Antiquity Gallery.

Season’s Greetings!

C. S.