into the delta

I had mentioned in the last post about Martinez that there was a part of the rail I really couldn't get at.  This is ok for the purposes of this project, because I'm more interested in the places where there is *life* by the rails, and the part I couldn't walk was mostly refineries, and then a drawbridge (!) and then some more track where there just wasn't enough room to get out of the way of a passing train without rolling down a steep grade.  Sounds dangerous, right?  That's why I'm not doing it.

So instead, Evan and I started this walk underneath the trestle where we couldn't walk.  This part put us next to the steelworker's union and training program that I've seen from the train:

There are some de-commissioned tracks down there, as there are in many places:

But way more interesting (at least visually) are the old trellises themselves:

Evan really liked it here and took lots of photos (hopefully he'll upload and send them soon.)

There was more life here than I thought, too.  Lots of cars going by, and also this hang-out spot with grafitti:

After this, we got back in the car and drove up to a spot where i thought we could cross in a light industrial area.  Lots of really nondescript buildings with signs like this:

We walked around to the other side, and tried to get near the tracks, but there were big, wet drainage ditches between.

You may, however, notice, that there are some big ships in the background of this photo.  This is the famed "mothball fleet" of navy ships that are out of use, and just sit in the bay.  I have heard it said that they leech toxic chemicals into the water, which I don't doubt but also don't have documentation for it.  In any case, they are huge and fascinating, and we wanted to get closer.

In any case, we had to turn back and go farther down the road to find a spot to cross.  Of particular interest to us was this huge pile of containers:

and this port-a-john storage lot:

Eventually, Evan found a spot for us to cross (he being braver than I, especially because there is nothing I find so repulsive as wet shoes.)

[Then we played the fun photo game of taking photos of one another at the same time.  Aforementioned question from earlier post: if it's fun, is it research?  Guy Debord and the Situationists would certainly say 'yes,' for the record.]

Until a few weeks ago, I thought that what I saw from the train was all mushy wetland.  But a friend in my program, Aubrey, is a research assistant on a project about fishing in the Delta and she did a presentation with maps in which I realized that the Delta is really a series of channels and "islands," some of which are submerged during certain times of year.  So there's a lot more dry land than I had imagined.

Also, one of the engineers I spoke to some time ago had told me that the rail was run through the wetland because it was a straight line into the central valley from Contra Costa county, but that the weight of the rail and the accompanying crushed rock was causing it to sink, making it so they had to periodically add more fill to keep the rail above water making it heavier and so forth...

There is a particularly lot of crushed rock here, a quality which I never thought I would be able to distinguish between one track and the next:

Back to the photos in a moment (of which there are many) but I'd like to also reflect on the sense experience of the rail this particular time.  As I get closer to actually compiling this material into a thesis, I think a lot about the place of the body in research.  Lots of research, esp. in the social sciences, can be done through secondary data sets, and because many researchers are somewhat lazy, they never go out into the field at all.  I find this to be a shame, because I believe that education is about being with the world in the world, and from there trying to make some sense.  The body is integral to this process, as are emotions, yet many disciplines are still obsessed with what goes on in our heads -- I think a lot about how to transform academic practice and performance to challenge this problem.

This leads me back to the particular senses I was noticing on this day of walking, those being temparature (which shifted quickly, esp. when the wind picked up or the sun came out), and my sense of smell.  There is a very familiar smell to me at this point of creosote and crushed rock, which is all rail everywhere.  But also the wetlands smell strongly of things decomposing, and sometimes this was mixed with whatever is coming out of the refineries and industrial spots all around.

Ok, so we crossed the ditch and started walking, when this freight train passed us:

Looking around, I thought this probably wasn't a place where many people hung out.  This was behind us:

and nothing much else.

But then I found this log laid down as a footbridge, and I became curious again:

Then we spotted this oil drum -- Evan tells me there's fresh wood in there, waiting for a fire to be lit:

This one was on its side in the field of tall grass.

Evan couldn't get enough -- he climbed inside and was shooting for a long time.

From here you could also get a good view of the auto bridge, and the old railroad drawbridge:

But I found the fennel much more lovely.

This would seem inconsequential, except for that it brings up the issue of how what we like affects what we see.  That there is fennel growing by the tracks is as much a part of the scene as anything, but how is this indicative of what gets documented??  How does the researcher's (my) aesthetic affect what is here??  Big question.

So we kept walking, and came across this path, which we figured was a truck road out to the ships.  We headed straight out on it.

This path is in some use, we thought, as it is paved wth crushed rock.

Next to it runs a long, straight channel, a canal dug by humans.

Still, I was surprised to see crushed reeds and other signs of people spending time here.

As it turns out, the path doesn't go all the way to the boats.  It ends in a clearing (no pics! oops!), and as
e were standing there, I felt all of the sudden really strange and sad.  A pretty indescribable wave of emotion.  Not sure how to account for it, except to report it.

Lefevbre (1974) - one of my favorite theoreticians as of late - does account for this somewhat:

"... in every society, absolute space assumes meanings addressed not to the intellect but to the body, meanings conveyed by threats, by sanctions, by a continual putting-to-the-test of the emotions."

At that point, we turned around, and on the way back we found this boat tied up in the reeds.

I should no longer be surprised that people use these marginal spaces all the time, that secrets are kept in spaces where people don't often come close, but I am still amazed.  I also think about the ethical problem here, of uncovering someone's spot and posting it on the internet (though it would certainly take some doing for a reader to find it.) 

We got back to the tracks and kept walking, when I heard the sound of water rushing.  It was coming from some sort of pipe, pumping water from an unknown source out into the bay.

I can't decide if I find this more or less creepy than the big pools of water near the refinery that were being pumped into the bay, of which I *do* know the source.

Soon we came up on some birds - I think they were swans, but also possibly egrets - and I got some pics of them as they flew off.

The birds were actually a real point of interest in walking through the delta when I thought of this project.  Perhaps in an upcoming walk, I will get out on the path early enough to see them in the earlymorning when they are more active and visible.

Here is a path beside the rail, though I am getting to thinking that what I thought of as human paths for a long time are really just the line where they dump the crushed rock.

At this point, we were also closer to the ships -- they are massive.

On the other side are rows and rows of these boxy buildings.  From the train, I mostly ignore them and look at the birds.  On foot, they seem bigger and eerier.

I told Evan that these semi trailers up against this building seem to be nursing from it.  Then, feeling particularly pleased with my own analogy, took a black and white photo to back it up.

This little bridge had fiber optic cable posts all around it.

I have mentioned that railroad right-of-ways often become the tracks for other pathways too. Sociologist Bruno Latour discusses this at length in his  website, Paris: Invisible City.  I will probably dedicate some airtime to it in my thesis as well.

These petroleum pipeline signs were everywhere too.

I wonder about what we are led to believe about "national security" and "code orange" when petroleum pipelines are so easy to just get to.

More vernacular use here:

(This shell will become more important later.)

Here, Even kneels down to listen to the tracks after a freight train has passed by.  It's this really subtle high pitch, which I imagine has to do with the way the train wheels make the tracks vibrate.

Looking back towards the warehouses, I wondered about this siren (center of photo.)  Later in the day, we would see it more up-close and I still couldn't tell what it was specifically for.

This fence was submerged underwater -- in fact, there were lots of wierd fences along the way. 

Wierd in that we really couldn't tell who they were meant to keep in or out.

And this cactus fence (behind the chain link fence) is what you tend to see in Central and South America.

Here is a long piece of rail -- a soon replacement maybe?

In the backyard of this warehouse was the Benicia Lions club trailer

A man working in that yard spotted us and said hi.  It continually amazes me how friendly people are, and how they almost never ask what I'm doing by the tracks or how I got to (the often odd place) where I'm standing.  He told us that the trailer comes out for parties and such. 

We walked on.

Throughout the walk, we remained fascinated with the ships.  No good way to get close, but they just loom over the landscape when you're walking in a way that they don't from the train.

Next  we came up on a road that crosses the tracks. 

This was reassuring because though I had seen it on the google map, we didn't have a copy with us.  In fact, the Rand-McNally map that I had with me had an inlay of a different map in just the place where we were walking because it is *so* inconsequential on a road map.  And though I know that maps are constantly imperfect representations, issues like this don't ever stop provoking my curiosity.

Just the other side of the road was the Grizzly Island wildlife area, fenced off with barbed wire, and controlled by the department of fish and game.

This house was also nearby -- I wonder if it is related to the Grizzly Island preserve, or to the ships.

This road led straight out to the ships, but we were pretty sure we weren't invited.

At this point, it also became clear that Evan and I had different ideas of what we should and shouldn't do.  I was interested in marching right up to the house (and others we would see) and introducing myself and chatting with the people there; he was not.  Evan, however, wanted to climb on the freight cars stopped on the tracks (forthcoming) and I wanted nothing to do with them.

I also got to thinking about the extent to which the rail opened this area up for development.  Behind us were these warehouses with a big empty lot between.  These three photos give an idea of how big the space is.

Looking at the land, it seems quite like the rest of the delta in the parts where it hasn't been built up.  So is this lot empty because the land is expensive?  Or is it simply difficult (soft, sinking) land to build upon??  On the way back, the view made it even more apparent how strange it is to put industry right here.

We kept walking and found more signs of use. 

Burnt fence posts

Fast food wrappers

This platform thing

Smashed reeds

Busted furniture

This ladder

This freight train was stopped along the tracks.  It was full of cars, like automobiles.  Evan wanted to climb it, or maybe climb in it and have lunch inside.

This struck me as terrifying -- certainly as soon as we got inside, the thing would start moving and we'd be whisked off to Nebraska or something.  I still find freight cars beautiful, but I really don't have any desire to climb on them or get near them.  I guess I mostly think of trains as dangerous these days.

We also found these safety guidelines on the ground, printed on orange vinyl.

These started to show up -- some sort of mile marker?

Between the tracks and the highway, we noticed bulldozers.  Later we would find out that this is a mulch business.

What is this deck all about?

This house had me terribly curious??  When was  a house built in the middle of the delta?? By whom?? And who lives here now??

To what extent are the tracks part of the land that these people use daily?  On the other side of the tracks from their house, someone (perhaps the current occupants) had planted a palm tree and a plum tree (back to smell -- this was in full bloom and smelled fantastic.)

We sat down under the palm tree to have lunch.  This UP truck drove by, stopped, and asked us if we were ok.

Once again, noone asked how we got there, or what we were doing there.  This strikes me as strange.  Also, as a white man and woman, clearly we had some advantage in people worrying about us being there.

After lunch we kept walking and found this yucky water.

More houses by the tracks

And more birds

And more use

This building has a bunch of boats all around it.  I wonder what the people here do out in the delta.

Unfortunately, we didn't feel welcome here either.

This is actually really too bad, because from the train I was really looking forward to just walking up to these buildings and talking to folks.  This is somewhat another example of how perspective is so much shifted from the train -- the huts seem to butt up right against the tracks and invite you in.  Not so.

This road would take us up off the tracks, right by a lagoon.  Pretty, no?

But still, the property lines were unclear to me.

Does someone own this lagoon?

One more look back at the ships

This is where we stopped

And if you're interested, you can link to the google map of this walk.  Turns out it was only about 2.5 miles. It felt a lot longer.

At this rate, this walk will take longer than the time I have.  Time to hustle.  (In fact, lots of people warned me against this problem -- the scope of this project simply being too big.)

So we headed back on the road (not the highway) that runs parallel to the tracks back to the car.  I hadn't counted on this -- hot and dry and pretty boring.

It did give  a different perspective on the houses along the tracks, though.  Like this was a country road first (just parallel to the tracks.)

We did come across what seemed to me like garage sale leftovers.

Evan, being a scavenger, found this exciting.  I wanted to get back to the car.

From the road, the warehouses seemed to overwhelm the landscape.

I was pretty fascinated at these attempts at human touches on the landscape.  This warehouse is so huge and boxy, but flowering plum trees were planted just in the path where people come in and out of the building:

Then we were in a landscape one almost never walks to: the freeway on-ramp.  Evan and I were both quite curious about where this man on  a bike came from (as people must have been about where we came from!)

We figured there must be a bike laying around the warehouse where he works, and people take it up here to get lunch or go to the convenience store.

I admired some other small touches like these stump benches outside of one building.

Finally, Evan hitched us a ride for the last 1.5 miles back in a truck with a man who had a cardboard hauling business.  I was debating whether or not to include this detail here (as hitchhiking is generally thought of as unsafe, and some readers - my mother among them - might worry.)  I decided not to censor it in the end, esp. because I doubt many people read this far.  :)

The very last thing we saw, nestled in among the warehouses, was this old train car painted pink-ish.  I have seen a number of these along the way (most notably in Martinez by the train station), and my immediate tendency is to ask theoretical questions about them, along the lines of Baudrillard's "System of Objects." 

Clearly, it's just a cool thing to look at or climb on.  But its "coolness" is derived mostly from the fact that it used to serve a purpose and now it does not.  This is endlessly fascinating to me.

 

And in case you're wondering what Baudrillard thinks about this:

"The tense of the mythological object is the perfect: it is that which occurs in the present as having occurred in a former time, hence that which is founded upon itself, that which is 'authentic'."  (The System of Objects, 1968:79)

Comments

[Paul]

Very enjoyable. Found your site linked from boingboing.net.

One of the things that struck me about riding a passenger train a few years ago is how often you are looking into people's back yards. It almost seemed voyeuristic.

One correction: you said trellises but you probably meant trestles.

[Alonso]

Got the link off of boingboing.net.

This is a really cool project. How can I be of help?

Iam about 45mins away from Fresno.

[AAA]

I have explored and studied the history and features of this route since I was at Berkeley studying architecture in the...well, I guess, a long time ago. Anyway, I can answer a lot of your questions if you are interested. You are probably aware that Davisville was established by the California Pacific Railroad, but I bet you did not know that strange metal contraption connected to the tracks is used to spread a small amount of grease (nowadays, it's soy-based and biodegradable) on the passing wheel flanges to reduce wheel and rail wear on tight curves. For a good "popular" book (as opposed to "academic") on the history of the line, I suggest looking for "Southern Pacific's Western Division," by John Signor. It has lots of pretty pictures that will help to clarify the past uses of some of the sites along the tracks, like the nasty leadworks that used be at Oleum, between Crockett and Rodeo.

Also, because I am an adult, and such, I am supposed to warn you to never trespass on railroad property like I did constantly when I was your age. It can be rather dangerous, and those Amtrak trains can really catch you by surprise if the wind is blowing the other way. Please be careful. Do not take chances.

[Aubrey]

Hey Lady

There are monthly boat trips out to the mothball fleet if you ever want to come with me. Also, I heard that in times of serious drought the water mostly recedes from that area and the boats just sit on marshy land. Not sure if it's true. But that would be an excellent walk.

[Joe Scmuckatella]

Take a look at these sties:

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/2668/the-war-on-photographers.html?print_page=y

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

That UP cop can't stop you if you're on pulic property.