“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
~ 1861 ~ 1941
A beautiful male North American Cardinal brings a pop of red to an early March snowfall on a beautiful late winter afternoon at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“There’s something about the sound of a train that’s very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful.”
~ Paul Simon
~ American musician
~ born 1941
The recently restored Dragon Cement Co. Inc. No. 1 railroad car located along the Ironton Rail Trail ~ which which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania ~ is depicted in this painterly, HDR image I captured on a late March afternoon in early spring.
A Whistle Sign can be seen in front of the car with the description: “This whistle sign once stood to the west of the Center Street Stiles Crossing on the Ironton Railroad. It was saved on March 1990 by John and Jim Rowland just prior to the scrapping of the railroad.”
In rail transport, a whistle sign ~ or whistle post or whistle board ~ is a sign marking a location where a train driver is required to sound the horn or whistle.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.
Dragon Cement Co. is a cement supplier in Thomaston, Maine.
“A day comes in the springtime
When Earth puts forth her powers,
Casts off the bounds of winter
And lights him hence with flowers;
And then by marsh and meadow
And by the silvery sea,
Goes up the red-wings’ chorus:
On-caree!
… Hope is a roving gypsy
With laughter on her tongue,
And blue sky and sunshine
Alone, can keep her young;
And year by year she lingers
Under a budding tree
To join the red-wings’ chorus:
On-caree!”
~ “The Chorus”
~ 1902
~ Dora Read Goodale
~American poet
~ 1866-1953
A red-winged blackbird joins in the chorus of “On-caree!” as sunset looms on an early spring day in March along the Jordan Creek Greenway Trail at Covered Bridge Park, Orefield, Pennsylvania.
