Operator's Desk, Cle Elum Depot

More tech frustration: I hope you all adapt well to the changing world you in which you are living, I am barely hanging in there. First installing Photoshop Elements; then actually getting a shot uploaded; are taxing my limits. TheS starter Edition was simple compared to this. And considering the subject matter of the shot: the person who sat in this chair would have comprehended none of it. Indeed, there were few I knew in those days who weren't totally baffled by the 35 mm camera. I don't wish to end it soon, but I don't know how much more of the progeny of Bill Gates, and his ilk, I can handle.

Back to Railroads: When I was a kid in the '50's, growing up in Long Beach, Calif., there was still a body of railroad literature available. The great era of railroading was coming to a rapid close, yet literature always lasts longer (e.g. Navy sailors are still called "sailors" even though few of them ever reflect on the root word of their name - "sail" or would know one if the boom hit them in the forehead). Thus my interest in railroads is derived from kids' railroad literature. The subject matter therein was not technical in nature, it was human interest. Afterall railroads are about humans and human culture; the transportation of which is the railroad's raison d'etre. In modern times, the motor vehicle has replaced the railroad in literature, so what is mostly left is technicals, and little art. This shot, the Operator's Desk in Cle Elum Depot falls under the category of the latter, and speaks to life on the railroad. And in so speaking, has much to say.

John Crosby
Seattle