Deer Lodge and the Arrow of Time
With the run through Racetrack and Morel behind it, the mainline arrives in Deer Lodge, above looking railroad-east. The street names of Railroad and Milwaukee still belie the old transcon's presence even decades after its departure and fade. In the harsh mid-afternoon sun, looking east, we would find ourselves looking toward the start of the Deer Lodge yard throat just beyond the elevator complex in the photo above. The arial view shows the same elevator at the top of the photo, this time looking roughly railroad-west. These difference of decades of photos always capture me. They speak to something eternal that objects to the decay and change presented. The passing of generations and memories seems unmistakably foreign to that piece in each of us that remains timeless. It changes over the years, it becomes more than it was, but it never seems to age like everything around it. Fighting against the futility, this eterna...