STIMULUS PACKAGE ON THE RAILS

Blades on the Rails

On Friday, Tom Hedberg from Hedberg Maps – down the hall from our office – came in breathlessly after running up the stairs, “you guys should come take a look at this!” Big white blades for large scale wind turbines were sitting idle on the rail line 100 yards from our building – close enough for a little tactile inspection. The new energy economy appears to be in the distribution pipeline. That was fast!

I’ve been drawn to these turbines for as long as I can remember. There was a wind farm near my boyhood home; I would stare out the car window at these big things, moving slowly, with a mixture of awe and dread. I always felt they were beautiful and eerie at once – perhaps because the big industrial forms are in such stark contrast to the desolate windswept landscapes where they are often deployed. Oddly, I feel much the same way passing through oil fields, the unmanned derricks endlessly pumping. For a surreal experience, drive US 101 through the oil fields outside of King City in CA.

I feel an odd pull to freight trains too. If I didn’t have young children and a cautious spouse, I just might have climbed on board this one to see where these gleaming fabrications were headed. It would no doubt be fascinating to see how one is put together.