November 12, 2010

canyon junction

The juxtaposition of a "canyon" junction sign in an urban setting intrigued me. I shot the scene earlier in the day but decided it really needed a train. I returned in the afternoon and lo, a train went by! A junction is a place where rail routes converge. As the railroad came to Lubbock in the early 1900s, this junction, now at 2nd Street and Paris Avenue off Avenue Q, was on the south side of the Yellowhouse Canyon. The Santa Fe Railway brought the first tracks to Lubbock but other railroads soon followed. Lubbock became known as "the Hub of the Plains" as tracks radiated to the eight principal points of the compass, resembling the spokes of a wheel. Railways included the Pecos and Northern, the Crosbyton-South Plains, the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains, Burlington Northern, and the West Texas and Lubbock, which still runs today.