Sorry, this is not a pretty picture.
Here we have a potpourri of necessary clutter; a patched well-traveled road, various electrical poles and lines, the cooling tower for a power station, a signal-relay cabinet, a stray street light, and of course an Amtrak P42 Genesis diesel of the much-maligned industrial design.
Not pretty; but portrays a four-quadrant grade crossing gate protecting the highway an Amtrak train from Chicago crosses.
But this is Northern Indiana, not Tehachapi.
Interesting. Good photographers, you chief among them, normally reduce and eliminate clutter. But there are a lot of places where railroading creates clutter or goes right through the middle of it. Nice reminder of that in this photo.
I smile when I look at this photo because after reading your comment, I think: “Gee, imagine what you would do to top off a pretty mundane (but essential) railroad picture? You’d put a cooling tower behind it, and for the cherry on top, you’d have steam coming out of the top of the tower. Oh, add a punchy-colored car to set off all the drab colors in the rest of the frame.” Well done! A great phtographer at work.
Everything is so right about this photo I could swear you posed it.