{"id":13083,"date":"2015-11-07T02:19:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-07T07:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=13083"},"modified":"2015-11-03T09:30:28","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T14:30:28","slug":"mons-to-monson-and-back-via-virtual-time-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/mons-to-monson-and-back-via-virtual-time-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Mons to Monson and Back (via Virtual Time Machine)."},"content":{"rendered":"

On October 1st<\/sup>, 2015, I arrived at Mons, Belgium by SNCB Train from Brussels. It was my first time in this southwestern Belgian City, and my impressions were skewed by the fact that the entire railway station was a construction zone.<\/p>\n

Mons was only a brief layover for me, as I was traveling to Valenciennes, France\u00a0(just over the frontier) to give my talk on railway photography to the European Railway Agency.<\/p>\n

My host Mauno Pajunen explained that the Mons station had been under construction for several years and that the classic old station building had been demolished to make way for a modern facility.<\/p>\n

Since I had a few minutes, I made a few photos of the railway at Mons, but with very little context to guide me; it seemed to be just a jumble of catentary masts, wires, temporary platforms, cranes, cables, concrete and steel.<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/a>
Looking west at Mons, Belgium. Construction everywhere! Nice bright day though. Lumix LX7 photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A Seimens electric at Mons with an SNCB passenger train. Belgian railways provide an excellent service with trains operating every few minutes. Sadly, there’s no direct cross border service to\u00a0France.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An<\/a>
An antique in modern dress!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"AnSNCB<\/a>
An SNCB 300 series EMU pauses at Mons. Lumix LX7 photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"All<\/a>
All the brightness and construction somehow reminded me of California in the 1990s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A week later I was back in Monson, Massachusetts, after some complex and intensive travel involving four countries, a half dozen trains, a fair few trams, two aeroplanes, several buses, and a bit of driving.<\/p>\n

55 years earlier my father and Jack May had visited Mons on their wanders around Europe. On arrival back in Monson, I searched the slide collection for some context. Here is one of the slides my father exposed on Kodachrome.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My father, Richard Jay Solomon exposed this view at Mons of SNCV trams near the railway station using a Kodak Retina 3C and Kodachrome slide film. Mons doesn’t look like this any more. The trams are long gone, and place is a construction site. Back then you could also get a train across the border!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, at least on my visit the sun was out!<\/p>\n

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 1st, 2015, I arrived at Mons, Belgium by SNCB Train from Brussels. It was my first time in this southwestern Belgian City, and my impressions were skewed by the fact that the entire railway station was a construction zone. Mons was only a brief layover for me, as I was traveling to Valenciennes, … Continue reading Mons to Monson and Back (via Virtual Time Machine).<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[575,3054,3055,586,580],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/SNCB_Mons_Station_P1320695.jpg?fit=3648%2C2736","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-3p1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13083"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13083"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13085,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13083\/revisions\/13085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}