Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Headbangers are back: Public Transport

I live in a rural area where there is not a great deal in the way of public transport. There is a bus that comes into town, and a van service for low income elderly, but nothing to really get a photo of. So when IMac gave us the theme of Public Transport I was glad of the hiatus to give me time to think.

I thought of one of the special means of transportation in our region, the Washington State Ferry System.
 The ferries provide a quick trip across the Puget Sound to ports on the Kitsap Peninsula. They are a popular commute--about 30 minutes to Bremerton and 25 to Winslow, as well as several other routes. This one is ready to load at the Pier 52 Ferry Terminal in Seattle. Coming in to Seattle, you catch a view of Quest Field and Safeco Field ("The Safe") -- homes of the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners, respectively.




When you get off the ferry
and cross the road toward
the city, you might get a
chance to take the streetcar
along the waterfront.






Where else have I had a chance to see some interesting Public Transport? I decided to look through my album of photos from my trip to India twelve years ago to see if I had a good example of what we found there. On several occasions we traveled in hired taxis or vans, so we did avoid some of the styles of travel used by the locals.


We did see some bullock carts with more passengers and less merchandise. And we did see some motorbikes with even more passengers than this one.




And finally, in the city, we got a chance to ride in one of these little three wheeled autorickshaws.



My favorite Public Transport, though, is probably the system of red double decker buses we found in England and Scotland when we visited two years ago. Why did they always seem to line up in groups of three? I read somewhere about a copyright case about a certain photo of three red buses in a row. Believe me, I took these myself in London, and would not do a photo of three buses in a row if they didn't line up like that so often.
 I just recounted. There are actually five in a row here.
 And only two in this shot.

The shot I chose for the header is also transport in Britain, starring our own Imac and his wife Julie parting by bus to return home after our day of photoshooting and visiting in Lincoln.

The Headbangers are back, and you can check what the others have done by clicking their links in my sidebar. We are still down one or two, so if you would like the challenge, get in touch with one of us to get the details.

4 comments:

imac said...

On the ball -( or should I say Bus) this week my friend.
Interesting shots of different types of transport from the Worlds different Countries.

Unknown said...

That Stewart get's everywhere doesn't he?

You can't beat a London bus and the iconic Routemaster. Sadly now a thing of the past as they have been replaced by those other buses.

Katney said...

For the rest of us: Routemaster

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Kathy: Very nicely captured, that was a neat idea to show them all. I have been on your ferry system and they are neat.