Last Thursday, when we were driving along Oakland Avenue to secure a photo of the Rolane Factory Outlet, before it gets transformed into housing, we snapped the above photo. At first, the tagging/graffiti on the rail cars is what caught our attention. However, upon closer inspection, beyond the colorful words that we couldn't read, we found legible words: Cryo-trans; the other side of the car had the slogan, "Protecting Today's Perishables For Tomorrow." A little internet searching revealed that The Cryo-Trans Company has refrigerated and insulated railcars to transport refrigerated and frozen goods. The prefix "Cryo" comes from Green meaning "ice, cold, chill, and frost." "Trans" comes from Latin meaning "across." So Cryo-Trans" is the perfect name for a company that transports, across country, items that need to be stored at a cool/cold temperature.
Curiously, almost exactly four year ago, in February 2017, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was stopped on this same railroad track in Greensboro on its trans-national farewell tour. At the time we drove by the circus trains, there was a man cleaning the garbage off the trucks while the performers were across the tracks performing at the Greensboro Coliseum. We don't have proof, but we're guessing that the above rail car had stopped in this same spot to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the Coliseum. This time, instead of a person cleaning out railcars, a man was parked in a truck beside the railcar who was there before and after our photo shoot at the Rolaine Sock Factory. Perhaps, he was guarding the vaccine. Our best guess about this serendipitous encounter on January 21st 2021 is that we were witnessing the COVID-19 vaccine coming to town. It reminded us that Greensboro came by its nickname, "The Gate City" honestly, and so much of what comes and goes by rail is documentation of fleeting moments in time.
Hopefully.
Posted by: William Kendall | Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 06:04 AM