Archive for the ‘Trains’ Category
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have…
Thursday, December 3rd, 2020“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 241
Thursday, November 26th, 2020Travel Thursday! And happy Thanksgiving!
I was hoping that Pan Am would have done “Wings to Turkey”, or something similar. But, alas, no. So how about a tour of a turkey farm with Temple Grandin, from the National Turkey Federation?
Bonus #1: “To Mount Lowe With Love”, a documentary about the Mount Lowe Railway. Because I feel like putting the “fun” back into “funicular”.
Bonus #2: Stretching the definition of “travel” a bit here, but I wanted to do something appropriate for Spaghetti Carbonara Day.
There are an awful lot of spaghetti carbonara videos on YouTube, many of which seem to be responses or complaints about Gordon Ramsey’s version. I thought I’d use this one, since I believe Lidia Bastianich is pretty trustworthy when it comes to Italian food. If you’re cooking for my mother, though, please leave the onions out. (She loves Lidia, but she hates onions. I actually don’t think onions are part of a traditional carbonara, but I welcome being proved wrong.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 164
Thursday, September 10th, 2020Travel Thursday!
Upstairs in my “to read” pile, underneath my three volumes of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I have both volumes of Pierre Berton’s books about the construction of Canada’s transcontinental railroad (The National Dream and The Last Spike). What can I say, they were cheap at Half-Price.
I thought it might be fun to put this up: “Great Canadian Railway Journeys ‘Kamloops to Banff'”. I’d like to visit both Kamloops and Banff one of these days: I’ve been to Vancouver, but Kamloops is about three and a half hours away. Also, I kind of like saying “Kamloops”.
Bonus: “Port Moody to Kamloops”.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 143
Thursday, August 20th, 2020Travel Thursday!
I thought I’d do something different today. Instead of planes for our first video, trains. And instead of visiting a relatively civilized country, a fifth world banana republic.
“The California Zephyr”! With VistaDome! And courteous waiters!
To be fair, this is from the 1950s, prior to the decline and fall. And somewhat interestingly, Amtrak still runs a train called “California Zephyr” over a similar route (According to Wikipedia, the original Western Pacific Railroad, Burlington Railroad and Rio Grande Railroad incarnation shown here was discontinued in 1970, and Amtrak began running their version in 1983.)
Bonus video #1: More trains, this time the Santa Fe railroad. “Southern California Holiday”. Both of these videos also include some footage of the happiest place on Earth.
“You may cross here from country to country, with no passport problems.” I remember those days. (Never been to Tijuana, but when I was young, my family walked across the border between Texas and Mexico more than once. And when I was older, I made a couple more cross-border trips with friends. Then Homeland Security.)
Bonus video #2: Okay, travel by air this time. “California: World In a Week”, from the 1960s and United Airlines.
It is almost like being there. Except you don’t have to step over the needles and feces. Marineland of the Pacific operated until 1987, when it was bought by the people who owned SeaWorld. The new owners promptly moved all of the animals to SeaWorld San Diego, shut down Marineland, and poured concrete into the drains.
(Also.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 131
Saturday, August 8th, 2020Another dose of random.
It is August. It is hot in Texas. How about some trains dashing through the snow?
One more, but this one is special: it features the little-seen rotary snow plow operating in Donner Pass.
Totally unrelated: at the last SDC, we were talking about various WWII resistance films, such as Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Army of Shadows“. In that vein: “Poland Forever”, from 1944, about the Polish fight against the Nazis.
Last one for today. I thought this was kind of moving.
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 40
Saturday, May 9th, 2020Today is Saturday, so I feel like I can run a bit long. And there’s been one thing missing from this series to date: trains. I’m sure at least some of my readers are train fans, right?
“On the Track”, a 1940s film made by Carl Dudley for the Association of American Railroads. Mr. Dudley was apparently a fairly well known railroad film maker.
Bonus video #1: from 1952, “Northwest Empire”, a Union Pacific promo film about travel around Oregon and Washington.
Bonus video #2: “At This Moment”, from 1954. Propaganda film about the importance of American railroads.
I have to admit: “Kelly” is kind of cute in that 1950s way. I can see why someone would send her a dozen roses.
Woo! Chugga! BOOM!
Friday, July 5th, 2019Bookmark:
“For 40 Years, Crashing Trains Was One of America’s Favorite Pastimes“.
I read a similar article some years ago in an Old Farmer’s Almanac, but haven’t been able to find it since, and people don’t believe me when I tell them about this.
Oh, they believe in the Great Crush Crash (which is given much love in this article), but people seem incredulous when you tell them staged locomotive crashes for crowds were a regular spectator event, and Crush wasn’t a one-off.
After action report: Reno, NV.
Wednesday, June 13th, 2018Yet another excuse to post photos and links and some ramblings. I’ll put a jump here since some of the photos might take time to load…
Headline of the day.
Tuesday, November 28th, 2017A small dose of the unusual for Black Friday.
Friday, November 27th, 2015Just in case you’re stuck at work, or have decided to stay home and avoid the rush, here’s a couple of things you might find interesting:
1) Lawrence sent me this link the other day: Showmen’s Rest: Chicago’s Clown Graveyard.
The story behind this is that Showman’s Rest is where many of the dead from the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster were buried.
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster? Yes: on June 22, 1918, the train carrying the members of the circus was rammed by another train whose engineer had fallen asleep. 86 members of the circus were either killed outright or burned to death in the fire that resulted.
2) A retweet from Popehat led me to look up Count Dante, who I was previously unaware of. Count Dante was “The Deadliest Man Alive!” and the founder of the Black Dragon Fighting Society; he advertised heavily in comic books during the 1960s and 1970s.
Count Dante (really John Keehan; he changed his name in 1967 to “Count Jerjer Raphael Danté, explaining the name change by stating that his parents fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War, changed their names, and obscured their noble heritage in order to effectively hide in America.“) was one of Chicago’s leading martial artists during the 1960s.
He and a buddy were arrested in 1965 for trying to blow up a competing dojo. In 1970, he and some friends went to another competing dojo to “settle a beef with a member”: in the process, one man died.
Count Dante may also have been involved in a 1974 robbery of $4 million. He died in May of 1975 at the age of 36.
Chicago Reader article, “The Life and Death of the Deadliest Man Alive”. The article is tied to a documentary in progress, “The Search for Count Dante”: film website here.
One. Billion. Dollars.
Saturday, November 16th, 2013As seen on the road…
Sunday, July 14th, 2013
Yes, that is a real road sign.
And where does River Styx Road go to? If you guessed “River Styx“, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
We would also accept “the River Styx Bridge” as a correct answer.