Robert Pence

Last October I was under general anesthesia for 14 hours for cancer surgery and reconstructive surgery. The following week in ICU, with abundant pain meds, was such a strange and disorienting experience that I'm not sure what I really experienced and what I hallucinated, but I have a memory of hearing doctors talking about real estate/condo development that may have been during surgery. I don't remember any pain or fear, though. I guess I should ask my doctor if what I think I remember is real. I'm pretty sure she'd level with me if it was.

Too bad you had to go to England and miss the NARP meeting :wink: , but I guess the trains kind of make up for it! :-) Neat shots. It's a trip I'd like to make, some day.

A bad day made incalculably worse by the fact that we have to drive everywhere because nothing is within walking distance of anything else, and transportation alternatives to driving are scarce to nonexistent. :x I hope things start going better for you, David.

Well, that's different! :-o I shouldn't have looked at this thread so soon after waking up, before I've had my coffee. Now, I have to go back to bed. :wink:

They do that on the Hiawatha Service trains between Chicago & Milwaukee, too. The Chicago end of the train has a gutted F40 with baggage doors ("cabbage" = cab + baggage) in the side. Here's one in a photo that got me an encounter with security in Union Station.

always everyone's fault but their own! I'll bet she loaded her fifteen pounds of groceries into a 5,000-pound SUV. Separate thought: An article in this morning's Journal Gazette said that Citilink (Fort Wayne Public Transportation Corp.) experienced a fourteen per cent increase in ridership in February 2008 over February 2007. That in a town where riding the bus carries a stigma, and various city councilmen at various times have advocated privatizing the system if it can't recover its own costs from revenues.

That describes it well. Many self-proclaimed "Conservatives" regard public transportation as a safety net program that may be a moral obilgation of society, but that should be done as cheaply as possible. To dredge up another pejorative from the sixties, they regard it as an "income redistribution" program.

Good stuff! I love this shot:

Some striking images!

Handsome, well-kept downtown with lots of vintage buildings that look in good repair. Bryan once had many artesian wells.

Beautiful shots!

When Tower City first opened, the ceiling coffers above the tracks were bordered with neon. As I recall, the color matched the line served. The insulating bushings are still in place, but the neon tubes are gone. Does anyone know why they did away with the neon? The color really livened up the otherwise drab station platforms. A couple more from my archive, also on my web site: Pullman-built "Airporter" at Hopkins, 1978 or 1979. They had luggage shelves right inside the doors. Airport Rapid at Terminal Tower 1978

I only saw the original concourse several years after the trains had quit running and the stairs to track level had been closed off and the skylight had been covered over. It was pretty drab, then. The third image ("Grand Concourse of new Union Station at Public Square"), with the two-story atrium and high vaulted coffered ceiling, from the first link you posted looks like it might have been a representation from the original Burnham design. The original concourse at Terminal Tower never resembled it, so far as I know. It looks like someone lifted the arched window at the end from that design when they created Tower City, though.

Sorry. I didn't intend to come off insulting or start an argument. I think Chicago and Milwaukee are each great in their own ways. I like Chicago because of its sheer size and variety of neighborhoods and as I mentioned before, the energy that I feel there. On the other hand, I think Milwaukee has it hands-down for some things. The Calatrava wing of the art museum, overlooking the lake, is pretty much unrivalled in this part of the country. The downtown has enough big-city feel to be satisfying, and yet it's fairly compact and eminently walkable. I can arrive there via Amtrak and walk to the downtown attractions easily. Street scene from SSP meet, March 2005 Mitchell Building blew me away

Good shots. I've always liked Milwaukee.

Wonderful photos! Cincinnati is a visual delight.

I was thinking that at one time, at least, San Francisco's streetcars and trolley buses were powered by electricity generated at O'Shaughnessy Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. I don't know if that's still the case or if it ever was, or if it extends to the Muni and/or Bart rail systems.

I don't know, I've always thought that Chicago is boring. The topography is bleak, the loop is just full of larger versions of everything in my local mall, and the city has lost a lot of identity in the last decade. I don't think they know what they're about anymore. Every time I go there it feels like they just settled for the "second city" motto. I don't get what you're saying, at all. If topography alone were such a big deal, tourists would be flocking to Altoona, PA. For years I've felt the positive energy when walking in the Loop. I just feel energized and optimistic when I'm there, and even when I've had a crappy day and I'm feeling down, stepping onto the street in the Loop picks me right up. The rumble of elevated trains, the large numbers of shoppers, workers and tourists on the sidewalks, the traffic of delivery trucks, buses and taxis, all combine to make the place vibrantly alive. For the most part, people are friendly, and they're helpful to visitors seeking directions. The people who live and work there are proud of their city and most wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Chicago has long been renowned for its architecture. While some of its trophies have been surpassed in size and spectacle by things being built in Asia and the Middle East recently, Chicago has a lot of significant landmarks and enough variety to be visually fascinating. Maybe you should consider anti-depressant meds? :wink:

SUV = Windows all around = no hiding place. Rented SUV = windows probably not tinted.

The problem I see with letting fuel pricing drive demand is that the prices of commodities that are transported by truck will rise dramatically. Affluent (and overextended) people will gripe to high heaven and demand that the government intervene, but they'll continue to solo commute from sprawl-burbia in their Navigators and Escalades. They won't feel the effects enough to change their habits for quite a while. The people who will suffer soonest and most from higher prices of food and fuel are the people who now are barely getting by, and who already spend a disproportionate amount of their meager income getting to and from stores and low-wage jobs far from where they live and accessed with difficulty or not at all by public transportation. Five-dollar gasoline will give rise to complaining from rich people, but not much change in their consumption habits. It will be crippling for poor people.

The account of the pursuit and capture of Crippen in Erik Larson's Thunderstruck is just one element of a captivating book.

Great photos! Viewing the pics of Cleveland gives me mixed feelings; part of me wishes I could be there with my camera, and a bigger part of me is glad that I'm not. :wink: I don't understand why the city is so strict about getting the parked cars off Clifton, at least until the peak of the emergency has passed. Although the parked cars might get buried in the process, Clifton seems wide enough that they could still plow out enough traffic lanes to accomodate essential traffic. Unless the residents have sufficient off-street parking and just don't use it, it seems like imposing an unnecessary hardship on them.

Beautiful photo! Vermont may be a small state, but it's huge on scenery.

Pretty bad judgement to risk attracting attention by speeding with a car full of contraband. Probably indulging in his own product a bit too much. I speculated before reading this that they were probably already sitting on him when he gave them the opportunity to stop him and search his vehicle. #############################################