Robert Pence

Ken, I completely agree with you on that. As part of a broader development approach in an area that has good planning and unexploited potential, a streetcar or light rail system can be a powerful, cost-effective investment (Add Portland, Oregon to your list). I just think that Akron and especially Youngstown have a ways to go before they're ready to contemplate that step. Youngstown has some eminent attractions (Butler Museum, and the Historical Center of Labor and Industry in an impressive Michael Graves building) but overall doesn't yet seem focused enough. Maybe Akron has changed, but when I used to visit a friend there, it always seemed to be in Cleveland's shadow, short on local amenities and attractions because people made the short drive to Cleveland for those things. Maybe the solution for Akron is to electrify the Cuyhoga Valley line and push for its extension to Cleveland's waterfront, and then serve it with those magnificent vintage interurban cars from the Lake Shore Electric Railway collection. ( :wink: ) BTW, some interesting stuff in the latest Midwest High Speed Rail newsletter.

Quite a visual, historic delight.

Construction of streetcar tracks and catenary and acquisition of streetcars are terribly, terribly expensive, and can only be justified where there's potential for high ridership or as a magnet for lots of tourists with money to spend. Those cities are all struggling to meet current infrastructure needs, and Akron and Youngstown aren't exactly major tourist destinations. A lot of other things need to happen before streetcars can be considered as positive contributors to local prosperity

Great photos and fabulous architecture! Sure beats Antwerp, Ohio! :-D

Probably they got their shorts in a bunch when they caught some old guy on the platform at Union Station in Chicago, taking pictures of one of the Hiawatha trains, and one worry led to another ... Most likely, the increased security will spur increased vigilance against people who like to take photos of trains.

I like my Ford Focus a lot. I have an '07 wagon for picking up stuff along the road ( :wink: ); 30mpg for mostly-city driving and close to 35mpg highway. It's peppy and agile in traffic, easy to park and it's roomy for a compact and has a comfortable ride. I was looking for a replacement for my Ranger pickup, and considering the price I wasn't expecting all that much when I decided to take a Focus for a test drive. I was very pleasantly surprised. Ford has discontinued the station wagon, but for '08 they've kicked the styling up a notch on the sedan. Among the other Focus drivers I know, I haven't heard any complaints. Prices start around $15K, and you can get one pretty nicely equipped for <$20K.

Looks pleasant. That house in the second-to-last photo is mighty extravagant, and huge for a wood structure.

Interesting downtown. It looks like they're beginning to recognize the value of some of their old business buildings.

Neat thread! There's something about Atlantic beaches in winter ...

Yeah! A frost can really put a glaze of ice on them, and they get slicker'n sh!t. With practice you learn how to follow the sweet spot where at least your wheels don't hit the longitudinal joints, and it ain't so bad. Skinny-tired road bikes will beat you up, no matter what you do, but the old-school English roadsters handle it OK. In the event of the aforementioned ice on bricks, just don't.

Wonderful photos and breathtaking scenery. Something more than 30 years ago at Thanksgiving I went to Natural Bridge with Mom and Dad and one of my brothers. We stayed at the lodge and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room; that was Dad's main reason for wanting to go. The next morning when the rest of the family took off to go someplace in a car, I set out early to explore some of the trails. The morning was chilly and misty and everything was wet, giving a special ambience to the experience. Most of the hardwoods had already lost their leaves, but what color remained was saturated. By the time I reached the natural bridge, the mist had given way to hazy sun. It was a memorable morning hike.

Nice! Even before I started to read the text, the Beech trees in the first photo caught my eye. They're magnificent. On our family farm there are about ten acres, maybe a little more, of marshy old woodland. There are many big old Beech trees there. About 12 years ago a big Ash on the edge of the woods near the house was killed by lightning. It was over 100 feet tall, so we hired a tree service to take it down. Afterward, we counted a little more than 160 rings in the stump.

Senator Gregg isn't alone in his inability to comprehend that the lightly-used routes perform an essential function by feeding passengers into the heavily-used routes, and that they're lightly used because of sparse and unreliable service, and that the service is sparse and unreliable because of imbalance in funding between rail and competing modes, and that cutting off the lightly-used routes can have a severe impact upon the viability of the heavily-used routes. He's also not alone in not expecting the same standards of profitability to determine the viability of highways, navigable waterways and commercial aviation. In the transportation business, service reductions almost always reduce revenues more than they reduce costs; the result is a death spiral, which we've been in for decades in US passenger rail service. It's remarkable that despite the worst efforts of national media, presidents and some elected representatives, Amtrak has survived at all. That it is gaining ridership and public support is amazing. Although I sometimes accuse NARP of taking an appeasement stance in dealing with both Amtrak and government, it's apparent that NARP's efforts have made some contribution to the turnaround.

This thread may seem a little obsessive (45 photos of one building). People react to One Summit Square in various ways; some hate it, some love it, and surprisingly, some local folks are so out of touch that they didn't even recognize it when I exhibited a photo of it several years ago in the gallery at First Presbyterian. Here goes. One Summit Square, 1980 - 2008 (Fort Wayne, Indiana) Photographs copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 by Robert E. Pence 1980 One Summit Square, 442 feet tall, is Indiana's tallest reinforced concrete building. It was designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and completed in 1982. The initial proposal and renderings showed a gleaming tower cladded with mirrored tiles, but construction delays put the owner in a bind to meet occupancy dates in time to keep the mortgage rate locked in. Or at least that was the reason given to the public. The mirrored tiles went by the wayside. When initially completed its surfaces were raw concrete. Because of leakage problems the concrete was sealed with a gray stucco-like material in the 1990s. One Summit Square was erected on the site formerly occupied by Wolf & Dessauer, a locally-owned department store that stood on the northeast corner at Washington & Calhoun Streets. The old 5-story W&D building was where I first experienced revolving doors and probably escalators. I can't remember for sure if that building had escalators. The lighted Santa that graces the north wall of the National City Building and the wreath that overlooks the plaza on the north side of One Summit Square originally were displayed on the W&D building, and crowds used to gather on the sidewalks to marvel at the animated window displays. Windy Morning People who haven't experienced the sudden straight-line winds that sometimes hit Fort Wayne have no comprehension of how destructive they can be. This crane was being used to hoist concrete during construction of One Summit Square. As July arrived, I commented to the facilities engineering manager at work that I was surprised the contractor didn't anchor the crane when it wasn't being used, by running a line out from the boom and hooking it onto a dump truck full of stone parked a block or so to the west. His response was that those cranes are so heavy, and their booms so porous, that it "wouldn't be possible for wind to upset one. They could stand through a hurricane with no problem." About two days after that conversation, I awoke in the morning to wind that was causing my house to vibrate. I couldn't see out the bedroom windows because of the intensity of the rain and the leaves that were plastered against the window screens. I reached over and turned on my scanner to see if I should head for the basement or just get under the bed right away. The first thing I heard was the voice of a policeman talking to the dispatcher. It went something like, "It's swaying pretty bad. Oh! There it goes!" That was followed immediately by a loud noise. The wind episode probably didn't last five minutes. Back at work, I thought better of mentioning the event, and the facilities engineering manager didn't bring it up. After a boom has been damaged like this one, it can never be repaired and made safe. The only thing to do with it is cut it up. Even that is extremely dangerous work, because it's hard to tell what's under stress and which way it might fly, or what might collapse or shift when a cut is made. Both tower cranes stood fast through the wind. Old Glory in tatters, shredded by the wind. That should give some idea what kind of velocity was involved. A view looking north from the 26th floor of the National City Building showing the construction of One Summit Square. The cleared block in the center of the photo is where the Hilton Hotel and Grand Wayne Center stand now. Looking across the site of the Hilton Hotel and Grand Wayne Center, 1981

Nice! Attractive property in a gorgeous setting, should be splendid in the warm seasons and especially so in fall. I'll expect some train photos when the season opens. :-) My dad's ancestors settled in the Nelsonville area some time before the Civil War, before some of them split off and headed for Indiana. I don't know if any of them are still in the area.

Good pics, and it seems like maybe Toledo is making a comeback. It's been several years since I've been there, and it didn't look too great then.

Very sweet! They're not common, but they're around.

Not too bad, indeed. Lots of nice brick buildings stacked up and down the hillsides, and a most elegant courthouse.

City Center Mall on a Saturday in 2006

Good stuff! You had nice light to work with, that day.

Sounds like a really neat experience. It's not often that you can save money while preserving a valued historic artifact instead of replacing it with new stuff, either. Usually, it's Bite the Bullet and save the old stuff when replacement would be lots cheaper. A lot of it comes down to finding and cultivating volunteers with real skills. Whitewater Valley has to be one of the success stories among tourist railroads. Sure, it's no Strasburg RR, but the fact that it's not in an area that has national tourism prominence and still has survived and grown for more than thirty years makes it noteworthy. It takes solid managment with foresight and probably some pretty good fund-raising skills to accomplish that. The infant mortality rate among tourist railroads is extremely high.

Metamora IN & Whitewater Valley RR - 1977 & 1979 Here are a few photos from Metamora, Indiana and the early years of Whitewater Valley Railroad's operation. I believe the railroad started excursions in 1975 or thereabouts, and these photos were taken in metamora/1977 and 1979. Since then, Metamora and the railroad both have experienced significant investment and the railroad has grown its equipment roster. Steam is no longer a regular part of the operation, but steam excursions are run on special occasions. Whitewater Valley will feature a visit by Thomas the Tank Engine again in 2008. 1977 Heisler geared locomotive If my memory is correct, this engine came from East Broad Top Railroad in Pennsylvania and was one of two standard-gauge locomotives owned by that railroad. Lima-Hamilton #25, built in 1951, powered a caboose train that met the steam train from Connersville in Metamora. A much larger flour mill stood by the canal in Metamora, powered with a turbine that took advantage of the eight-foot differential in water levels across the lock. That mill burned, and the later, smaller mill was built with a wheel in the former lock to grind corn meal. 1979 Two Heislers nose-to-nose

Wonderful photos. I love the sudden bright splashes of color and neon amid the near-monochrome chilly, damp grayness.

Just looking at the photos, without experiencing the physical context (middle of nowhere) firsthand, I'm impressed. Some of the houses look like the ones you'd find in a well-established 1930s neighborhood.

Nice! Some interesting variations on traditional designs among those.