Robert Pence

Pretty typical Ohio small town. Looks like it's doing OK. The town hall has a rather odd mix of architectural elements, but it's somehow appealing.

Yep. The open center simplifies fare collection, because the conductor only has to walk down the lower-level aisle to collect from both levels. It also simplifies HVAC air circulation systems. Caltrain (San Francisco) has some locomotive-hauled bilevel gallery cars of very similar design, built by Nippon Sharyo. Caltrain also has some bilevel cars of the closed design first created by GO Transit (Toronto) in the 1970s.

^That has me drooling more than usual. :wink:

The grid down the middle is the luggage rack for lower level. For upper-level passengers there's a shelf between the center stanchions. At any rate, the view out the window is usually more interesting to me than the view of other passengers; South Shore commuters occasionally include a little eye candy, but not a lot. On Metra's manicured track between Kensington and Millennium, these cars are smooth and quiet like riding on air. South Shore's track handles coal and steel as well as passengers, and although it's not a rough, swaying ride, it is noisier with some vibration. These cars are still markedly superior to the older ones in ride quality and noise level, though.

New South Shore Bi-Level Gallery Cars South Shore has placed in service fourteen new gallery cars from Sumitomo Corporation of America. Initial fabrication was in Japan, and final assembly was by Sumitomo in Milwaukee. Negotiated bid price for the fourteen cars in February, 2007, was $47,572,000 ($3,398,000/car) Funding comes from a $17.5 million grant from the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, $4.5 million in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds from the Northwestern Indiana Regional Plan Commission, $3 million in CMAQ funding from INDOT, and up to $33 million in 17-year, 4.028% bonds placed sith JP Morgan Chase Bank. The cars differ from the Metra cars in the following ways: - End doors with traps and steps to allow either high-level or low-level boarding, - Microphor toilets vs. Metra's holding-tank design, - Walk-over seating to allow seats to face either direction. Each car has a control cab on the upper level at one end, with pantograph at the "blind" end. The cars are coupled in married pairs for bi-directional operation, but a single car can operate individually The first two cars arrived on NICTD property last November, and I believe the order was complete around March. There was extensive testing before the cars entered regular service. Modifications had to be made to the auxiliary power systems to ensure reliability. South Shore's web site is http://www.nictd.com/. Look under info > board meeting minutes starting in January 2007 for discussion regarding the purchase of these cars. Photos are here

$3,398,000 each. Nicer ride, more comfortable seats, hot-rod acceleration. Bigger windows than on the older single-level cars provide a wider view forward and back, and the upper level lets a rider see above the trackside debris and structures for a longer view of the urban and rural scenery. Information on the acquisition and funding of these cars is in the "What Other States ..." thread under Transportation > Railways ... Currently, the new cars operate on westbound trains 102, 212, 114, and 116, and eastbound trains 203, 107, 109, and 211. Schedules are on the South Shore web site Train 109 at Millennium Park Station awaiting passenger boarding for 2:35p.m. departure: At Michigan City Carroll Avenue, location of South Shore's storage yard and maintenance shops: Train 109 moves to a storage track to allow Chicago-bound Train 20 from South Bend to approach the boarding platform:

Decent-looking downtown, although I'm always concerned for buildings with upper-storey windows boarded up. That means no one ever goes up there, and structural problems often go undetected until a roof is at the point of collapse, usually dooming the building. Quite a few of the historic structures look well cared for, though, and there are some magnificent nineteenth-century facades. The courthouse is really grand.

Looks like a great day!

Yes. More, please, and a little info on the history, if you have it. The low-head dam says turbine-powered mill; do they still use the available energy for anything?

Dayton has some great old buildings, and it's the only midwestern city with electric trolley buses. The art museum is first-rate for its building, its exhibits, and its location overlooking the city from high ground across the river. There's quite a lot to see in Dayton.

Excellent photos, not-so-excellent small town. With one or two exceptions, it looks like they're letting the town fall apart.

Dynamic-looking city!

Love the variety in architectural styles!

Excellent photos and a beautiful space for people.

Nice shots; I like that color scheme.

That's the underpass that goes beneath the track level to connect the eastbound and westbound platforms. I thought it had been flooded for years; I think it's just never been lighted so you could see the standing water.

The "subway" is the lower deck of the Veterans Memorial Bridge, formerly Detroit-Superior High-Level Viaduct. It was built with a lower deck to carry streetcars across the Cuyahoga River, and served that purpose until the last streetcar line shut down in 1954. Streetcars descended via ramps in the streets as they approached the bridge, and then ascended ramps on the other side to continue on street track. For a short time after the end of streetcar service, there was an attempt to use the lower deck for automobile traffic. That was discontinued because drivers were crashing into the bridge's supporting columns. The Hope Memorial Bridge was built with lower-level infrastructure for future streetcar/subway use, but the lower deck was never used. The county engineer's office opens the lower deck of the Veterans Memorial Bridge to the public for self-guided tours every year on the Saturdays of Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.

Gorgeous photos (What else would we expect?). Looks like a capacity crowd for the cruise, and little-by-little, the scaffolding comes down. A good time on the Good Time!

Good stuff! It seems that service organizations like Salvation Army typically put up that bland suburban-style stuff whenever they build new. In Fort Wayne, a local women's and children's shelter plans to build a new facility in office-park style that's completely out of character with the active, largely-intact early-1900's commercial district where they're relocating. Kudos to them for building on vacant real estate and for the very important work they do, but it doesn't seem like it would involve all that much more effort or expense to build a zero-setback facade that's more compatible with their surroundings. YMCAs of that era must have been built to a fairly standardized design; that one is nearly identical in appearance to the 1917 building where I lived for about a year and a half around 1960. It was a fun place to live in a then-vital downtown with movie theaters and restaurants and lots to do, and the building was always squeaky-clean and impeccably maintained. It had a laundry and dry-cleaning drop off, a barber shop, a cafeteria with some of the best home-style food in town, and free movies on Saturday nights.

The aerospace technology is probably a ways off in terms of high-volume production at consumer-market prices, but the thing that caught my attention is a motor that peaks at 98% efficiency. That's impressive, and electro-mechanical devices usually lend themselves to rapid advances in volume manufacturing techniques that bring down costs and bring about broad-based implementation.

Pretty cute! Some nice, solid-looking housing stock, and interesting topography. Since there's not an overwhelming amount of vinyl, I'll give them a pass on it. The blue has to go, though!

Ohmygosh! Would that little yellow carpenter gothic house be a fun project! It's almost certainly timber-framed with vertical board-and-batten siding under the icky yellow vinyl. Originally there would have been a porch, and note the door on the second floor that would have led out onto the porch roof. Visualize the farm house in Grant Wood's American Gothic, only smaller.

Sorry, I already called dibs on it. It's not for sale anyway; one of the guests at a weekend open house at a friend's place drove it there. It was the same gathering where I took the photo of the Case 12-25 tractor. There was a restored red and white '58 Edsel station wagon, very rare, too. It was very sharp, and somehow I failed to get a photo of it. I used to have a '38 Chevy 2-door sedan, not a lot different from the '35 in the photo except that it was dark gray and the doors were hinged at the front. It was a surprisingly comfortable, nice-driving car.

1935 Chevy, unrestored original. Good chrome all around, no rust or dents. Apparently repainted at some time, but long ago and not a fancy job, probably done by a local mechanic. Inside is about as good as the outside. Note the suicide doors. I knew the 4-door models had them on the back, but I never knew the 2-doors had them.

Last Sunday (June 7, 2009) 1913 Case 12-25 Tractor Two-Cylinder Horizontally-Opposed Engine 7-inch bore, 7-inch stroke, 540 C.I., 600RPM, 25 Horsepower 9,000 lbs