Realized I’d not finished telling you about Chicago…
3 minute read
January 6, 2008, 11:55 AM
It’s also been more than a week since the last time I posted an entry here. My, how time flies. Happy new year, everyone!
We went back to the Magnificent Mile on Saturday, and Mom and Sis kind of dragged me around a bunch of stores down there again. But then things got better. John Hancock Center! While the ladies continued to shop, I got to take a ride up a very tall building once again, and went to the top of Hancock. And let me tell you something… between the Sears Tower and the Hancock Center, go for Hancock. The John Hancock Center, unlike the Sears Tower, knows what you came there to do. You came to see the view. It’s just one line past the ticket counter and up to the elevators. This is compared to Sears Tower, where it’s multiple lines, each for a different thing, plus a movie. Additionally, the elevators on John Hancock made my ears pop, while the ones at the Sears Tower didn’t. Kind of cool if you ask me…
Then later in the day, while everyone else went to a play, I got to railfan Chicago! Yaaaaaaaaay! I got to travel on parts of every line except Blue and Yellow, and got to see what “blinker” doors were all about on the Pink Line. Those railfan photos will eventually make it to Transit Center after that site comes back.
Then Sunday, before we left, we got to go around the Loop a bit, after checking our luggage at Union Station. We went to “The Honorable Richard J. Daley Plaza”, where, in The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood paid the tax assessment for the orphanage where they once lived. We also got to see the big Christmas tree at the former Marshall Fields flagship store (now Macy’s), and then went around to Millennium Park, where we saw the Cloud Gate, aka “The Bean”, and also the Crown Fountain, which consists of two tall glass-brick video screens showing images of various people’s faces. There’s also water involved here, but as it was like twenty degrees outside, the water was not running.
Continue reading…As someone who comes from an area where the transit system is mostly concrete, seeing this much wood is really a surprise.
3 minute read
December 28, 2007, 7:22 PM
Mom and I are on our second day in Chicago, and it’s been a lot of fun. I met the parents of Chris Lysy, Sis’s fiance (that still sounds so weird), and we’ve seen a bit of the city. This is certainly not DC, let me tell you that.
So where have we been? We arrived at Union Station yesterday, met Sis and Chris, took the Brown, Red, and Purple Lines of the “L” train to Evanston, where our hotel is, met the Lysys, and then we went around the city a bit. We arrived in the Loop, and went to the observation deck of the Sears Tower. We waited in SO many lines for that. First line was to take the elevator down to the ticketing area. Then the line to go through security. Then the line to purchase the tickets. Then the line to wait to see the orientation film. Then the line to wait for the elevator. Then the line at the observation deck to take the elevator back down. Quite a production. But it was pretty good. The film was informative, and the observation deck offered a 360-degree view from the 103rd floor. I was disappointed that it wasn’t open-air, but hey, it was still fun, and I got a LOT of photos.
One thing about it, though: big elevators loaded with people make me nervous. This was after living in Potomac Hall, where the elevator would make a sudden drop when it arrived at the desired floor. The higher the floor, the bigger the sudden drop. Additionally, the more people in the elevator, the bigger the drop. Scared the crap out of you if you weren’t expecting it, and even if you were expecting it, it was still somewhat unsettling. Thus it’s left me with a slight fear of elevators loaded with people. However, this one went off without a hitch, and they had a video monitor with some cartoons on it in the elevator near the ceiling for people to watch. Still, even with all the various safety features on the elevator, the idea of having a 103-story hole right below me makes me somewhat uptight.
Waiting to ride…
< 1 minute read
December 26, 2007, 3:14 PM
And Mom and I are playing the waiting game in the Acela Lounge at Union Station in DC, waiting for the boarding call for the Capitol Limited. This will be fun, taking the train to Chicago. So far, we’ve already taken a Barwood cab to Glenmont, and a 4000-series Breda car to Union Station. And then a big “Superliner” car. Should be fun.
Then on the train, we’ve got a “Roomette”, which gives us a little room with a table and electrical connections for all of our various electronic toys. I’ve got some movies, and of course the Lappy. After all, 17 hours on a train requires a little entertainment.
Then the soon-to-be-Mrs-Lysy (my sister) is going to meet us at the train station tomorrow morning, and show us all around for the next few days. All in all, I’m excited!
Categories: Amtrak
Metro’s trying some new arrangements again, and…
5 minute read
December 8, 2007, 6:49 PM
Metro is once again trying some new designs with its railcars. On Alstom 6104 and 6105, they’re testing some new “resilient” flooring. On Breda 3283, Metro is testing a new seating arrangement, involving more bench-style seating near the center doors. Then Metro tested metal “straps” on all three cars.
First of all, the flooring. Here it is:
Photo: WMATA
Categories: WMATA
What a fun weekend!
5 minute read
November 25, 2007, 8:38 AM
All in all, I had a fun Thanksgiving weekend in Stuarts Draft, but I’m still very glad to be home again.
Thanksgiving itself involved the usual – turkey, and all the various fixings to go with it, and then falling asleep afterwards.
Then I spent Friday with Katie. We had a blast, as we did anything but shop. We went on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, then rode back around to Charlottesville, where we went to the Mellow Mushroom, where we had a vegetarian pizza with a pesto base. Twas awesome.
However, before Katie and I started out, we got a movie of Katie’s cat Peabo chasing a laser pointer around…
Categories: Charlottesville, Driving, Food and drink, High school, Katie, Target, Thanksgiving, Walmart, Waynesboro Outlet Village
“I’ll be home a little before 7:00.”
3 minute read
October 22, 2007, 8:06 PM
Famous last words.
I got home at 8:00, and we can say there’s never a dull moment when riding Metro. First of all, my morning commute went swimmingly, and I had a good day at work. However, the evening commute was another story. Normally, going home, I walk to Dupont Circle, I take a Red Line train to Glenmont, and then Ride-On’s 51 bus. But today, due to a fire at Union Station, it took three trains, a bus, and a two-block walk to get home.
So I walked to Dupont Circle, talking to Mom on the phone as I walked. Then I got my Red Line train to Glenmont at Dupont Circle. CAF 5140. So we’re off. Farragut North. Metro Center. Gallery Pl-Chinatown. Judiciary Square. Stop in the tunnel. Sit. Hold. Meanwhile, I was somewhat absorbed in the game of Scrabble that I was playing on my phone, while listening to Randi Rhodes (with Lionel sitting in), so it took me a while to even realize we were stopped. I realized, wait a second, we’re not moving. Then the operator came on the PA. “Due to a fire at Union Station, I have been instructed to bring this train back to Judiciary Square.” So then the little interior LED, which until now said “RED” on it, went blank. The operator gets out, and walks through the train to the other end. Then the interior LED comes on again, and it says “RED” on it, which means the operator is on the Shady Grove end of the train, and he’s turned the train back on. Which means we’ve gone from this:
And the new colors reach the 4000s…
< 1 minute read
September 28, 2007, 3:44 PM
Metro has done something I didn’t think they’d do before at least 2011. They’ve started changing the color scheme on the 4000-series cars, which were built by Breda in 1991. Take a look at Breda 4063, shown here…
Categories: WMATA
Which leaves you more winded?
2 minute read
September 17, 2007, 2:23 PM
Which leaves you more winded? An anti-war protest, or the Dupont Circle escalator? The escalator. This morning, coming out of the Metro on my way to work, the “up” escalator was not running at Dupont Circle. So I had to climb up rather than ride it up. And for those not familiar, Dupont Circle is a DEEP station. So that’s a lot of steps. And stopping is not an option, either, as you have a whole bunch of my fellow morning commuters right behind me, already cranky for having to climb the equivalent of several stories’ worth of stairs to get to work, before the day’s first cup of coffee. So that was no fun.
And out of three escalators, the only working escalator was going down. But hey, I got my cardio workout for the day.
Meanwhile, since I mention it, I did go to the September 15 protest, and what a great time I had. I went with Maddy, Olga, and Jeff, and went with the Radical Cheerleading DC group. What an awesome time. I also ran into Isis, whom I’d first met in June. And I also spent some time with SDS. It was awesome!
So I guess you could say I had a good time in Stuarts Draft over the weekend…
4 minute read
September 11, 2007, 10:48 PM
All in all, I did have a good time. Spent time with the parents on Saturday, and with Katie on Sunday. We had a blast, too.
First of all, on the way in, as I mentioned, I photographed the Starbucks in Waynesboro at the request of a coworker, and here it is:
Categories: Driving, Katie, Waynesboro, Waynesboro Outlet Village
I told you that our infrastructure would do us in, and I was right…
< 1 minute read
August 29, 2007, 2:46 PM
Remember how I said in the previous entry that our own aging infrastructure would kill us before any wannabe terrorist would? Well, I told you so. According to Metro, the problems on Sunday and Monday were caused by a lightning-induced power surge that knocked out the Potomac Yard power substation (that small brick building next to the tracks between Braddock Road and National Airport stations), causing other substations that were already at reduced capacity due to maintenance work in progress to work over to take up the slack. Thus the fires across the system.
And to fix the problem, Metro is replacing the Potomac Yard transformer, reconfiguring one at National Airport, and will be running trains at reduced speed between Pentagon City and Braddock Road. On that last one, here’s what you need to take out of it: “minor” delay.
Meanwhile, the fire at U Street-Cardozo was unrelated, having been caused by a problem with a “stud bolt”. I believe it relates to grounding the third rail, but don’t hold me to that.
So it’s not foul play. No surprises there.
And I still don’t know the number of the car with the brake problem. I want to know if it’s an older car like a Rohr or a Breda, or a newer car like a CAF, a Breda rehab, or an Alstom.
Categories: WMATA
More Metro problems?
2 minute read
August 28, 2007, 3:06 PM
Metro, Metro, Metro, what’s going on? As if five smoke and fire incidents on Sunday evening weren’t enough, the problems continued yesterday evening, according to Metro and The Washington Post. This time, there was a power failure from Pentagon to Braddock Road on the Blue and Yellow Lines, smoke in the tunnels near Pentagon City, and smoke at U Street-Cardozo caused by an overheated insulator.
It’s like Randi Rhodes said. Terrorists aren’t going to kill us, because our own aging infrastructure will do us in first. Now in Metro’s case, let’s see… we’ve so far had six stationary problems, and one train problem. I’ve not gotten wind of the car number that had the brake problem, so I can’t make a judgement about age, since it could have been a 30-year-old Rohr car, or a fresh-off-the-line Alstom, for all we know. Then for the others, we’ve had incidents at Mt. Vernon Square, U Street-Cardozo, Farragut North, Huntington, National Airport, and a large chunk of the C Route. Of these, Farragut North is 31 years old, National Airport is 30 years old, Huntington is 24 years old, and Mt. Vernon Square and U Street-Cardozo are both 16 years old. The section of the C Route that was affected was two different ages – from National Airport and on north is 30 years old, and south of National Airport is 24 years old. So this infrastructure is definitely no spring chicken anymore. Metro is also now considered a “mature” system, so one must be mindful of these things. Still, this is not good to have this many incidents happen so close together.
As if it couldn’t get any worse…
2 minute read
August 27, 2007, 2:37 PM
The things that happen on Metro sometimes verge on comical. And boy, am I glad I didn’t have to take Metro anywhere yesterday, opting to drive instead. Why? How about five different smoke/fire incidents through various parts of the system, affecting five lines?
Seriously. And all within about three hours’ time. First there was a smoke condition at Mt. Vernon Square at 5:46 PM Sunday due to an insulator problem. Then a fire in an equipment room at National Airport six minutes later. Then another 38 minutes later, a fire on the tail tracks at Huntington (i.e. the dead-end tunnels south of the station), causing the station to be temporarily closed. Then 38 minutes after that, there’s a cable fire at Farragut North, causing that station to be closed, and a bustitution was set up between Dupont Circle and Metro Center. And then at 8:12 PM, a train at Foggy Bottom had brake problems, causing the temporary closure of Farragut West station due to heavy smoke down the tunnel.
What makes it (somewhat) comical, though, is that while Metro was doing its darndest with the bustitution during the fire, the bus then caught fire! As if things couldn’t get any worse.
Meanwhile, I’d be interested in learning what the fleet numbers were for the train that had the brake problems, and the bus that caught fire, mainly to see if it’s an older vehicle (think a Rohr rail car or a Flxible bus), or a newer vehicle (say, a CAF rail car or an Orion VII bus).
Like I said, I’m glad that yesterday, I drove where I was going rather than taking Metro. But at least my commute today to work was uneventful, even if longer than usual. We were stop-and-go all the way from New York Avenue to Dupont Circle. No fun. But no fires, either, thankfully.
Categories: WMATA
The things that happen on Metro…
2 minute read
August 19, 2007, 1:34 PM
The fun thing about public transportation in a big city is that you never know what you’re going to find people doing. I went looking for Metro videos on YouTube this morning, and I found some good ones. Of course, I’ve already shared my “Puff the Magic Dragon” experience with you, but aside from that, other people sing, and other people do all kinds of other odd things. It seems that late at night is when a lot of these things happen, though the “Puff” incident happened during rush hour.
So let me share some things with you…
Got my exercise first thing in the morning today…
2 minute read
August 16, 2007, 7:29 PM
This morning, I got my exercise early. I’m walking down my street, I’m getting close to the corner, and I saw a large, white vehicle ahead of me at the opposite corner. It’s my bus. Immediately, my walk turned into a sprint, as I totally started booking it to make my bus (the bus was early, as it wasn’t supposed to be there for another five minutes). I sprinted across the northbound lanes of Georgia Avenue without much difficulty, and then traffic prevented me from sprinting across the southbound lanes right away. I did, however, get the Metrobus operator’s attention while I was in the median, and considering the bus was early anyway, I’d hoped he would hold long enough for me to catch him. Instead, while I was sprinting across the southbound lanes, he shut the door and started taking off, nearly running me over in the process. Nice guy.
So I missed the bus, no thanks to the bus operator. Okay, though, we’re flexible. I ended up walking up from my street to the next stop, about a quarter mile or so up the road. I figure from there, since my regular bus (though this wasn’t the regular driver) kicked me to the curb, I can either catch the next Y bus, or catch Ride-On’s 51 (whichever comes first), which skips my regular morning stop (it turns a corner there coming from Norbeck Park and Ride), but does take the next one. So I ended up taking the 51 to Glenmont, and then from there I caught the Red Line for my normal Metro commute.
“And just where they should stick out…”
2 minute read
August 12, 2007, 6:40 PM
On the way back to DC, I visited with my friend Katie for a few hours. We went out for breakfast, and then just kind of hung around for a bit. Fun times.
Meanwhile, in the car on the way to breakfast, I played Katie the song that Randi Rhodes plays every Friday on her show. Turns out that Katie and her mother enjoy the song, too! And Katie knows the words about as well as I do. Funny moment. We were going along with the song:
You know girls, men aren’t the only people in the world today that have something to give, but it sure looks like it sometimes. Just look around you – men stick out all over the place. Big fat cigars! Big fat stomachs! And just where they should stick out – phhbtt! – where is it?!