A Life For Itself

Tag: trains

  • Lights and Horns – 31 March 2021

    Today’s Inspiration:

    Another really good meditation and journaling session this morning.  

    Today’s joy:

    Homemade cheeseburgers and quality train content on YouTube.

    A past joy:

    I keep seeing these videos up of people at arcades.  I’m thinking of being back at arcades on the Jersey Shore.  Ones that aren’t excessively dark with a ton of LCD lights in the games.  Ones without a zillion games that you need a card to play.  I really like those ones with the old video poker machines that used to be inside of casinos.  Ones with Skee-Ball machines that I used to also see back in the 80’s.  With prizes inside of glass doored cabinets lining the entire building.  That’s my kind of arcade, though, I will show up at the more “modern” kind since they’re closer to where I live.

     

  • My Favorite Consist – 16 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_UcjMusUA

    The technique and artistry of this.

    Today’s joy:

    My little cousin texted me to check up on me and see how I’ve been doing. I’m not used to that from the under-30 crew these days.

    A past joy:

    I don’t miss working in an office, and especially if that office is in D.C., but I do miss catching the train. Walking through Union Station. Eating lunch there. There used to be a great Indian restaurant in there on the restaurant one level down from the Amtrak (and MARC and VRE) concourse level, that served the best mango lassi anywhere. Amtrak unveiled the original Acela trainsets while I was working in D.C. and I walked through one the day they started running. If I remember correctly, MARC also began rolling out the Kawasaki MARC III bilevel trainsets around the same time. Those became my favorite ever trainsets.

    And the boarding process at Union Station for commuter trains is nowhere near as insane as trying to get New Jersey Transit trains at Penn Station New York.

  • Longer days, fuller nights – 12 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    This post from #blkcreatives about joy. As well as some really good train travel videos on YouTube. 

    Today’s joy:

    Being out and about in really nice weather.

    A past joy:

    Being out and about in really nice weather, but playing baseball.  Also, being out and about in really nice weather, but down the ocean (or down the shore, however you refer to it).

    Almost immediately after I woke up this morning, I got quiet.  Still.  Touched that joyous place within.  Cut out the background noise.  It was a great way to start what ended up being a pretty good day.  Went out in the evening.  I’m still a night owl.  I love the night.  I prefer it.  It’s ironic how happy I am that it’ll be daylight out longer in a couple of days.  That’s probably a holdover from having to go in when the streetlights came on.  I’m going to enjoy it staying light past 7, but I think I may stay up all night tomorrow night reading and working on this play.

  • First Snow

    Definitely not used to it snowing this early in the season in Baltimore. As I always tell people, I’m not used to the first snow of the season coming until after the first of the calendar year. As it turns out, my gut feeling matches the reality behind early snow in this part of the world.

    The storm wasn’t a Nor’easter, but it’s set records and we took a good shot with snow (amounts varied around Maryland) and the other elements of the dreaded “wintry mix” as well as plain old rain and wind. I stepped out for a little while during the rain to get my yak trax out of the car. Rain was nice and cold and raw. I was very happy to get back inside. Felt like January. I’ll be glad when it gets back into the 50’s next week.

    Still, things could have been worse.

    Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for the Port Authority Board in their study of an expanded Port Authority Bus Terminal within NYC, especially at the current location. Increased space wouldn’t have helped on a day like today, as the traffic was so bad in New Jersey. The Port Authority, MTA, and New Jersey Transit really need to consider another rail link, possibly an already discussed expansion of the #7 NYC Subway line, somewhere in New Jersey, along with a bus terminal there. I know one of the considerations is that quite a few commuters have one- or two-seat commutes and a solution that ends up with adding another seat, are less than ideal. However, on days like today, I imagine folks would rather have another viable way home, whether there are a couple of transfers or not, rather than being stuck inside the terminal and told to find another way home.

    A total mess.

    A strange day when transit functions worse up in New York and New Jersey than here in Maryland.

  • NaBloPoMo 2016 – Day 16 (Tired, yet good)

    Off and on during parts of the day, I would ask myself, “what do I want to write about when I get home?” In the auditorium after being talked at and shown PowerPoint slides with long blocks of text. When I felt fatigued and my irritation growing with the pain in my feet on the way back from lunch. At 4:30 when I literally had nothing else to say because I’m not an expert like the people I was with in the room.

    Afterwards, I got back to Union Station and sat down in my seat, I thought, “when you get off, ask the conductor if they use Kawasaki trainsets on the Camden Line.” Then, I wondered what I’d write about.

    I never decided what I felt like saying.

    I did, however, pose my question to the conductor. After I climbed down the steps, I stood near him and waited, the other passengers filing around me to cross the tracks towards the parking lot.

    The answer, once everyone else had disembarked: only sometimes, he said, readying to command the train towards Camden Station. The Kawasaki trainsets are used almost exclusively on the Penn Line. The Camden and Brunswick lines use the newer MARC IV Bombardier sets. I wish I had more reason to be on the train and ask railfan questions to the conductors. I wonder why I never did it more often in New Jersey.

    This morning, I finally got a ride on a Kawasaki 7000-series Metro train. Much cleaner. Video screens showed news, like PATH trains. Digital message signs displayed the next and future stops like newer cars on the NYC Subway. Everything a subway car should be in 2016, even if they’re lacking the charm of 70’s chic, which some folks still like.

    I didn’t get home until 8. And I have to be in bed already for tomorrow. But I got to write about trains before I went to sleep. It was a good day.

    Tomorrow, I’ll be on the Penn Line. Maybe I’ll get a Kawasaki set. Tomorrow will be a good day, too.