Antiques and How to Tell

Covered wagons at the Oregon Trail Museum in Baker City, Oregon

Americans live in an old country. It’s true! How many governments do you know of that are older than ours? If you guessed England you got it.

Drive down any country road in America and sooner or later you’ll pass an antique store. Or if my sister’s in the car you’ll stop.

1938 Packard Club Sedan, Sixteen Series, Maine Coast RR Museum

That’s because we like old stuff. It reminds us of simpler times, like that time the cocktail waitress … No, no, no wait! OTHER simpler times. Like this:

When many of us were younger a car would stop along the road and the driver would get out and open the hood. The proper posture was to scratch ones head while staring at the engine. Somebody would stop and after a little discussion and “that looks loose” type comments they’d get it running again. Today if there’s a car stopped along the road it’s because the driver has a phone call. Nobody stops anyway because most of us have no clue how cars work since about 1980.

That’s not the point. The point is old mechanical stuff is interesting to millions of us. Because of this interest there are thousands of organizations dedicated to “historical” preservation and restoration.

There are clubs dedicated to most makes of cars and some even specialize in certain decades. For example there’s probably a club for 1950’s Nash Rambler. There are also clubs that focus on tractors, trucks, motorcycles, streetcars, and riding lawnmowers.

1907 Stanley Steamer in Wells Auto Museum, Maine

Look in your AAA guidebooks. Most states have railroad museums. Shore line states have boat museums. Tractor museums are scattered all over. In Auburn Indiana there’s the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum. (Highly recommended, by the way)

Most of the museums have a membership arrangement. You send some money every year and they send you a card for your wallet. In many cases you get a magazine or newsletter. If you like the museum enough to send money then you’ll like the magazine because it includes pictures.

Third Avenue Railway B in Seaside Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, Maine

Maine, another place where “Portland” is a city, has a Seashore Trolley Museum. It’s near Kennebunkport. Coastal people like to include “port” in the names of their towns. You won’t see “Mystic Seaport, Montana.”

The Seaside Trolley Museum has a collection of public transit vehicles from the last millennium. There are busses and streetcars from many cities across America and some international locales. It’s very interesting. You can ride an old trolley with lots of clatter and rattle just like back when people rode to work on those things.

Your assignment is to find a museum or society that preserves your favorite old mechanical vehicles and join up. That’s all there is to it.

Conductor on Trolley Ride, Seaside Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, Maine

How do you tell if it’s a true antique? One way is how long ago the last time you saw one of those was. When you are in an antique store and they have an exhibit of the appliances in your kitchen it’s time to re-think. Either you need new appliances or you’re not in a real antique store.

Worse yet is remembering much of the contents of a museum as stuff that was in your parents home when you were growing up. And how odd it looks. Ever see an old radio that you recognize as one you wanted but couldn’t afford? It’s in the museum because nobody could afford it back then and it was still in unused condition when it was found in a warehouse.

Try your antique 3D movie glasses on these photos.

Al

Al's Handwritten Blog

Rusting Tractor in Kansas Field

For a few years now I’ve been trying to chronicle the buildup of unstoppable forces bringing a world class transit facility to the shores of Lake Boren in Newcastle, WA. Writing about local events is a part time hobby. Nobody asks me to and nobody pays me.


The process is I write the story and then send it out as email to selected friends, acquaintances, and relatives. Provides evidence that I’m still alive while giving me with a therapeutic vent. A lot of it is based on real events with my added slant.

Then I upload that same story to my Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report blog. Sometimes I add photos and change the title. I’m a definite rooky formatting a blog and/or web page. I can get photos uploaded and I figured out how to re-open a post to fix a minor error.

One thing I can’t figure out how to get a background design working. I’ve had some help and found some hints but I still don’t know how to cause that “code” to actually get into the internet and make a background. You’d think I could do it. Everyone says it’s simple. I’m kind of simple too. It may be simple but you have to know what to do to make it happen.

A real event came along and kind of made my blog premise moot. Newcastle and Sound Transit spent a lot of last year installing a “Transit Center” at the main crossroads in Newcastle. Essentially it’s a bus stop. Paint on the street says “BUS ONLY” and some tiny rain shelters were added. The intersection got new pavement and new poles for traffic lights. Newcastle is very proud. However it’s not the palatial edifice envisioned in the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report. I call it the “interim transit center” providing service until the real one is built in the future.

In the mean time there are many other interesting things going on. I’m a man of leisure these days and I like to follow what’s happening. Lbrtr sometimes branched out to discuss other public and transit related construction projects. Some of these are getting stale. Maybe it’s me getting stale.

The Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report will add a cousin. Transit rants will still be sent to the lbrtr email distribution list. The Lake Boren Rapid Transit blog will continue with random updates. Light Rail on the eastside and various other local road and transit projects will continue to be found in email and in the blog. The new cousin will not have an email component.

My working title for the new cousin blog is “Al’s Handwritten Blog.” By not including the email I’ll have more flexibility to include photos referenced in the words and links to pertinent web sites. The blog building tools (although I don’t understand a lot of it) seem to be getting better allowing more items and hopefully more interesting visuals.

For now I'll be including these posts in my current blog rather than open a new one. I expect you’ll be able to tell the difference. Especially if you read both the email and blog versions – you won’t see the “Handwritten” posts in email. If you are particularly interested in reading what I write but only use email maybe this will encourage you to get the RSS feed. It’s easier than email and you’ll see all the photos, links, and confused logic.

On the other hand if you like reading what I write you need to visit a library. It’s full of stuff written by people who are actually good at it. Some of them use the correct words and form sentences way gooder then I ever done.

Downtown Bus leaving bushes at the Seaside Trolley Museum in Maine

Transit is still one of my prime interests. The evolution of transit vehicles has been amazing. Probably a subject for the Handwritten blog. What was that bus doing in the bushes?  I like history and the history of transportation is particularly fascinating. The “Handwritten” reference means these new posts will be even more along the lines of what I’m up to and where I’ve been. "Handwritten" in the sense that I do all the labor rather than gleen stuff from other sources.  I took that photo.  If you recall I’ve written about birding, photography, and maritime museums in the past. These are examples of subjects that will fall under “Handwritten” in the future. Pretty clever, eh?

Therefore, if you have questions, suggestions, a sense of wonder, or you’re just annoyed please feel free to let me know via the comments button below. I don’t know how it works, but I think all you need is a Google account – it’s free. It’s part of planet Google. When you send a comment I’ll read it (unless the “subject” has been flagged as spam in my gmail account).

I’m still not comfortable publicly ranting about national politics or the entertainment industry so you won’t see that stuff. Sports and “news” don’t hold my interest much either. Also my three rules will apply to the Handwritten posts: Accuracy – optional; Plagiarism – I’m not above it; Frequency – whenever.

The second one was from my college days. Several of us were putting our heads together on some project that was due very soon. One of the guys was a paragon of virtue, a well spoken stiff collar type who expended extra effort to obey all the rules. He spoke in complete sentences and used adverbs correctly at all times. Another guy suggested we could speed up the project if we were to copy a small section from a library book. Someone pointed out that copying was plagiarism. Mr. Straight Guy in his usual precise speaking voice immediately said, “I’m not above it.”

Just in case you’re curious, I still intend to maintain my own point of view. “What were they thinking?” Or “Could they possibly have made it any harder???” However, Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, will most likely stay with the Rapid Transit Report.

My other intention is that photos in these posts will mostly be my own. In the past I’ve borrowed web photos as a way to punch up stories. I’m not above it. That will probably continue in the transit posts. But the Handwritten posts should be more about the interesting stuff I find on my own. You’ll see some 3D photos. Dig around and find the red/cyan 3D movie glasses. You’ll need them. Again, if you have any comments please feel free.

Al

Portland Shows the Way

Down south of Newcastle in a state called ‘Oregon’ they have a city called Portland. It’s the main city in Oregon. Haha, get it? ‘Maine’ city? Try and keep up.


Portland also claims to be a west coast port city (hence the name) serving hundreds of thousands of cargo ships between America and Asia. I suppose. Who really knows?

Portland knows how to run a city. Look on Topeka (formerly Google April 1, 2010) and you find the city of Portland has its own web site. Hell, I have one, so it’s no big deal. I just don’t have a clue what good it is for me to have a website.

Anyway, right on the home page of the Portland Oregon website they give you a chance to “pay online.” How cool is that? Pay what? It doesn’t matter – just send some money and see what happens. Maybe you’ll get better water in your house.

If you navigate to Transit Options there are 15. Walking is the first one. Skates and skateboarding is the last one. Somewhere near the middle is Mass Transit.

The recent Trains Magazine says Portland is a Transit Friendly City. They should name it that to avoid the confusion with Portland, Maine. “Visit Transit Friendly City, Oregon and be sure to bring your umbrella” might be their slogan.

Portland operates a light rail system that’s been in place for years. It’s called “MAX” for some reason. Oh, it stands for Metropolitan Area Express. Express has been revised to start with X since MAE would sound a little wimpy.

Right now MAX has four lines. They are the Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow lines. That’s pretty good. Most painters can get along with these four colors because you can mix them and get most of the other colors.

Portland has a big advantage over Seattle. First of all Renton is about 200 miles north of Portland but its right next to Seattle. Second the body of water that splits the city is only a river. They can build bridges over the river. None of them are floating bridges. Thus very few have sunk over the years.

MAX is getting a new cable stay bridge over the river in Portland. It will be for the light rail, buses, bikes, and pedestrians. No cars. Fords and Chevys have to use the old bridges.

This is progressive and innovative. It won’t happen in Seattle. Lake Washington is no river. It’s 40 miles wide more or less and current neighbors say they can’t build a bridge unless it floats. Actually they don’t want any bridge at all. Thus our only Lake Washington bridges are floating. At least at the time of this writing they still are. That keeps them under the “view” that everyone is so worried about.

Portland is showing the way. Their light rail system, MAX, will be the primary user of the new cable stay bridge. It will not allow cars. Why is that significant? Cost. Cars require multiple lanes and shoulders where the police can pull you over for talking on a cell phone. That means a big wide bridge. Transit bridges are narrow. One lane each way. Pedestrians and bikes are much lighter than a big Diamond T.

The new cable stay bridge design is one people seem to like. It needs to soar way up over the river to allow ships to pass underneath. Cable stay is picturesque in keeping with the ambiance of shimmering Portland.

We want one of those. Lake Boren could use a picturesque cable stay bridge. It could link the library to the transit center. Pedestrians and bikes only. Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, will not allow any bridge that carries vehicles.

Al

Literate Commuters in Newcastle

The City of Newcastle will someday boast a World Class Transit Center on the shores of Lake Boren. Someday.

One of the components of Transit Center World Classdom has to be a Library located nearby. Weary commuters arriving back from work can take an escalator underground. From there they board the moving walkway that ambles through damp and dark tunnels to the sub basement of the library.

Then all they need to do is swipe their library card and enter a password (********* is what I use) and a book plummets down a chute. They slip the book into their rolling computer bag and head for home.

Without a library the transit center would just be a bus stop. For example right now in ‘downtown’ Newcastle that’s what it is – a bus stop.

Back in the old days when teachers were allowed to teach kids how to read a lot of us actually learned. We can still read stuff like books and blogs. That’s why we need libraries. There’s a correlation between folks who work and folks who read. This is why commuters want access to the library on their way home. It all fits together.

Newcastle embarked on a quest to get a branch library and in the King County Library System many years ago. Today there are almost 50 locations in the KCLS system. It’s a large outfit. Recently the Renton Library decided to join up. KCLS has survived the blow well and even managed to show a fake smile.

Renton is kind of a funny town. It’s part of the Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area but has exercised some kind of independence for most of its existence. For example the street numbering system that’s worked for Seattle and most of the rest of King County was not acceptable to Renton. They changed it around 40 years ago and it makes finding addresses in Renton difficult. Fortunately very few of us want to find anything in Renton so it’s just a minor annoyance.

The GPS tong has gotten most of the Renton streets programmed in. Here’s a warning: if you’ve never been to Renton be sure to bring your GPS so you don’t get lost.

Anyway, they also put up their own “public library” in downtown Renton. It is a unique structure in that it spans the Cedar River. The floor of the library is essentially a bridge. Not a floating bridge like I-90, but in very wet weather it seems to be near floating.

Having a special library in Renton was awkward because most of us think its all part of the King County Library. Now it is.

Seattle has a separate library with branches and lots of books. They also have an agreement with KCLS to return books that belong to each other. If a person checks out a book from the Seattle library and drops it off with KCLS it gets returned to the correct Seattle branch. And vice versa.

The problem with that exchange is that many years ago when it was first dreamed up the Seattle library was much larger. They only had to send a few occasional books to KCLS. Now the King County Library System is very much larger and the cost of returning books is substantially higher for poor old Seattle. Boohoo.

Back to the Newcastle Library. During the planning stage the city wondered if they could also include a City Hall in the same structure. Right now the City Hall is located in the front of a factory. The KCLS folks thought that was OK and agreed. Mainly because that meant they could share cost of construction. Gotta have a goal. This caused a rework of the plan.

The KCLS Branch in Burien occupies the same structure as the Burien City Hall. It’s not unheard of. Take a look. It’s on the web. Try www.dumb.idea... Or something.

Well that wasn’t enough for Newcastle. Next they wanted some low income housing units in there as well. Maybe 80 or 90. Along with a carwash, vitamin store, and local airport. Why not?

Then they removed the City Hall from the plan. I think they decided sharing a factory building would be better than sharing low income housing.

Anyway, all this required a lot of plan revisions and working with several other entities to reach agreements on what it should look like. This is not a fast process. The world circled the sun a number of times before they even had a sketch ready.

Then things came unglued and revised again. Economic realities forced cutbacks on what could be included and what should be left out. The airport was the first to fly out of the plan. Observers saw things going that way and suggested maybe the original library plan should once again be an option. The City Council quietly approved a zoning change that would allow the library to go it alone.

People over at the King County Library System can read. It’s a skill many of them have. They can also add. Maybe half have that skill. The upshot is that the library will now be built as a single use structure. Over a parking garage. As part of the agreement the folks who want to build the 80 unit low income housing are now free to make their own plans and construction schedule. Except that if they fail to begin by an undisclosed date the library will then be free to select a new partner for the remaining area.

Here’s my thought: it’s only one acre! Once you have a library and a few shrubs there’s not much room left for anything else. So don’t look for more junk on that lot. Besides, the city council has several more meetings before construction begins so who knows what they’ll come up with?

Al

Wanta Lease A Floating Bridge?

A while back we talked about far away places buying some American highways and stuff. The Indiana Toll Road was leased for $3.8 billion. The Chicago Skyway was leased in 2005 for $1.8 billion for 99 years. And Mayor Daley leased 36,000 parking meters in Chicago for 75 years.


The benefit is local and state govs get lots of cash right away. The down side is other folks collect the income (tolls and parking fees). The thinking was that the investors would get steady cash income over long periods. Imagine how much the Skyway could make in tolls for 99 years. Or 36,000 parking meters.

However, apparently the people who lease these things also have to maintain them. That’s the point. The theory is a private investment group can be more efficient with managing the continuous repair and upgrading these items require.

The people who pay for these big leasing agreements are actually investment groups. If you have lots of cash (Republicans) and you want stable return you hand it over to some slick dude who promises huge returns. Most of these guys are in jail now so you need to look elsewhere.

Anyway, you invest you “hard earned” with one of these investment groups and they lease, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a floating bridge. Now they charge a toll to drive across that bridge. Out of that income they do three things: pay dividends to investors, maintain the bridge, and finance the replacement when it finally stops floating. Unless the lease agreement includes some forward tax dollars to help with maintenance. Who knows?

The big dollar lease payment they gave the “owners” is not repaid. As long as the investors (you rich folks) don’t pull your money out of the scheme the leasing company hums along fat, dumb, and happy. And you make a few bucks along the way. See, the original investment stays as is and the investment company manages the cash flow.

The point of all this is that I’m forming an investment group to lease the SR 520 Floating Bridge. I’m planning a toll for everyone. Big bucks to use my bridge, man.

Here’s my plan: Double deck with transit and car pools on the lower deck and general purpose on the upper. Transit will include light rail. Everyone will get the transponder and when they use our new bridge we’ll make money. I need six lanes on each deck to maximize tolls.

We’ll have busses and car pools on the lower deck along with all commercial passenger vehicles regardless of riders. Taxis and shuttle busses with only a driver will be required to use car pool lanes anyway. We’ll have iron clad rules and massive fines. Porches will be allowed to drive anywhere they want.

Diamond Ts will be restricted to upper deck. See I call big trucks Diamond T. That’s because when I was a little kid, before the internet, TV, and video games, I’d go to the city park in Manhattan, Kansas and watch the big rigs on Poyntz. I didn’t know all the different brands so I thought they were all Diamond T. Now when I see a big truck my head says “Diamond T.” Sometimes my mouth says it too.

This is one of those things where a brand name morphs into a generic name such as Kleenex or Coke. Another generic word I often use is “hooter.” I use that whenever I encounter an object but I can’t quickly recall the right noun. That hooter you fill with water and put flowers in, you know… a vase! Or that hooter that squirts gasoline into the cylinders of your runaway Toyota.

Well it turns out that there are some people who have appropriated the word “hooter” as a designation for their very own personal anatomical parts. And they get annoyed if I use their word. Well here’s my reply: people don’t own words. OK, maybe somebody owns Kleenex or Coke, but generally speaking you can’t personally own a word. I’ve used the word “hooter” as long as I can remember. So my message is “Don’t get your naganeters in a bunch just because I say ‘hooter.’”

Dang, now I have to go back and see what I was talking about. I don’t read this stuff very often some hang on a minute… dum de dum dum.

Oh yeah! Leasing infrastructure. Apparently that was all the rage a few years ago but now it’s lost its luster. The Port Elizabeth NJ shipping terminal was leased to Deutsche Bank in 2007. They wanted to sell their interest in the $2.1 billion investment for profit. But then world wide shipping sank and they took a $205 million charge after shifting the terminals to their corporate division. In other words it didn’t work out so well.

My plan is better. Since I don’t have a big bank I can’t pay $205 million even if I had to. So your money is safe with me. Just send it in and when I get enough I’ll lease the Lake Washington crossing now occupied but the SR520 Bridge and we’re off to the races. I’ll sink the old bridge and install my new 12 lane money maker and charge enormous tolls. What could possibly go wrong?

Al