Blog Mirror: One Of Only 2 Known Rare Union Pacific Buses Coming To Cheyenne

 

One Of Only 2 Known Rare Union Pacific Buses Coming To Cheyenne

Towns and Nature: Ishpeming, MI: C&NW Depot

Towns and Nature: Ishpeming, MI: C&NW Depot: Depot: ( Satellite , Hematte Drive is over the footprint.) Roundhouse: ( Satellite , all traces of it are gone.) Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum: (...

Towns and Nature: Gillette, WY: 1907 CB&Q Roundhouse and Water Tower

Towns and Nature: Gillette, WY: 1907 CB&Q Roundhouse and Water Tower: ( Satellite , the roundhouse was removed by 1970. There are no obvious remnants.) Note the water tower on the left. The building with the de...

Blog Mirror: C&NW: Chicago & North Western Overview

 

C&NW: Chicago & North Western Overview

Rail Features. Thyra Thompson Building, Casper Wyoming.

The State of Wyoming recently completed the construction of a massive new state office building, the Thyra Thompson Building, in Casper.  All of the state's administrative bodies, except for the district and circuit courts, are housed there.

The building does house, however, the Chancery Court for the entire state, a new court that's only recently been established.

The building is built right over what had been the Great Northwest rail yard in Casper, which was still an active, although not too active, rail yard into my teens.  I can't really recall when they abandoned the line, but it was abandoned.

In putting the building in, and extending the Platte River Parkway through it, the State did a nice job of incorporating some rail features so that there's a memory of what the location had been.

They also put in some historical plaques, which are nice. The curved arch at this location, moreover, is the location of the old turntable.  It was a small one, which I hate to admit that I crossed over when I was a teenager, a dangerous thing to do.

 

Painted Bricks: Train mural, Casper Wyoming

Painted Bricks: Train mural, Casper Wyoming: 

Train mural, Casper Wyoming

This train mural is on the Platte River Parkway that runs through downtown Casper along a rails to trails easement.   The building is the 321 Art Works building, formerly an industrial warehouse.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden spike.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden sp...: 

Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden spike.

Harding drove in a golden spike on the Alaska Railroad at Nenana, a town near Fairbanks.

Harding was really putting in the miles, and saw a great deal of Alaska during his trip, at a point in time at which it was fairly difficult to do so.

The most dangerous major airline in the world, Aeroflot, saw its birth when its predecessor, Dobrolet, began operations with a flight from Moscow to Nizhny.

Egypt banned its citizens from making the Hajj in reaction to the King of Hejaz barring an Egyptian medical mission which was part of it.  The latter was done as an assertion of sovereignty by the Kingdom, which was not long to remain.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 2, 1923: Harding at the controls.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 2, 1923: Officers behind bars, Frenc...: 

Monday, July 2, 1923: Officers behind bars, French seize Krupp factory

President Harding, continuing his Voyage of Understanding, was allowed to take the controls of a locomotive, fulfilling a boyhood ambition.  It was an early electric locomotive.

U.S. President Harding in the cab of a Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("Milwaukee Road") boxcab electric locomotive, July 2, 1923. 

The trip took Harding to Spokane, where he addressed a crowd on public lands.  In his address, acknowledging the growing conservation movement that had received a large boost during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, he argued that use of public resources from public lands, rather than locking them up, preserved them.  He also more or less correctly anticipated the size of the US population in 2023.

Lex Anteinternet: Manual Jobs that have disappeared. Railroad Crossing Watchman.

Lex Anteinternet: Manual Jobs that have disappeared. Railroad Cross...: 

Manual Jobs that have disappeared. Railroad Crossing Watchman.

This is the Out Our Way cartoon from April 21, 1923, courtesy of Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub.

The thing that surprises me here is that it never occurred to me that there were human manned railroad crossings, but as this photo shows, they existed into the 1940s at least:

Railroad crossing, Beaumont, Texas, May 1943.

Indeed, in looking it up, it seems like the modern type of crossing with the lowering arms came about in the 1950s.  An earlier automatic type called a "wig wag" was patented in 1909, but it must not have had universal use.

By Richamos - I took the picture with my own camera, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6347827

This brings up a number of interesting things, including that signals just weren't what they now are.  This likely explains why railroad crossing accidents were seemingly so common, such as this one, which was discussed in the Casper Daily Tribune about an April 20, 1923 accident.

But another matter, while the world is seemingly getting safer, there's less of a role for humans in it.

We've discussed this before, but automation is eliminating jobs, and has been, for a century.  Crossing guard attendants probably filled that job for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons likely was that some of the occupants of that position simply were suited for a job with pretty much no skills whatsoever, and were fine with a long day to themselves.  Where are they now?  Some of them are unemployed and unemployable.

And with the arrival of AI, this will rapidly expand into the white collar and professional world. We're making a world we literally can't live in.

Railhead: The not so great train robbery.

Railhead: The not so great train robbery.: CN police, RCMP investigating Monday train robbery in Brocklehurst Mar 28, 2023 | 1:36 PM KAMLOOPS — Kamloops RCMP are assisting CN Rail pol...

So, two days later, what do we now know?

Not much more, perhaps showing the difference in media access in Canada vs. the US.

The RCMP is asking for help. but the details so far have been very limited.  It was an armed robbery, conducted by a man who felt in a white sedan, and who was wearing a hoodie.

That's it.

It's also the first train robbery in British Columbia since 1906.  That train was robbed near Kamloops as well, by Bill Miner the Gentleman Bandit.

 We know that Miner didn't do this one, as he died in 1913 at age 65 from gastritis due to drinking brackish water.