I have never before seen such unprofessional behavior from a transit employee…
7 minute read
August 9, 2011, 9:33 PM
First of all, I’m back from Chicago, and Mom and I certainly had fun. We did a whole lot of things while we were there, which included tons and tons of walking – on streets, up and down stairs, and through buildings. If you could walk to it, we walked to it.
But when it was too far to walk, we took the Chicago “L” for the most part. And when I ride a transit system outside of the Washington DC area, rail geekery ensues. By the way, it’s harder for me to get all geeky on Metro for just normal riding as of late, since I take it every day and all.
So on Friday, August 5, Mom and I were heading to the Magnificent Mile from our hotel in Evanston on the “L”, with the intention of going to see the John Hancock Center. Got on at Davis station, where we caught a Purple Line express train to the Loop, and then transfer to a Red Line train at Fullerton. Once on the Red Line, we were getting off at Chicago station.
When we got to Fullerton, we got off our Purple Line train, and stood on the platform awaiting our Red Line train. While waiting, I got busy being a railfan. First I shot a movie:
Continue reading…Categories: Chicago, CTA, Security, Some people
In 24 hours, I still won’t (quite) be in Chicago…
2 minute read
August 3, 2011, 7:59 AM
…but I will be much closer than I am right now and closing. Yes, 24 hours from now, Mom and I will probably be crossing through northern Indiana on the Capitol Limited in preparation for an 8:45 AM arrival at Chicago Union Station.
This trip is going to be fun. It will be a cool 83 degrees in Chicago while we’re there (it’s been a bit warmer than that in DC lately, trust me), and we’re going to have a lot of fun. Among other things, we’re going to see the new Marilyn Monroe statue, and see a play that Chris (my brother-in-law) is acting in. That I’m particularly excited about, because in all the years I’ve known Chris, I’ve never seen him act, save for a short demo reel on his site. I’m told this will be a children’s version of The Wizard of Oz, which should be fun.
Meanwhile, victory – I was able to explain to Mom in a way that she understood about why the monumental task of converting the site to WordPress is better than what I do now. I showed her the back end of the site and how I can update everything via a Web interface (once I finish building the skin), and how easy this is going to be. I think that Mom was able to wrap her mind around it, at least well enough to get the general concept, and understanding that this WordPress site I showed her really will be Schumin Web when it’s all said and done.
Then I was amazed to find what difference a little water makes. I didn’t have anything to drink all day yesterday on account of being so busy at the office, and I really started to drag in the evening. Turned out that I was just a wee bit dehydrated. All my energy came back once Mom and I got home and I drained one of my steel water bottles.
Metro has officially let the cat out of the bag…
5 minute read
July 25, 2011, 9:43 PM
It’s true. The cat is out of the bag. Last week, because of the extreme heat, Metro relaxed its longstanding prohibition on consuming beverages in the system, allowing riders “to carry and consume bottles of water on the system.” Take a look:
(Click it to see the full view of it, screen-capped from Metro’s site)
“…and that’s why everybody knows it’s fun to ride on a train!”
7 minute read
July 19, 2011, 9:31 PM
Yes, I’m back from my train trip to Durham, New Hampshire, where I got a lot accomplished in that small New England town. Actually, I got back on Friday, but you’ll forgive me for being a few days late, I’m sure.
The business part of this trip was actually pretty ho-hum. I knew going in what I was supposed to do, I did it, and it went without a hitch. Doesn’t make for great reading, so we’ll skip it.
The train trip was pretty fun. You would have never guessed that I would be one to enjoy the train trip immensely, now, would you? But yeah, it was a fun, new experience, and I went in ready to take it all in. In fact, I was just full of energy leaving the house on Tuesday. Enough that I made the decision: the hell with taking a cab to the Metro. I’m taking the bus. Seriously, I took the 51 to Glenmont. Here’s my luggage at the bus stop:
And there you go – my big suitcase, my work bag, and my camera bag, waiting neatly at the bus stop. All saw quite a bit of use by the end of the trip.
Greetings from Durham, New Hampshire!
< 1 minute read
July 14, 2011, 7:13 PM
First of all, greetings from Durham, New Hampshire, where I’m traveling on business.
Yesterday evening, I did a two-part Video Journal discussing some of the experiences on the trip up as well as my first day in Durham. Due to all the stuff I needed to take care of while up here, I didn’t get a chance to post it until tonight, but better late than never. So here it is:
Categories: Amtrak, Recreation/Exercise, Security, Video Journal, Work
This is why the next-to-last station will show no trains on the inbound display screen, and why no trains on screen is often acceptable…
5 minute read
May 31, 2011, 9:45 PM
So I was perusing the Twitter this morning, and came upon this tweet by FixWMATA:
Inbound PID at Eisenhower during “Peak of the Peak” morning rush. #wmata http://twitpic.com/5500rj
May 31 7:34 AM
Photo: FixWMATA
What you are looking at is purported to be the PIDS screen on the inbound side of Eisenhower Avenue station. Other details in the photo seem to confirm this. The concern being raised here is that the PIDS screen is blank.
Categories: Social media, Some people, WMATA
This is what vacations are good for…
3 minute read
May 18, 2011, 11:34 PM
Vacations are great for Schumin Web. Usually, every time I take a vacation, I manage to finish a photo set. This time, it’s Plungefest 2011. Normally this wouldn’t be notable, except that I ran out of time to finish this “in-studio”. See, I normally do all my photo sets at home, on my real computer. However, I ran out of time on Tuesday night, and I had planned a trip to Stuarts Draft from Wednesday to Friday. So first of all, hello from my parents’ house in Stuarts Draft. Thankfully, I was able to complete enough of the set on Tuesday night that I could do the rest of the work on the road from the netbook. So I did all the captions on my parents’ couch, and then pulled the covers off the menu entry, and then voila! Done.
On that last part, that was kind of interesting. Before I left the house, I put the menu entries in and then commented them out. Kind of reminds me of when banks change names, which, as you know, happens on a fairly regular basis anymore. They change the signs ahead of time, and then put a cover over the new sign with the old logo on it. I believe Wachovia is in this process right now, with their eventual change to the Wells Fargo nameplate. Then when the time comes, they just yank the cover off and the name is changed. Same here. I just removed the comment tags, and boom – the menu item is revealed.
Of course, this kind of stuff will all change when I eventually convert the site to WordPress. Then I’ll be able to do all of the site from anywhere, rather than the current situation of being restricted to my home computer for some parts and being partially mobile for others. I’m looking forward to that, but it’s going to be a long time still before that happens.
Categories: Charlottesville, Driving, Schumin Web meta, Stuarts Draft
National Train Day!
8 minute read
May 7, 2011, 11:17 PM
Today was National Train Day, and so I headed on down to Union Station to check it all out. I had been to National Train Day once before in 2009, so I kind of knew what to expect, but still, it’s always neat to see the different rolling stock that they had on display. Rail cars that travel over the national rail network are very different from those on urban mass transit systems, and so it’s always a treat to see them.
I took the Metro from Grosvenor (yes, Grosvenor) to get to Union Station. The way I figured, since I was also going to a Wikipedia meetup afterwards in Tenleytown, this made more sense than going all the way around to Glenmont afterwards. Plus I’ve never originated a day’s Metro riding from Grosvenor before.
Arriving at Union Station, I found the line. Specifically, the line for the train equipment display. After all, I came to see the real trains. The model trains don’t interest me so much. I want to see the real thing when I go out. The line was long. The end of the line, when I found it, was out in the shops, back here:
Go for main engine start… 3… 2… 1… we have booster ignition, and liftoff!
6 minute read
April 23, 2011, 10:58 PM
One of the fun things about living in the DC area is the fact that you have the Smithsonian Institution right in your backyard. Of course, it’s not like DC area locals go there on a regular basis. We don’t. But when I have guests over, I have a place to take guests that’s fun and educational. And in the case of this weekend, I hosted Mom from Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon, and on Friday, we went to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center out by Dulles Airport. The goal: see the Space Shuttle Enterprise before they swap it out for Discovery.
Let’s admit – I’m a bit of a space nerd. I just got finished reading a couple of books about the history of human spaceflight, and have edited quite a few articles on spaceflight-related topics on Wikipedia. I’ve never seen a rocket launch in person (but would like to one day), and I think actually flying in space might be fun, but launch and landing kind of scares me.
And the Space Shuttle, the technological marvel of its time, though in practice seriously flawed in its design, was interesting to see live and in person. First of all, photos do not quite give you a good idea about what the scale of this beast is. In looking at Enterprise (the prototype orbiter used for atmospheric testing that never flew in space), what you find out is that parts of the shuttle are a lot bigger than one would think. But at the same time, a lot of the shuttle is a lot smaller than one might think.
Third time’s the charm when it comes to Metro, apparently…
5 minute read
March 29, 2011, 10:00 PM
I certainly had an exciting commute home this evening, that’s for sure. My commute took 35 minutes longer than usual, and involved three Metro trains and one Ride On bus. Of those, one train and the bus are considered normal for my commute. I have a one-seat train ride, you see, going from Dupont Circle to Glenmont in the evening (and vice versa in the morning).
So on this evening’s commute, I went down into Dupont Circle station at exactly 5:44 PM according to the clock on the SunTrust building in Dupont Circle, as per usual. I got down into the station, and missed catching Breda 4018 (best known for being the struck train in the Woodley Park-Zoo accident) by seconds. Seriously, if the mezzanine-to-platform escalator had been running, I would have made that train, and ridden Breda 4018 home. But since I missed it, I had to wait on the platform for the next Glenmont train, sitting out one Silver Spring train in the process.
When my Glenmont train came, it was headed by Breda 3021 (I ride in the lead car coming home). This was pretty normal so far. I got in, got a seat right away, and got comfortable for my ride home. We made it from Dupont Circle all the way to Takoma station without incident. Then at Takoma, we started having a door problem. The train operator started going around and around and around with the doors, opening, closing, opening, closing, etc. trying to get the doors to do what they were supposed to do. Once I saw the train operator get on the radio, though, I knew what was likely coming next.
Big Brother knows when you travel the Intercounty Connector…
4 minute read
March 24, 2011, 11:01 PM
On February 23, the first phase of Maryland Route 200, otherwise known as the Intercounty Connector (ICC), opened from Shady Grove station to Norbeck Road, with an interchange at Georgia Avenue.
Taking advantage of the fact that tolls were waived on the ICC for the first week and a half of operation (it’s normally a toll road), I rode the ICC for the first time on February 26, riding from Georgia Avenue to I-370, and then I turned around somewhere on Sam Eig Highway. Basically, for those not following the designations, it’s one road with three names. My trip going west started at Georgia Avenue on Maryland Route 200 (Intercounty Connector). At Shady Grove Metro, the MD 200/ICC designation ends, and I-370 begins. Then at I-370’s interchange with I-270, the I-370 designation ends and the road becomes Sam Eig Highway, and goes for a while longer as an arterial, and then as a regular surface road (but whatever, I’ve never traveled Sam Eig Highway beyond where I turned around).
The ICC is certainly a nice-looking road, with the concrete sound walls designed to look like natural stone, and stained to match. Plus they also did a lot of work on the landscaping, and there is even a short tunnel along the route, covered in bright white tile (seriously, this is like the-color-of-your-toilet white, and lit brightly).
Categories: Roads
Metro cars with black floors, wool seats, and overly “busy” patterns…
4 minute read
March 2, 2011, 10:57 PM
One of the people I work with, when taking the Orange Line, happened to get Alstom 6027 for their ride into Washington today, and was surprised about the seat patterns being employed there. For those who don’t know, Alstom 6027 is one of two Metro cars (the other being its mate, Alstom 6026) that have been outfitted with some new materials that Metro is testing for future use on rail cars. Specifically, Metro is testing out certain types of resilient flooring and different patterns for wool seat pad covers on this car, having first outfitted the cars like this in late 2008.
On the resilient flooring, Metro seems to be primarily testing colors across the 6026-6027 pair. 6026 has a black floor:
Categories: WMATA
Wednesday’s commute home was perhaps one of the most challenging driving experiences I’ve ever had…
9 minute read
January 28, 2011, 9:09 PM
It was also the most unpleasant, for that matter. Wednesday, January 26, you see, the DC area was hit by a fairly large snowstorm. I think the area got about eight inches of snow, which, by last winter’s standards would be just a dusting, but by this year’s standards so far was a major snowstorm.
I think my biggest mistake was that since I had the car with me (due to work-related errands that I needed to run), I decided to wait to leave until it was likely too late. So I ended up getting a six-hour snow tour around Washington DC, watching transformer explosions light up the sky and testing every nerve in my body in the process. And both the car and I came out just fine, thank you.
I left the office around 5:30 on Wednesday, sending a tweet to announce my departure:
I’m outta here: LSMFT @capitalweather: Heavy snow overspreading entire region http://wapo.st/gp0zP2
January 26 5:27 PM
It was in the early stages of being dark, and I figured I was doing fairly well. Traffic was heavy, but moving, albeit slowly.
Categories: Commuting, Driving, Some people, Winter weather
So why don’t you just tell us what you really think?
2 minute read
January 11, 2011, 10:02 PM
So I drove to work today, and then going home, I put the phone in my GPS mount and did a Video Journal entry from the driver’s seat. And here it is:
Categories: Driving, Middle school, Video Journal, Wikipedia, Winter weather, WMATA
No better day for a Metro ride… without pants.
4 minute read
January 10, 2011, 11:30 PM
Yes, you heard that correctly. Without pants. See, Sunday was the day that Capitol Improv did its annual “No Pants Metro Ride”. It’s the exact same idea as Improv Everywhere‘s No Pants Subway Ride in New York City, but this was in DC, on our subway.
The group met up at Hancock Park in DC, which is on the next block from the north entrance to L’Enfant Plaza station. As demonstrated in this photo, we had a good amount of people participating:
