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Vogelrok 20/05/2023 15h01

The boarding station at the enclosed rollercoaster Vogelrok.

 

Vogelrok

The name of the ride, Vogel Rok, refers to the adventure of Sinbad and the Bird Roc from the 1001 Arabian Nights; the extensive theming covers, beside the ride, the building and the queue line. The building has as a frontage a giant colorful Roc, the largest bird in Europe, according to the Guinness Book of Records. In the opening year there weren’t a lot of effects in the ride, and the link between the story and the ride wasn’t very clear. Since then a Serpent’s mouth has been added at the end of the ride, which lights up as the train goes through it. There used to be a laser-light-show at the queue, but that has been removed. This was done because the lights were too low, and people would look at them, thereby damaging their eyes. In 2007, more themed decorations were added.

 

Lasers project over the train as it climbs the lift-hill and seen to the left are four Rocs flying off. In a strong curve down leftwards the train dives towards the ground and several more curves bring the train through a tunnel of lasers.

The train then falls into a helix and goes through a Serpent’s mouth, which lights up as the train passes through it. The last curve is decorated with fiber optic lights, portraying the diamond treasure.

Apparent wind-effects stimulate the ride-experience.

The ride has an onboard sound system with a synchronized soundtrack written by composer Ruud Bos, who also wrote the musical themes for Droomvlucht, Fata Morgana and Villa Volta.

 

FACTS & FIGURES

Park section: Reizenrijk

Opening date: April 9, 1998

Cost: € 12 million

Type: Steel – Enclosed

Manufacturer: Vekoma

Designer: Ton van de Ven

Model: Custom MK-900

Lift/launch system tyre-driven lift-hill

Height: 25 m

Drop: 19 m

Length: 700 m

Speed 40 mph (64 km/h)

Inversions: 0

Duration: 101 seconds

Capacity 1600 riders per hour

G-force: 3.5

[ Source: Wikipedia - Vogelrok ]

 

Height 112 feet / 34 meters

Length 144 feet / 44 meters

 

Ulm Minster interior, view down the nave. With an internal height of 41 m from floor to vault it is one of the most impressivily tall medieval church interiors

 

- Thanks for more than 6,002,397 views on my stream

 

2017 28.500.00 views

 

Settings: 15 sec ƒ/3.3 ISO 100

Self Timer 2 s

 

Mit Taschenstativ von Ringfoto, Ulm, Herr Blum

Dörr Mini Stativ mit Kugelkopf und ausziehbaren Teleskop-Beinen, 17 cm.

Doerr Mini Tripod with Ball Head and extendable telescopic legs, 17 cm.

 

Focal Length (35mm format) 24 mm

Scene Capture Type Night

Country Germany

State Baden-Wurttemberg

City Ulm

www.tourismus.ulm.de/tourismus/de/sehenswert/kirchen_und_...

 

Landmark Ulmer Münster, fünfschiffige Basilika und Stadthaus Ulm

Für die statisch konstruktiven Teile des Turms hat man den härteren Schlaitdorfer-Sandstein, Keupersandstein, eingesetzt, der im Raum um Tübingen vorkommt.

Ein heller, grobkörniger Stubensandstein aus Schlaitdorf ( früher "Sleitdorf" oder Slaidorf, ab 1451 gehörte Schlaitdorf zum Amt/Oberamt Tübingen; heute zum Landkreis Esslingen und Kirchenbezirk Nürtingen - evangelisch - und Neuhausen auf den Fildern - katholisch -) im Neckargebiet . „Sleit“ hat wahrscheinlich die Bedeutung "Bergabhang".

Es ist ein in trockener Deposition entstandener Keuper-Sandstein, der sehr inhomogen ist und bei dem sich recht beständige Zonen mit schnell verwitternden in kurzen Abständen ablösen.

Am Schlaitdorfer Sandstein gibt es heute große Zerstörungen. Da der Stein nicht unter Wasser, sondern in trockener Deposition entstanden ist, wechselt die Qualität von Quader zu Quader. Nicht alle Stück sind der Verwit-terung unterworfen, manche blieben bis heute unversehrt.

 

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main aisle- Hauptschiff einer Kirche

Innenraum mit überhöhtem Mittelschiff und Obergaden

www.muensterbauamt-ulm.de/muensterbauamt/baugeschichte.html

 

The orientation of churches is the architectural feature of orientating, or facing churches towards the east (Latin: oriens). The orientation of churches towards the liturgical east has persevered until the present day in a number of Christian denominations.

 

The Jewish custom of fixing the direction of prayer and orienting synagogues (Mizrah) influenced Christianity during its formative years. In early Christianity, it was customary to pray facing toward the Holy Land.

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Eine Basilika ist eine Kirche, deren mittleres Schiff höher ist als die Seitenschiffe, wobei das Mittelschiff über eigene Fenster im Obergaden verfügt.

 

Die Bezeichnung Schiff ist eine Übersetzung des griechischen Wortes Naos, welches sowohl „Wohnort der Götter“ als auch in der Schreibweise „Naus“ Schiff bedeutete.

Exkurs: Kirchenbau:

 

Das Mittelschiff oder auch Hauptschiff ist der mittlere Bau und in der Regel der breiteste und längste Raum der Kirche.

Dieser Teil ist meist für die Besucher des Gottesdienstes bestimmt.

 

Als Kirchenschiffe bezeichnet man die Längsräume von Kirchen. Hat eine Kirche mehrere Schiffe, so sind diese durch Scheidewände mit Arkadenreihen voneinander abgeteilt.

 

Dem Hauptschiff beigestellte, durch Säulen oder Pfeiler abgetrennte Räume bezeichnet man als Seitenschiffe bzw. Nebenschiffe oder auch als Abseite (veraltet).

 

Alle diese Bauten zusammen werden auch als Langhaus bezeichnet.

 

Der Chor und das Querhaus einer Kirche können ebenfalls aus mehreren Schiffen bestehen. Die Trennwände zwischen Mittelschiff und Seitenschiffen und zwischen Seitenschiffen werden Scheidewände genannt, die meist mit Arkaden aufgelöst sind.

Orientierung - Ostung

 

Orientierung: - ad solem orientem - in Richtung auf die "aufgehenden Sonne"

 

Orientierung in der Architektur ist die Ausrichtung eines Gebäudes oder Baukörpers nach den Himmelsrichtungen.

 

Gelungene Architektur zeichnet sich durch das gekonnte Einsetzen von Licht und Schatten; bei Sakralbauten insbesondere von der Morgensonne und Abendsonne, aus.

   

Sofern es das Baugrundstück zulässt, ist das Langhaus normalerweise in west-östlicher Richtung erbaut und der Chor nach Osten ausgerichtet – als Sinnbild der „Neuen Sonne“ bzw. der Auferstehung Christi. Der halbrunde Abschluss des Langhauses hinter dem Chor wird als Chorapsis bezeichnet.

Mit dem Altar nach Osten und dem Portal nach Westen.

 

Wenns irgendwie geht, werden auch die heutigen Kirchen noch geostet. Das steckt auch die Symbolik dahinter, dass im Osten die Sonne aufgeht und die Kirche dann sozusagen auf Christus hin, der ja die aufgehende Sonne ist, ausgerichtet ist.

 

Die Ausrichtung zur Sonne ist bei Kirchengebäuden aus religiösen Gründen wichtig, das Wort Orientierung (zu Oriens, Osten) hängt mit der Ausrichtung von frühchristlichen und mittelalterlichen Kirchen an die östliche Richtung zusammen, fachlich "Ostung" genannt.

 

Der primäre Zweck dieser annähernd ostseitigen Ausrichtung ist, die Altarseite bzw. das Presbyterium -- die Seite des Chors -- für den Frühgottesdienst in das Morgenlicht zu stellen.

Über dem Portal - Westwerk, Westportal, Westfassade - sind oft prächtige Rundfenster, durch welche die Nachmittags- oder Abendsonne fällt.

Das zweite Geschoss über Seitenschiffen wird als Empore oder Tribüne bezeichnet.

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A characteristic of Gothic church architecture is its height, both absolute and in proportion to its width, the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven.

 

A section of the main body of a Gothic church usually shows the nave as considerably taller than it is wide.

 

In England the proportion is sometimes greater than 2 : 1, while the greatest proportional difference achieved is at Cologne Cathedral with a ratio of 3.6 : 1.

 

The highest internal vault is at Beauvais Cathedral at 48 metres (157 ft).

 

_________________________________________________

  

Langzeitaufnahme

Ausmaße:

 

Gesamtlänge außen 123,56 m

Gesamtbreite außen 48,8 m

Innenhöhe Hauptschiff 41,6 m

Adresse: Münsterplatz 21, 89073 Ulm

 

Architektonische Höhe: 161,53 Meter (oder 768 Stufen) Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

 

Eröffnet: 1420

(zum Vergleich:

Kölner Dom:

 

Gesamtlänge außen 144,58 m

Gesamtbreite außen 86,25 m

Innenhöhe Hauptschiff 43,35 m

aber nur Architektonische Höhe: 157 m Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat)

 

Zehn Jahre zuvor wird bereits der Kölner Dom vollendet.

Architekt Beyer ändert die Baupläne und baut den Münsterturm entgegen den ursprünglichen Plänen zehn Meter höher, so dass er heute gut 161 Meter hoch in den Himmel ragt. Vier Meter höher als der Kölner Dom.

„Natürlich rein zufällig“, sagt Horst Sprandel mit einem Augenzwinkern.

 

Bei der Beschaffung der finanziellen Mittel ist damals Kreativität gefragt.

Eine Münsterlotterie wird ins Leben gerufen. Die beiden Lostrommeln stehen noch heute unter dem Dach des Seitenschiffes. Für wenige Kreuzer konnte man damals eine Loskugel ziehen und kleine Sachpreise gewinnen: Streichhölzer oder Taschentücher.

Und eine so mächtige Kirche wie das Ulmer Münster hat auch heute noch ihren Preis.

 

Mehrere hunderttausend Euro müssen jährlich in den Erhalt gesteckt werden. So gut wie immer ist irgendein Bereich der Fassade eingerüstet. Ist die Sanierung an einem Ende abgeschlossen, beginnt sie am anderen wieder von vorne.

Biography: Public service and social action are the intertwining strands in Dorothy Height's life. By the age of 14 she was president of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Girls' Clubs. She graduated from New York University in 1924 after three years of study, and received her master's degree in educational psychology the following year. One of the first elected officers of the United Christian Youth Movement and active in the Harlem Christian Youth Council, she participated in a select planning group with Eleanor Roosevelt for the World Youth Congress in 1938. She was an investigator and special investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare and supervisor of a district in Brooklyn. Her long professional affiliation with the YWCA began in 1937 when she became assistant director of the Emma Ransom House in Harlem, and then executive of the Phillis Wheatley YWCA in Washington, D.C. Her involvement in the 1947 YWCA convention led to the adoption of its first interracial charter and she thereafter became director of the YWCA's Center for Racial Justice. Miss Height's affiliation with the NCNW also began in the 1930s and she has been president since 1957. A leader in the civil rights movement, she was a member of the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, a group which focused on issues of racism and organized the 1963 march on Washington. Ms. Height taught at the Delhi School of Social Work in India in 1952, traveled to South America in 1959 under the auspices of International Seminars, and in the 1960s and 1970s undertook assignments in Africa for the State Department and the Agency for International Developrnent. A recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the National Conference on Social Welfare, she has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

 

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick

 

Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.

 

Collection: Black Women Oral History Project

 

Research Guide: guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

  

Questions? Ask a Schlesinger Librarian

Height approx 4 inches

Overcast walk at Clipperdown.

So overcast in fact that I took most of my shots in black and white.

DB Cargo Class 66/0 No. 66087 approaches Great Rocks on the line from Buxton with 6H52, the Briggs Sidings – Ashburys loaded box wagons on 27th June 2019. The right hand line is in fact a siding terminating in Tunstead Quarry about 1 mile away.

Copyright © 2014 by Craig Paup. All rights reserved.

Any use, printed or digital, in whole or edited, requires my written permission.

 

A bittersweet photo for those afraid of heights (like myself).

 

Ulitsa Biryuzova, Ryazan, RU

At the height of the Great Depression, two hundred and fifty thousand teenage hoboes were roaming America. Some left home because they felt they were a burden to their families; some fled homes shattered by the shame of unemployment and poverty. Some left because it seemed a great adventure. With the blessing of parents or as runaways, they hit the road and went in search of a better life.

Public perceptions of the road kids differed. There were people who saw the American pioneer spirit embodied in the young wanderers. There were others who feared them as the vanguard of an American rabble potentially as dangerous as the young Fascists then on the march in Germany.

By summer 1932, the "roving boy" had become a fixture on the American landscape. The occasional girl was sighted too, mostly passing unrecog- nized in male garb. Girls especially never took the decision to hit the road lightly, for they knew they were stepping into a world filled with danger. It was the same for young African-Americans, for whom the beckoning rails could be doubly perilous should they lead into towns where the color of their skin would make them outcasts.

Thomas Minehan, author of Boy and Girl Tramps of America, estimated that 10 per cent of those he met were girls. They traveled in pairs, sometimes with a boy-friend, and not infrequently with a tribe of 10 or 12 boys. Minehan described "Kay," who was 15: "Her black eyes, fair hair, and pale cheeks are girlish and delicate. Cinders, wind and frost have irritated but not toughened that tender skin. Sickly and suffering from chronic under-nourishment, she appears to subsist almost entirely upon her finger nails which she gnaws habitually."

Eighty-five per cent of the white youths said they were seeking work; for the African-Americans the percentage was even higher at 98 per cent. Fifty percent of the African-Americans had been unemployed for two years or longer.

A 1935 survey of 20,000 transients conducted by Herman Schubert at Buffalo, New York, was one of the rare studies to enumerate African-American youths. Sociologist Schubert interviewed 2,308 whites and 662 African-Americans in the 15-to-24 age group. The young African-Americans had been on the road longer than the whites, the median age of wandering for the former about six months as compared with three months for the latter.

Are they bums? Not unless one wants to classify a goodly section of the remainder of the country's population as such," Schubert concluded.

It was a thrill to ride the top of a boxcar running across the Great Plains or to catch the blinds of a famous flyer like The Twentieth Century Limited. It was also a ride accompanied by constant danger that could turn deadly in an instant.

The Interstate Commerce Commission's annual reports show that during the years 1929 to 1939, 24,647 trespassers were killed and 27,171 injured on railroad property. Since railroad agents placed the percentage of minors at one third, there can be no doubt that thousands of young nomads met a gruesome fate on the rails.

Hospitals treated transients only if they were seriously ill. They suffered diseases due to exposure, lack of cleanliness, vermin, contagion or infection. Ill-clad and undernourished, sometimes days would go by without food. "I was hungry all the time. Dreadfully hungry," remembered John Fawcett. "I'd never been hungry before. I went two or three days without anything to eat. In a short time on the road, I lost 15 to 20 pounds. Your hunger hurts physically."

In summer, boys followed the harvests in the West. A young hobo might start with the hay harvest in California and the Rocky Mountain states in early summer. Later on there was corn and wheat in the Mid-West; and in the early fall, hops, berries and fruits in the Pacific North-West. Winter could be spent in the cotton fields of Texas and the South-West. In early spring, a harvester might drift into Southern California for the vegetable and citrus crops.

Before the close of his first month in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC.) Unemployed and unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25 were eligible to enroll. They were to be paid $30 a month, of which $25 was to be sent directly to their needy and dependent families. So urgent and volatile did the administration view the youth crisis that the first camp was set up on April 17, 1933 — just 12 days after the CCC was officially inaugurated. By early July, 250,000 young men were settled in 1,468 forest and park camps.

"As there's no single answer to why boys leave home, there's no single answer to what will keep them there after — and if — they go back," said one case worker. "But if I had to make such an answer it would be jobs. Just that. Honest-to-goodness jobs that would let a fellow feel that he's a man, running his own life."

  

Gee those Penny Farthings bikes are tall .. where theres a will theres a way .. yes it is his bicycle and he rides it … its all in the technique .

 

History Alive

Fort Lytton . Brisbane

Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on the north side of Hillsboro Inlet, midway between Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. The light marks the northern limit of the Florida Reef, an underwater coral formation on the lower east coast of the state.

 

Hillsboro Point was designated as hazardous for the safe navigation of ships in 1855, and federal designation was sought. A request for a lighthouse at the inlet was first made in 1884. The request was repeated yearly and rejected 17 times. In 1901, the United States Lighthouse Board persuaded Congress to authorize the construction of a lighthouse in the dark area between Jupiter Inlet Light and Fowey Rocks Light.

 

The official order approved on February 12, 1901 called for a "first-order light at or near Hillsboro Point...at a cost not to exceed $90,000." No appropriation of funds was made in 1901 and in 1902 $45,000 was appropriated.The full funding to build the lighthouse was appropriated on March 3, 1903.

 

Initially a site on the south side of the inlet was selected, however it was not feasible, so a site on the north of the inlet was chosen. The owner of the property did not want to sell at first but after beginning condemnation proceedings, an agreement to purchase the land was reached. The 3 acre (1.2 ha) parcel was purchased for $150 from Elnathan T. Field and Mary W. Osborn of Middleton, New Jersey who had bought the land for 70 cents an acre (0.4 ha) from the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund.

 

Soon after the light was operational unexplained reports of fires in the Everglades began to come in. The cause was the lens, when stopped in the morning at just the right position, it would focus the sunlight west towards the wetlands. A landward baffle was installed. This also shielded nearby residents from the bright light at night.

 

Lightkeepers would assist shipwrecks using three 12 to 20 horsepower gas boats. The wives of the lighthouse keepers would make sea grape jelly to trade for pickled vegetables from local farmers. Four Coast Guard signalmen were stationed at the lighthouse in World War I barracked in one of the storehouses.

 

During the 1926 Miami hurricane J.B. Isler stood a 32-hour watch, keeping the light burning while fearing the lighthouse would fall. It stood but 20 feet (6.1 m) of sand was washed out from under it, according to Mary Ella Knight Voss, daughter of a prior lightkeeper. The storm also damaged the dwellings and carried away the boathouse and wharf. Isler's son George and daughter Ruth, born in the keeper's house, were the first children of record born at the Hillsboro Inlet.

 

The lighthouse beach patrol spotted a German U-boat in 1943, during World War II. The submarine was reportedly sunk, but no wreck has been documented. Later that year a freighter, the M.S. Arcura aroused the suspicion of a lighthouse keeper. The ship was being used as a raider and was crewed by German nationals and carrying arms. The crew were transported to Port Everglades and the Arcura became a war prize.

 

In 1974 the lighthouse was fully automated. One United States Coast Guardsman was assigned to remain on site to maintain the light and grounds. The assistant keepers' homes were converted to guest quarters for senior coast guard and other senior military officers. The Hillsboro Inlet Light Station was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1979. The lighthouse and buildings are little altered from their original construction in 1907.

 

In the second half of the 20th century, this inlet became an increasingly busy waterway. Hillsboro Inlet Light is considered one of the most powerful lights in the world with a beam that can be seen for 28 nautical miles (52 km; 32 mi).

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsboro_Inlet_Light

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Career

Name: RMS Olympic

Owner: White Star flag NEW.svg White Star Line 1911–1934

Cunard White Star Line Logo.JPG Cunard White Star Line 1934–1935

Port of registry: United Kingdom Liverpool, United Kingdom

Route: Southampton to New York

Ordered: 1906

Builder: Harland and Wolff, Belfast

Yard number: 400

Laid down: 16 December 1908

Launched: 20 October 1910

Completed: May 1911

Maiden voyage: 14 June 1911

In service: 1911

Out of service: 1935

Identification: Official Number 131346

Code Letters HSRP

ICS Hotel.svgICS Sierra.svgICS Romeo.svgICS Papa.svg

Radio callsign "MKC"

Fate: Retired at Southampton after 24 years service & scrapped. Superstructure dismantled at Jarrow, England, and the hull at Inverkeithing, Scotland.

Status: scrapped (besides the Second Class Lounge)

General characteristics

Class & type: Olympic-class ocean liner

Tonnage: 45,324 gross register tons; 46,358 after 1913; 46,439 after 1920

Displacement: 52,067 tons

Length: 882 ft 6 in (269.0 m)

Beam: 92 ft 6 in (28.2 m)

Height: 175 ft (53.3 m) (keel to top of funnels)

Draught: 34 ft 7 in (10.5 m)

Decks: 10 decks (1 crew deck)

Installed power: 24 double-ended (six furnace) and 5 single-ended (three furnace) Scotch boilers. Two four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engines each producing 15,000 hp for the two outboard wing propellers at 75 revolutions per minute. One low-pressure turbine producing 16,000 h. 59,000 hp produced at maximum revolutions.[1]

Propulsion: Two bronze triple-blade wing propellers. One bronze quadruple-blade centre propeller.

Speed:

 

21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)

23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph) (maximum)

 

Capacity: 2,435 passengers

Crew: 950

 

RMS Olympic was a transatlantic ocean liner, the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class liners. Unlike her younger sister ships, the Olympic enjoyed a long and illustrious career, spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935. This included service as a troopship during World War I, which gained her the nickname "Old Reliable". Olympic returned to civilian service after the war and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable.

 

She was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1911–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger Titanic (which had the same dimensions but higher gross tonnage due to revised interior configurations), and then outsized by the SS Imperator. Olympic also retained the title of the largest British-built liner until the RMS Queen Mary was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of her slightly larger sister ships.[2][3]

 

By contrast with Olympic, the other ships in the class, Titanic and Britannic, did not have long service lives. On the night of 14/15 April 1912, Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, claiming 1,500 lives; Britannic struck a mine and sank in the Kea Channel in the Mediterranean on 21 November 1916, killing 30 people.

 

Background

 

Built in Belfast, Ireland, the RMS Olympic was the first of the three Olympic-class ocean liners – the others were the RMS Titanic and the HMHS Britannic.[4] They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Line's fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912.[5] The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. The White Star Line faced a growing challenge from its main rivals Cunard, which had just launched Lusitania and Mauretania – the fastest passenger ships then in service – and the German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Ismay preferred to compete on size rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be bigger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury.[6] The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the Cunard giants but also to replace their largest and now outclassed ships from 1890, the SS Teutonic and SS Majestic. The former was replaced by Olympic while Majestic was replaced by Titanic. Majestic would be brought back into her old spot on White Star's New York service after Titanic's loss.

 

The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867.[7] Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin.[7] In the case of the Olympic-class ships, a cost of £3 million for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five percent fee.[8]

The launch of Olympic on 20 October 1910

 

Harland and Wolff put their leading designers to work designing the Olympic-class vessels. It was overseen by Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line; naval architect Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager.[9] Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design.[10]

 

On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to J. Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later authorising the start of construction.[11] At this point the first ship – which was later to become Olympic – had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. Titanic was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401.[12] Bruce Ismay's father Thomas Henry Ismay had previously planned to build a ship named Olympic as a sister ship to the Oceanic. The senior Ismay died in 1899 and the order for the ship was cancelled.[13]

 

Construction of the Olympic began three months before Titanic to ease pressures on the shipyard. Several years would pass before Britannic would be launched. In order to accommodate the construction of the class, Harland and Wolff upgraded their facility in Belfast; the most dramatic change was the combining of three slipways into two larger ones. Olympic's keel was laid in December 1908 and she was launched on 20 October 1910.[4] For her launch, the hull was painted in a light grey colour for photographic purposes; a common practice of the day for the first ship in a new class, as it made the lines of the ship clearer in the black and white photographs. Her hull was repainted black following the launch.[3]

 

Features

 

The Grand Staircase of Olympic.

 

The Olympic was designed as a luxury ship; her passenger facilities, fittings, deck plans and technical facilities were largely identical to those of her more famous sister Titanic, although with some small variations.[14] The first-class passengers enjoyed luxurious cabins, and some were equipped with private bathrooms. First-class passengers could have meals in the ship's large and luxurious dining room or in the more intimate A La Carte Restaurant. There was a lavish Grand Staircase, built only for the Olympic-class ships, along with three elevators that ran behind the staircase down to E deck,[15] a Georgian-style smoking room, a Veranda Café decorated with palm trees,[16] a swimming pool, Turkish bath,[17] gymnasium,[18] and several other places for meals and entertainment.

 

The second-class facilities included a smoking room, a library, a spacious dining room, and an elevator.[3][19]

 

Finally, the third-class passengers enjoyed reasonable accommodation compared to other ships, if not up to the second and first classes. Instead of large dormitories offered by most ships of the time, the third-class passengers of the Olympic travelled in cabins containing two to ten bunks. Facilities for the third class included a smoking room, a common area, and a dining room.[3][19]

 

Olympic had a cleaner, sleeker look than other ships of the day: rather than fitting her with bulky exterior air vents, Harland and Wolff used smaller air vents with electric fans, with a "dummy" fourth funnel used for additional ventilation. For the power plant Harland and Wolff employed a combination of reciprocating engines with a centre low-pressure turbine, as opposed to the steam turbines used on Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania.[20] White Star had successfully tested this engine set up on an earlier liner SS Laurentic, where it was found to be more economical than expansion engines or turbines alone. Olympic consumed 650 tons of coal per 24 hours with an average speed of 21.7 knots on her maiden voyage, compared to 1000 tons of coal per 24 hours for both the Lusitania and Mauretania.[21]

 

Although Olympic and Titanic were nearly identical, and were based on the same design, a few alterations were made to Titanic (and later on Britannic) based on experience gained from Olympic's first year in service. The most noticeable of these was that the forward half of the Titanic's A Deck promenade was enclosed by a steel screen with sliding windows, to provide additional shelter, whereas the Olympic's promenade deck remained open along its whole length. Also the promenades on the Titanic's B Deck were reduced in size, and the space used for additional cabins and public rooms, including two luxury suites with private promenades. A number of other variations existed between the two ships layouts and fittings. These differences meant that Titanic had a slightly higher gross tonnage of 46,328 tons, compared to Olympic's 45,324 tons.[22]

Olympic on her sea trials in Belfast in 1911

Career

 

Following completion, Olympic started her sea trials on 29 May 1911, which she successfully completed; Olympic then left Belfast bound for Liverpool, her port of registration, on 31 May 1911. As a publicity stunt the White Star Line deliberately timed the start of this first voyage to coincide with the launch of Titanic. After spending a day in Liverpool, open to the public, Olympic sailed to Southampton, where she arrived on 3 June, to be made ready for her maiden voyage.[23] The deep-water dock at Southampton, then known as the "White Star Dock" had been specially constructed to accommodate the new Olympic-class liners, and had opened in 1911.[24]

 

Her maiden voyage commenced on 14 June 1911 from Southampton, calling at Cherbourg and Queenstown, reaching New York on 21 June.[25] The maiden voyage was captained by Edward Smith who would lose his life the following year in the Titanic disaster.[26] Designer Thomas Andrews was present for the passage to New York and return, along with a number of engineers, as part of Harland and Wolff's "Guarantee Group" to spot any problems or areas for improvement. Andrews would also lose his life in the Titanic disaster.[27]

 

As the largest ship in the world, and the first in a new class of superliners. Olympic's maiden voyage attracted considerable worldwide attention from the press and public. Following her arrival in New York, Olympic was opened up to the public and received over 8,000 visitors. More than 10,000 spectators watched her depart from New York harbour, for her first return trip.[28]

Hawke collision

Photographs documenting the damage to the Olympic (left) and the Hawke (right) following their collision (alternate view)

 

Olympic's first major mishap occurred on her fifth voyage on 20 September 1911, when she collided with a British warship, HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight. The collision took place as Olympic and Hawke were running parallel to each other through the Solent. As Olympic turned to starboard, the wide radius of her turn took the commander of the Hawke by surprise, and he was unable to take sufficient avoiding action.[29] The Hawke's bow, which had been designed to sink ships by ramming them, collided with Olympic's starboard side near the stern, tearing two large holes in Olympic's hull, below and above the waterline respectively, resulting in the flooding of two of her watertight compartments and a twisted propeller shaft. HMS Hawke suffered severe damage to her bow and nearly capsized. Despite this, Olympic was able to return to Southampton under her own power, and no-one was seriously injured or killed.[14][30]

 

Captain Edward Smith was still in command of Olympic at the time of the incident. One crew member, Violet Jessop, survived not only the collision with the Hawke but also the later sinking of Titanic and the 1916 sinking of Britannic, the third ship of the class.[31]

 

At the subsequent inquiry the Royal Navy blamed Olympic for the incident, alleging that her large displacement generated a suction that pulled Hawke into her side.[32][33] The Hawke incident was a financial disaster for Olympic's operator. A legal argument ensued which decided that the blame for the incident lay with Olympic, and although the ship was technically under the control of the pilot, the White Star Line was faced with large legal bills and the cost of repairing the ship, and keeping her out of revenue service made matters worse.[29] However, the fact that Olympic endured such a serious collision and stayed afloat, appeared to vindicate the design of the Olympic-class liners and reinforced their "unsinkable" reputation.[29]

Olympic (left) returning to Belfast for repairs in March 1912, and Titanic (right) This was the last time the two sister ships would be seen together

 

It took two weeks for the damage to Olympic to be patched up sufficiently to allow her to return to Belfast for permanent repairs, which took just over six weeks to complete. To speed up the repairs, Harland and Wolff was forced to delay Titanic's completion in order to use her propeller shaft for Olympic. By 29 November she was back in service, however in February 1912, Olympic suffered another setback when she lost a propeller blade on an eastbound voyage from New York, and once again returned to her builder for repairs. To get her back to service as soon as possible, Harland & Wolff again had to pull resources from Titanic, delaying her maiden voyage from 20 March 1912 to 10 April 1912.[34]

Titanic disaster

Main article: Sinking of the RMS Titanic

 

On 14 April 1912, Olympic, now under the command of Herbert James Haddock, was on a return trip from New York. Wireless operator Ernest James Moore[35] received the distress call from her sister Titanic, when she was approximately 500 nautical miles (930 km; 580 mi) west by south of Titanic's location.[36] Haddock calculated a new course, ordered the ship's engines to be set to full power and headed to assist in the rescue.[37]

 

When Olympic was about 100 nautical miles (190 km; 120 mi) away from Titanic's last known position, she received a message from Captain Rostron captain of Cunard Liner RMS Carpathia, explaining that continuing on course to Titanic would gain nothing, as "All boats accounted for. About 675 souls saved [...] Titanic foundered about 2.20 am."[36] Rostron requested that the message be forwarded to White Star and Cunard. He said that he was returning to harbour in New York.[36] Subsequently, the wireless room aboard the Olympic operated as a clearing room for radio messages.[36]

 

When Olympic offered to take on the survivors, she was heatedly turned down by an appalled Rostron, who was concerned that it would cause panic amongst the survivors of the disaster to see a virtual mirror-image of the Titanic appear and ask them to board. Olympic then resumed her voyage to Southampton, with all concerts cancelled as a mark of respect, arriving on 21 April.[3]

 

Over the next few months, Olympic assisted with both the American and British inquiries into the disaster. Deputations from both inquiries inspected Olympic's lifeboats, watertight doors and bulkheads and other equipment which were identical to those on Titanic.[38] Sea tests were performed for the British enquiry in May 1912, to establish how quickly the ship could turn two points at various speeds, to approximate how long it would have taken the Titanic to turn when it sighted the iceberg.[39]

1912 "mutiny"

 

Olympic, like Titanic, did not carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and was hurriedly equipped with additional, second-hand collapsible lifeboats following her return to Britain. Toward the end of April 1912, as she was about to sail from Southampton to New York, 284 of the ship's firemen went on strike because of fears that the ship's new collapsible lifeboats were not seaworthy. 100 non-union crew were hastily hired from Southampton as replacements, with more being hired from Liverpool.[40]

 

The 40 collapsible lifeboats were secondhand, having been transferred from troopships, and many were rotten and could not open. The crewmen instead sent a request to the Southampton manager of the White Star Line that the collapsible boats be replaced by wooden lifeboats; the manager replied that this was impossible and that the collapsible boats had been passed as seaworthy by a Board of Trade inspector. The men were not satisfied and ceased work in protest.[41]

 

On 25 April a deputation of strikers witnessed a test of four of the collapsible boats. Only one was unseaworthy and they said that they were prepared to recommend the men return to work if it was replaced. However the strikers now objected to the non-union strikebreaker crew which had come on board, and demanded that they be dismissed, which the White Star Line refused. 54 sailors then left the ship, objecting to the non-union crew who they claimed were unqualified and therefore dangerous, and refused to sail with them. This led to the scheduled sailing being cancelled.[40][42]

 

All 54 sailors were arrested on a charge of mutiny when they went ashore. On 4 May 1912 Portsmouth magistrates found the charges against the mutineers were proven, but discharged them without imprisonment or fine due to the special circumstances of the case.[43] Fearing that public opinion would be on the side of the strikers, the White Star Line let them return to work and the Olympic sailed on 15 May.[39]

Refit

Olympic as she appeared after her refit following the Titanic disaster, with a full complement of lifeboats

 

On 9 October 1912 White Star withdrew Olympic from service and returned her to her builders at Belfast to be refitted to incorporate lessons learned from the Titanic disaster 6 months prior, and improve safety.[44] The number of lifeboats carried by Olympic was increased from twenty to sixty four (per Carlisle's original number), and extra davits were installed along the boat deck to accommodate them. Also, an inner watertight skin was constructed in the boiler and engine rooms, to create a double hull. Five of the watertight bulkheads were extended up to B-Deck, extending to the entire height of the hull. This corrected a flaw in the original design, in which the bulkheads only rose up as far as E or D-Deck, a short distance above the waterline. This flaw had been exposed during Titanic's sinking, where water spilled over the top of the bulkheads as the ship sank and flooded subsequent compartments. In addition, an extra bulkhead was added to subdivide the electrical dynamo room, bringing the total number of watertight compartments to seventeen. Improvements were also made to the ship's pumping apparatus. These modifications meant that Olympic could survive a collision similar to that of Titanic, in that her first six compartments could be breached and the ship could remain afloat.[45][46]

 

At the same time, Olympic's B-Deck underwent a refit, which necessitated eliminating her B-Deck promenades – one of the few features that separated her from her sister ship. The refit included extra cabins (the parlour suites which proved popular on the Titanic were added to the Olympic), more cabins were fitted with private bathing facilities, and a Cafe Parisian (another addition that had proved popular on the Titanic) was added, offering another dining option to first class passengers. With these changes, Olympic's gross tonnage rose to 46,359 tons, 31 tons more than Titanic's.[47]

 

In March 1913, Olympic returned to service and briefly regained the title of largest ocean liner in the world, until the German liner SS Imperator entered passenger service in June 1913. Following her refit, Olympic was marketed as the "new" Olympic and her improved safety features were featured prominently in advertisements. [48][3]

World War I

 

In August 1914 World War I began. Olympic initially remained in commercial service under Captain Herbert James Haddock. As a wartime measure, Olympic was painted in a grey colour scheme, portholes were blocked, and lights on deck were turned off to make the ship less visible. The schedule was hastily altered to terminate at Liverpool rather than Southampton, and this was later altered again to Glasgow.[3][49]

 

The first few wartime voyages were packed with Americans trapped in Europe, eager to return home, although the eastbound journeys carried few passengers. By mid-October, bookings had fallen sharply as the threat from German U-boats became increasingly serious, and White Star Line decided to withdraw Olympic from commercial service. On 21 October 1914, she left New York for Glasgow on her last commercial voyage of the war, though carrying only 153 passengers.[50][49]

Audacious incident

 

On the sixth day of her voyage, 27 October, as the Olympic passed near Lough Swilly off the north coast of Ireland, she received distress signals from the battleship HMS Audacious, which had struck a mine off Tory Island and was taking on water.[51]

The crew of the stricken Audacious take to lifeboats to be rescued by Olympic

 

The Olympic took off 250 of the Audacious' crew, then the destroyer HMS Fury managed to attach a tow cable between Audacious and Olympic and they headed west for Lough Swilly. However, the cable parted after the Audacious' steering gear failed. A second attempt was made to tow the warship, but the cable became tangled in HMS Liverpool's propellers and was severed. A third attempt was tried but also failed when the cable gave way. By 17:00 the Audacious' quarterdeck was awash and it was decided to evacuate the remaining crew members to Olympic and Liverpool, and at 20:55 there was an explosion aboard the Audacious and she sank.[52]

 

Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander of the Home Fleet, was anxious to suppress the news of the sinking of Audacious, for fear of the demoralising effect it could have on the British public, so ordered Olympic to be held in custody at Lough Swilly. No communications were permitted and passengers were not allowed to leave the ship. The only people departing her were the crew of the Audacious and Chief Surgeon John Beaumont, who was transferring to RMS Celtic. Steel tycoon Charles M. Schwab, who was travelling aboard the liner, sent word to Jellicoe that he had urgent business in London with the Admiralty, and Jellicoe agreed to release Schwab if he remained silent about the fate of Audacious. Finally, on 2 November, Olympic was allowed to go to Belfast where the passengers disembarked.[53]

HMT Olympic in dazzle camouflage while in service as a troopship during World War I

Naval service

 

Following Olympic's return to Britain, the White Star Line intended to lay her up in Belfast until the war was over, but in May 1915 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty, to be used as a troop transport, along with the Cunard liners Mauretania and Aquitania. The Admiralty had initially been reluctant to use large ocean liners as troop transports because of their vulnerability to enemy attack, however a shortage of ships gave them little choice. At the same time, Olympic's other sister ship Britannic, which had not yet been completed, was requisitioned as a hospital ship. In that role she would strike a mine and sink the following year.[54]

 

Stripped of her peacetime fittings, and armed with 12-pounders and 4.7-inch guns, Olympic was converted to a troopship, with the capacity to transport up to 6,000 troops. On 24 September 1915 the newly designated HMT (Hired Military Transport) 2810, now under the command of Bertram Fox Hayes left Liverpool carrying 6,000 soldiers to Mudros, Greece for the Gallipoli Campaign. On 1 October she sighted lifeboats from the French ship Provincia which had been sunk by a U-boat that morning off Cape Matapan and picked up 34 survivors. Hayes was heavily criticised for this action by the British Admiralty, who accused him of putting the ship in danger by stopping it in waters where enemy U-boats were active. The ship's speed was considered to be its best defence against U-boat attack, and such a large ship stopped would have made an unmissable target. However the French Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet took a different view, and awarded Hayes with the Gold Medal of Honour. Olympic made several more trooping journeys to the Mediterranean until early 1916, when the Gallipoli Campaign was abandoned.[55]

Olympic in dazzle at Halifax, Nova Scotia painted by Arthur Lismer

 

In 1916, considerations were made to use Olympic to transport troops to India via the Cape of Good Hope. However on investigation it turned out she was unsuitable for this role, because her coal bunkers, which had been designed for transatlantic runs, lacked the capacity for such a long journey at a reasonable speed.[56] Instead, from 1916 to 1917, Olympic was chartered by the Canadian Government to transport troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Britain.[57] In 1917 she gained 6-inch guns and was painted with a "dazzle" camouflage scheme to make it more difficult for observers to estimate her speed and heading. Her dazzle colours were brown, dark blue, light blue, and white. Her many visits to Halifax Harbour carrying Canadian troops safely overseas, and back home after the war, made her a favourite symbol in the City of Halifax. Noted Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer made several paintings of her in Halifax. A large dance hall, "Olympic Gardens" was also named in her honour. After the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, Olympic also transported thousands of U.S. troops to Britain.[58]

 

In the early hours of 12 May 1918, while en route for France with US troops under the command of Captain Hayes, Olympic sighted a surfaced U-boat 500 m (1,600 ft) ahead.[59] Her gunners opened fire at once, and she turned to ram the submarine, which immediately crash dived to 30 m (98 ft) and turned to a parallel course. Almost immediately afterwards Olympic struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower and her port propeller sliced through U-103's pressure hull. The crew of U-103 blew her ballast tanks, scuttled and abandoned the submarine. Olympic returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached.[60]

 

Olympic did not stop to pick up survivors, but continued on to Cherbourg. The USS Davis sighted a distress flare and picked up 31 survivors from U-103. It was discovered that U-103 had been preparing to torpedo the Olympic when she was sighted, but the crew could not flood the two stern torpedo tubes.[61] For this service, Captain Hayes was awarded the DSO.[62] Some American soldiers on board paid for a plaque to be placed in one of Olympic's lounges to commemorate the event, it read:

 

This tablet presented by the 59th Regiment United States Infantry commemorates the sinking of the German submarine U103 by the Olympic on May 12th 1918 in latitude 49 degrees 16 minutes north longitude 4 degrees 51 minutes west on the voyage from New York to Southampton with American troops...[63]

 

During the war, Olympic is reported to have carried up to 201,000 troops and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and travelling about 184,000 miles.[64] Her impressive World War I service earned her the nickname Old Reliable.[65] Her captain was knighted in 1919 for "valuable services in connection with the transport of troops".[66]

Post-war

 

In August 1919 Olympic returned to Belfast for restoration to civilian service. Her interior was modernised and her boilers were converted to burn oil rather than coal. Oil was cheaper than coal, it lowered the refuelling time from days to hours, and allowed the engine room personnel to be reduced from 350 to 60 people.[67] During the conversion work and drydocking, a dent with a crack at the centre was discovered below her waterline which was later concluded to have been caused by a torpedo that had failed to detonate.[68]

Olympic at Southampton in 1929

 

Olympic emerged from her refit with an increased tonnage of 46,439, allowing her to retain her claim to the title of largest British built liner afloat, although the Cunard Line's Aquitania was slightly longer. In 1920 she returned to passenger service, on one voyage that year carrying 2,249 passengers.[69] Olympic transported a record 38,000 passengers during 1921, which proved to be the peak year of her career. From 1922 she was joined for an express service by Majestic and Homeric; two former German liners which had been ceded to Britain as war reparations, operating successfully until the Great Depression reduced demand after 1930.[70]

 

During the 1920s, Olympic remained a popular and fashionable ship, and often attracted the rich and famous of the day; Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and Prince Edward, then Prince of Wales, were among the celebrities that she carried.[71] Prince Edward and Captain Howarth were filmed on the bridge of the Olympic for Pathé News.[72] One of the attractions of the Olympic was the fact that she was nearly identical to the Titanic, and many passengers sailed on the Olympic as a way of vicariously experiencing the voyage of the Olympic's ill-fated sister ship.[73]

 

On 22 March 1924, Olympic was involved in another collision with a ship, this time at New York. As Olympic was reversing from her berth at New York harbour, her stern collided with the smaller liner Fort St George, which had crossed into her path. The collision caused extensive damage to the smaller ship. At first it appeared that Olympic had sustained only minor damage, but it was later revealed that her sternpost had been fractured, necessitating the replacement of her entire stern frame.[74]

 

Changes in immigration laws in the United States in the 1920s greatly restricted the number of immigrants allowed to enter. This led to a major reduction in the immigrant trade for the shipping lines, forcing them to cater to the tourist trade to survive.[3] At the turn of 1927–28, Olympic was converted to carry tourist third cabin passengers as well as first, second and third class.[75] Tourist third cabin was an attempt to attract travellers who desired comfort without the accompanying high ticket price. New public rooms were constructed for this class, although tourist third cabin and second class would merge to become 'tourist' by late 1931.

 

A year later, Olympic's first class cabins were again improved by adding more bathrooms, a dance floor was fitted in the enlarged first class dining saloon, and a number of new suites with private facilities were installed forward on B-deck.[76] More improvements would follow in a later refit, but 1929 saw Olympic's best average passenger lists since 1925.

 

On 18 November 1929, as the Olympic was travelling westbound near to Titanic's last known position, the ship suddenly started to vibrate violently, and the vibrations continued for two minutes. It was later determined that this had been caused by the 1929 Grand Banks earthquake.[77]

Last years

 

The shipping trade was badly affected by the Great Depression. Until 1930 there had generally been around one million passengers a year on the transatlantic route, but by 1934 this had dropped by more than half. Furthermore, by the early 1930s, increased competition emerged, in the form of a new generation of larger and faster liners such as Germany's SS Bremen and SS Europa, Italy's SS Rex and France's SS Île de France, and the remaining passengers tended to prefer the more up to date ships. Olympic had averaged around 1,000 passengers per journey until 1930, but this declined by more than half by 1932.[78]

 

Olympic's running mate Homeric was withdrawn from the transatlantic route as early as 1932, leaving only Olympic and Majestic maintaining White Star Line's Southampton-New York service, although this was occasionally augmented during the summer months by either the MV Britannic or MV Georgic. [79]

 

At the end of 1932, with passenger traffic in decline, Olympic went for an overhaul and refit that took four months. She returned to service in March 1933 described by her owners as "looking like new." Her engines were performing at their best and she repeatedly recorded speeds in excess of 23 knots, despite averaging less than that in regular transatlantic service. Passenger capacities were given as 618 first class, 447 tourist class and only 382 third class after the decline of the immigrant trade.[80]

 

Despite this, during 1933 and 1934, Olympic ran at a net operating loss for the first time. 1933 was Olympic's worst year of business – carrying just over 9,000 passengers in total.[81] Passenger numbers rose slightly in 1934, but many crossings still lost money.[79]

Olympic in 1934, passing the lightvessel she struck and sank a few months later

Lightship collision

 

In 1934, Olympic again struck a ship. The approaches to New York were marked by lightships and Olympic, like other liners, had been known to pass close by these vessels. On 15 May 1934, Olympic, inbound in heavy fog, was homing in on the radio beacon of Nantucket Lightship LV-117.[82] Now under the command of Captain John Binks, the ship failed to turn in time and sliced through the smaller vessel, which broke apart and sank.[83] Four of the lightship's crew went down with the vessel and seven were rescued, of whom three died of their injuries – thus there were seven fatalities out of a crew of eleven.[84] The lightship's surviving crew and the Olympic's captain were interviewed soon after reaching shore. One crewman said it all happened so quickly that they didn't know how it happened. The captain was very sorry it happened but said the Olympic reacted very quickly lowering boats to rescue the crew, which was confirmed by an injured crewman.[85]

Retirement

Olympic (left) and Mauretania laid up in Southampton prior to their scrapping.

 

In 1934, the White Star Line merged with the Cunard Line at the instigation of the British government, to form Cunard White Star.[86] This merger allowed funds to be granted for the completion of the future RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth. When completed, these two new ships would handle Cunard White Star's transatlantic business, and so their fleet of older liners became redundant and were gradually retired.

 

Olympic was withdrawn from the transatlantic service, and left New York for the last time on 5 April 1935, returning to Britain to be laid up.[when?] Her new owners considered using her for summer cruises for a short while, but this idea was abandoned and she was put up for sale. Among the potential buyers was a syndicate who proposed to turn her into a floating hotel off the south coast of France, but this came to nothing.[87] After being laid up for five months alongside her former rival Mauretania, she was sold to Sir John Jarvis – Member of Parliament for £97,500, to be partially demolished at Jarrow to provide work for the depressed region.[88] Her superstructure was demolished in 1936, and in 1937, Olympic's hull was towed to Inverkeithing to T.W. Ward's yard for final demolition.[89]

 

By the time of her retirement, Olympic had completed 257 round trips across the Atlantic, transporting 430,000 passengers on her commercial voyages, travelling 1.8 million miles.[87][90]

Olympic artefacts

Fittings from the ship installed in the Olympic Suite at the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick

The marble fireplace from the Olympic now at the White Swan, Alnwick

 

The Olympic's fittings were auctioned off immediately before she was scrapped; some of her fittings, namely those of the first-class lounge and part of the aft grand staircase, can be found in the White Swan Hotel, in Alnwick, Northumberland, England. The rest of her fittings found homes in scattered places throughout Great Britain.[91]

 

In 2000, Celebrity Cruises purchased some of Olympic's original wooden panels to create the RMS Olympic restaurant on board their new cruise ship, Millennium. According to Celebrity Cruise Line, this wood panelling once lined Olympic's à la carte restaurant.[91]

 

The clock depicting "Honour and Glory Crowning Time" from Olympic's grand staircase is on display at Southampton's SeaCity Museum.[92][93]

Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England, named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, 2 miles NW of Simonsbath. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 kilometres (34 mi) of the Bristol Channel coast. The highest point on Exmoor is Dunkery Beacon; at 519 metres (1,703 ft) it is also the highest point in Somerset. The total area of the Exmoor National Park is 692.8 square kilometres (267.5 sq mi), of which 71% is in Somerset and 29% in Devon.

 

Exmoor was designated a National Park in 1954, under the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. The Exmoor National Park is primarily an upland area with a dispersed population living mainly in small villages and hamlets. The largest settlements are Porlock, Dulverton, Lynton, and Lynmouth, which together contain almost 40% of the park's population. Lynton and Lynmouth are combined into one parish and are connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway.

 

Exmoor has 55 kilometres (34 mi) of coastline, including the highest sea cliffs in England, which reach a height of 314 metres (1,030 ft) at Culbone Hill. However, the crest of this coastal ridge of hills is more than 1.6 km (0.99 mi) from the sea. If a cliff is defined as having a slope greater than 60 degrees, the highest sea cliff on mainland Britain is Great Hangman near Combe Martin at 318 metres (1,043 ft) high, with a cliff face of 250 metres (820 ft). Its sister cliff is the 250 metres (820 ft) Little Hangman, which marks the edge of Exmoor.

 

The scenery of rocky headlands, ravines, waterfalls and towering cliffs gained the Exmoor coast recognition as a heritage coast in 1991. With its huge waterfalls and caves, this dramatic coastline has become an adventure playground for both climbers and explorers. The cliffs provide one of the longest and most isolated seacliff traverses in the UK. The South West Coast Path, at 1,014 kilometres (630 mi) the longest National Trail in England and Wales, starts at Minehead and runs along all of Exmoor's coast. There are small harbours at Lynmouth, Porlock Weir and Combe Martin. Once crucial to coastal trade, the harbours are now primarily used for pleasure; individually owned sail boats and non-commercial fishing boats are often found in the harbours. The Valley of the Rocks beyond Lynton is a deep dry valley that runs parallel to the nearby sea and is capped on the seaward side by large rocks and Sexton's Burrows forms a natural breakwater to the Harbour of Watermouth Bay on the coast.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

-----

 

After a few days visit, I have to say that Exmoor national park is a hidden gem on the western coast of England. Stunning scenery and picturesque villages create a lovely combination of a peaceful place that is really worth visiting.

 

There are a lot of trails in the national park, both on the coast and in the hilly interior - and we of course tried a few of those.

This ancient small stone carving is actually the pommel for a dagger handle , measuring 6cm in height. I confess that it's Chinese, more likely the sign for the year of the goat/sheep. But I think it fits the zodiac brief pretty well, specifically Capricorn!

Eagle E Type's Jaguar E Type Speedster. Please note cut down windscreen height?

Reference: The Empire Strikes Back, ILM studio/filming Model

Size: height 52 cm (on stand) 43.5 cm / width 40 cm / depth 21 cm

Weight: 2950 g

Parts: Stand 370 / Ship 4738 / Total 5108

Construction time: 1,5 years (with planning)

Builders: Skywalter, Marshal Banana

Instruction: Skywalter, available on www.Brickvault.toys

Photos, video: Marshal Banana

Number of model versions/prototypes: 37

Software: stud.io, Adobe Photoshop

Camera: Sony Alpha 7 MKIII, Sony SEL 50mm/F 2.8 macro lens

____________________________________________________

  

Both of us wanted to work together on a model for a long time. The subject of the collaboration was found rather quick – the Slave 1 of Boba Fett, as seen in the original trilogy.

We wanted to test a digital-first approach with stud.io for this model, which also enabled close collaboration from the get-go despite the status of the world. While it was an unusual take on that model and a completely new experience for us, it allowed us to combine our unique strengths in style and building, bringing the best results out of our joint work.

 

We iteratively pitched concepts and ideas, challenged (and sometimes stressed) each other. But in the end, we think this particularly elevated our work: For sure without this approach, this model would not exist as it does, and we are especially proud of our collaboration and the outcome.

 

The Slave 1, unlike other models, has not often been rendered as a MOC. The round shapes and crazy angles of the model, which you might call with good right “not-LEGO-friendly”, are probably a major reason for this. Therefore, this challenge was extra appealing to us - and we were not disappointed: This is the ultimate final boss in LEGO building!

 

We based our MOC on the ILM studio/filming model built for The Empire Strikes Back. The most important goal for us was to recreate the correct proportions, smooth roundness and a precise rendering of the "used universe look“ or weathering you often see on Star Wars ships. But we didn't just want our Slave 1 to look good, we also faithfully recreated all functions and features: These include a rotating cockpit, which is triggered by turning the wings, and a fully fleshed out loading ramp. Both the interior and the weapon systems are realized: There is a weapon hatch on one side (instead of two, which is wrong for Bobas Slave 1), twin-laser turrets, two retractable torpedo launchers at the tip of the trunk and a working seismic bomb dispenser. Crew quarters, hidden quarters for Boba and many more details were faithfully recreated.

 

The studio/filming model was modified for the different movies and TV-shows. Especially for "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett" the interior was enlarged, and, among other things, an additional pilot's seat was added compared to the original. The scale of our model is based on the size of the windshield (if you're precise: it's 1 stud too short and the curvature is not correct), which roughly results in minifigure scale.

 

Cheers!

Marshal Banana & Skywalter

 

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You can find me as well on Instagram under my username kevin.j.walter & on Twitter under my username Kevin_J_Walter

Height approx 4 inches

The Miami Tower is a 47-story, landmark office skyscraper in Miami, Florida, United States. It is located in central Downtown. It is currently the 8th tallest building in Miami and Florida. On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter placed it on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places as the Bank of America Tower.

 

Built for CenTrust Bank in 1987, the 47-story building ranks in the top ten tallest skyscrapers in Miami and in Florida at a height of 625 feet (191 m) and is known for its elaborate night-time illuminations and its dramatic three glass tiers. Designed by the Pei Cobb Freed & Partners architectural firm, the tower consists of two separate structures: A 10-story parking garage owned by the city and the 47-story office tower built upon the air rights of the garage. Preliminary planning for the tower began in February 1980; construction on the garage began by November. The garage was completed in February 1983 and the tower began construction a year later. On August 1984, while the tower was under construction, a 5-alarm fire began on the ninth floor; construction was subsequently delayed for several weeks. On December 15, 1985, the tower was lit for the first time in Miami Dolphins aqua and snowflakes.

 

By mid-1986, the tower's exterior was complete and the grand opening for the complex was set for early fall that same year. Due to the uneven settling of the tower's foundation to one side by several inches, and the resulting misalignment of the tower's elevator rails, the grand opening for the complex was delayed until February 1987. The complete complex featured the world's only elevated metro station in a skyscraper (Knight Center station). It also gained notoriety for its luxurious interiors, including a skylobby on the 11th floor covered in marble and gold and a 10,000 sq ft (930 m2) outdoor terrace. Also its indoor gym features mahogany cabinets. The tower is connected to the James L. Knight Center by a pedestrian walkway and on the first floor is a retail spine covered with green marble. The tower contains 1,160,000 sq ft (108,000 m2) with 503,000 sq ft (46,700 m2) of office space and a 535,000 sq ft (49,700 m2), 1,500 space parking garage.

 

The building appears during the end credits of the 1986 movie Flight Of The Navigator in an aerial shot of Miami. The very top floors can clearly be seen still under construction.

The roof of the building was the set of Gloria Estefan's 1994 video for "Turn The Beat Around". The building is also one of many featured on the backdrop of the stage on The Tonight Show.

 

On January 1, 2010, the building was renamed the Miami Tower.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Tower

 

Courthouse Center is a government office tower located in Downtown Miami, Florida, United States. The tower has 30 floors, and is 405 ft (123 m) tall. The building's architecture is distinctly similar to the Southeast Financial Center skyscraper. The building is located in the Government Center district, on Northwest 1st Avenue. It is located in the western edge of Downtown.

 

This high rise courthouse building was constructed in 1986. It was named in the year 2000 after Judge Lawson Thomas, who was the first black person to hold a public office in the South since Reconstruction. Judge Thomas, a prominent civil rights activist, was appointed judge in 1950.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

www.google.com/search?q=how+many+floors+does+the+Lawson+E...

 

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Aston Martin Residences offer breathtaking views of the Miami River, Biscayne Bay, and Brickell skyline. Additionally, Aston Martin Residences will be within walking distance of Whole Foods, Brickell City Centre, and Mary Brickell Village.

 

​Aston Martin’s design team will design the building’s interior common spaces including the two private lobbies, the two-level fitness center with ocean views, and a full-service spa among other shared spaces within the development.

 

Each of the building’s common areas will feature “signature items” showcasing the car brand’s trademark colors, stitching style, and materials—from polished wood and supple leather to carbon fiber with an emphasis on comfort.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

www.emporis.com/buildings/1386750/aston-martin-residences...

www.paraninternational.com/new-development/aston-martin

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

 

701 Brickell Avenue, is an office skyscraper in the Brickell district of Miami, Florida, United States. It is located on Brickell Avenue in the northern Brickell Financial District, just three blocks from Biscayne Bay. The tower was built in 1986 and opened as the Lincoln Center, it held that title until 2004. It currently goes by its address, which is 701 Brickell, because there was already a building in Miami at the time that claimed the Bank of America litigation, and therefore it could not take that name. However, that specific building has since been renamed the Miami Tower. The building is currently owned by TIAA–CREF, which purchased it in November 2002.

 

The building is 450 ft (150 m) tall and contains 34 floors. When built, it was in the top ten tallest buildings in Miami. Now, however, it has been dwarfed by much taller surrounding buildings which have been built as part of the recent building boom in that city. The building contains 677,677 rentable square feet of Class A office space.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/701_Brickell_Avenue

www.emporis.com/buildings/122288/701-brickell-avenue-miam...

wikimili.com/en/701_Brickell_Avenue

 

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The Security Building is a historic site in downtown Miami, Florida. It is located at 117 Northeast 1st Avenue. On January 4, 1989, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The building has 16 floors with a height of 225 feet (69 m) and was built from 1926 to 1927.

 

The Dade County Security Company was organized in 1901 and moved to a nearby headquarters in 1923. By the mid-1920s the company needed a larger headquarters. In 1921, the Dade County Security Company had acquired the McKinnon Hotel which occupied a mid-block parcel on Northeast 1st Avenue and renamed it the Security Hotel. Dade Security had considered adding stories atop the hotel but opted in 1925 to raze the hotel and construct a new headquarters on the same site under the direction of architect Robert Greenfield.

 

Construction on the Security Building began in 1926. The building was known as the Security Building from its opening in 1927 until 1945. Upon opening, the first level and mezzanine were devoted to banking offices. The floors above provided 275 office suites and were reached by four "high speed" elevators.

 

The Security Building faces west onto NE 1st Avenue. It is located in mid-block with buildings on either side. Those buildings are considerably shorter than the Security Building. The building maintains a zero-foot (0 m) setback, and the entry doors open directly onto the sidewalk. There are no landscape features on the property. The building is composed of a main block parallel to the street, and a second block connected perpendicularly that extends to the east.

 

With only a 50-foot (15 m) frontage, the architect made a grand statement by creating an almost temple-like base, consisting of the first three stories. Engaged pilasters, that also frame the center bay, articulate the corners creating three distinct bays. Spandrels between the floors are bronze and feature relief ornament. The pilasters carry the entablature, with the name “Security Building” in incised letters. A dentilled molding ornaments the cornice that terminates this division of the building.

 

The fourth floor begins the transition to the high-rise portion of the building. Stone panels with a similar relief accent the corners and separate the bays. Above the windows of the fourth floor is another projecting element, a stringcourse that is ornamented with a guilloche pattern in relief.

 

Floors five through 13 continue the three bays with window arrangements that are grouped in pairs on each of the end bays, and are grouped in three in the center bay, emphasizing the importance of the center bay to the entire composition. The windows are a metal casement type.

 

Security Building (Miami) South and West Facades, top floors with mansard roof and cupola.

The 14th and 15th floors function as the base for the great mansard roof, which terminates the building. To balance the composition, the two floors are treated as if they were one by the use of a round arch at the 15th floor that is carried by the pilasters of the 14th floor, so that the two floors are visually united.

 

A bracketed cornice separates the building from the roof form that is so decidedly different from roof treatments in Miami during this period. A mansard roof is a double-pitched roof with a steep upper slope. The mansard roof was named for architect Francois Mansart (1598–1666). Mansart worked in the 17th century and introduced the roof form that extended attic space to provide additional usable area. The mansard roof is a character-defining feature of the Second Empire style that was named after Napoleon III, who took on major building projects in Paris during the 18th century.

 

The mansard roof of the Security Building is clad in copper and terminates in a series of antefixae. A series of arches containing windows and serving as dormers penetrates the roof. Bull's-eye windows are placed between the arched windows. An eight-sided cupola that extends from the center of the roof is fenestrated on each side with a multi-paned arched window. The dome of the cupola also is clad in copper.

 

The north and south ends of the building are not ornamented. The windows are a metal casement type. The quoining on the corners of the west elevation is repeated in the north and south elevations of the building. The extension to the east is flat-roofed and is terminated by a defined cornice. The majority of the wall surface contains windows that are either square or rectangular in shape. They contain metal casement windows.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Building_(Miami,_Florida)

miami-history.com/security-building-in-downtown-miami/

 

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Southeast Financial Center is a two-acre development in Miami, Florida, United States. It consists of a 764 feet (233 m) tall office skyscraper and its 15-story parking garage. It was previously known as the Southeast Financial Center (1984–1992), the First Union Financial Center (1992–2003), and the Wachovia Financial Center (2003-2011). In 2011, it retook its old name of Southeast Financial Center as Wachovia merged with Wells Fargo and moved to the nearby Wells Fargo Center.

 

When topped-off in August 1983, it was the tallest building south of New York City and east of the Mississippi River, taking away the same title from the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, in Atlanta, Georgia. It remained the tallest building in the southeastern U.S. until 1987, when it was surpassed by One Atlantic Center in Atlanta and the tallest in Florida until October 1, 2003, when it was surpassed by the Four Seasons Hotel and Tower, also in Miami. It remains the tallest office tower in Florida and the third tallest building in Miami.

 

Southeast Financial Center was constructed in three years with more than 500 construction workers. Approximately 6,650 tons of structural steel, 80,000 cubic yards of concrete and 7000 cubic tons of reinforcing steel bars went into its construction. The complex sits on a series of reinforced concrete grade beams tied to 150 concrete caissons as much as ten feet in diameter and to a depth of 80 feet. A steel space-frame canopy with glass skylights covers the outdoor plaza between the tower and low-rise building.

 

The tower has a composite structure. The exterior columns and beams are concrete encased steel wide flanges surrounded by reinforcing bars. The composite exterior frame was formed using hydraulic steel forms, or "flying forms," jacked into place with a "kangaroo" crane, that was located in the core and manually clamped into place. Wide flange beams topped by a metal deck and concrete form the interior floor framing. The core is A braced steel frame, designed to laterally resist wind loads. The construction of one typical floor was completed every five days.

 

The low-rise banking hall and parking building is a concrete-framed structure. Each floor consists of nearly an acre of continuously poured concrete. When the concrete had sufficiently hardened, compressed air was used to blow the forms fiberglass forms from under the completed floor. It was then rolled out to the exterior where it was raised by crane into position for the next floor.

 

The building was recognized as Miami's first and only office building to be certified for the LEED Gold award in January 2010.

 

The center was developed by a partnership consisting of Gerald D. Hines Interests, Southeast Bank and Corporate Property Investors for $180 million. It was originally built as the headquarters for Southeast Bank, which originally occupied 50 percent of the complex's space. It remained Southeast Bank's headquarters there until it was liquidated in 1991.

 

The Southeast Financial Center comprises two buildings: the 55-story office tower and the 15-story parking annex. The tower has 53 stories of office space. The first floor is dedicated for retail, the second floor is the lobby and the 55th floor was home to the luxurious Miami City Club. The parking annex has 12 floors of parking space for 1,150 cars. The first floor is dedicated for retail, the second floor is a banking hall and the 15th floor has the Downtown Athletic Club. A landscaped plaza lies between the office tower and the parking annex. An enclosed walkway connects the second story of the tower with the second story of the annex. The courtyard is partially protected from the elements by a steel and glass space frame canopy spanning the plaza and attached to the tower and annex. Southeast Bank's executive offices were located on the 38th floor. Ground was broken on the complex on December 12, 1981 and the official dedication and opening for the complex was held on October 23, 1984.

 

The Southeast Financial Center was designed by Edward Charles Bassett of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The Associate Architect was Spillis Candela & Partners. It has 1,145,311 ft² (106,000 m²) of office space. A typical floor has about 22,000 ft² (2,043.87 m²) of office space. Each floor has 9 ft x 9 ft (2.7 m x 2.7 m) floor to ceiling windows. (All of the building's windows are tinted except for the top floor, resulting in strikingly bright and clear views from there.) The total complex has over 2.2 million ft² (204,000 m²). The distinctive setbacks begin at the 43rd floor. Each typical floor plate has 9 corner offices and the top twelve floors have as many as 16. There are 43 elevators in the office tower. An emergency control station provides computerized monitoring for the entire complex, and four generators for backup power.

 

The Southeast Financial Center can be seen as far away as Ft. Lauderdale and halfway toward Bimini. Night space shuttle launches from Cape Canaveral 200 miles to the north were plainly visible from the higher floors. The roof of the building was featured in the Wesley Snipes motion picture Drop Zone, where an eccentric base jumper named Swoop parachutes down to the street from a suspended window cleaning trolley. The building also appeared in several episodes of the 1980s TV show Miami Vice and at the end of each episode's opening credits.

 

Zara founder Amancio Ortega purchased the building from J.P. Morgan Asset Management in December 2016. The purchase price was reportedly over $500 million, making it one of the largest real estate transactions in South Florida history.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Financial_Center

www.emporis.com/buildings/122292/wachovia-financial-cente...

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

Looking back at the height

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Location: Naltar 3, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan

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We are descending from the high rising Naltar 3rd lake. Reaching this lake and looking at it is an adventure. My steadiness on the stupid idea of climbing a rock in the wilderness made it the adventure of a lifetime.

 

The hike to the lake is short but high. Coming down the hill was way easy and fun and fast lol. The air was very fresh indeed. When I climbed the rock (imagined in another post), it was wilderness at another level. The atmosphere was so unbelievably fresh, I could smell nature, raw, very :D

 

These red shrubs are for real. I do not apply software filters on my pictures. Just slightly improve them on lightroom. In future I will be using Nisi filters for long exposure in sun light.

  

#EarthPix #TheWanderCo #earth_Shotz #FolkScenery #hubs_united #Stellar_Shots #travelPhotography #travelBlogger #outdoors #Adventure #Landscape #Camping #Hiking #Trekking #LandscapePhotography #visualsofEarth #TFLers #likeforlikes #instatravel #ourPlanetDaily #bestVacations #PhotoOfTheDay #WanderLust #WildernessCulture #awesome_earthpix #discoverEarth #earthfocus #ShotzDelight #MoodyGrams #PassionPassport

Steinhatchee Falls and Steinhatchee Rise are tracts of protected lands in Florida named for aquatic features. Steinhatchee Falls includes 1,766 acres (715 ha), and Steinhatchee Rise covers 3,559 acres (1,440 ha). Steinhatchee Falls is in southeastern Taylor County, Florida. Steinhatchee Rise is in southwestern Dixie County, Florida.

 

The area around the falls is floodplain swamp, bottom land forest, pine plantation, and mixed hardwood forest. The area around Steinhatchee Rise contains also includes floodplain swamp, bottom land forest, pine plantation, and mixed hardwood forest as well as mesic woods and wet flat woods. Animal species in the area include gopher tortoise, wading birds, wild hog, swallow-tailed kite, Swainson's warbler, deer, turkey, and squirrel. A trailhead for the Steinhatchee Trail Tennille Trail is on Florida SR 51.

 

Steinhatchee Falls Park is a tourist attraction and viewpoint with water cascading over a small falls on the Steinhatchee River. The Steinhatchee Trail is a 3-mile (5 km) multi-use trail ending at Steinhatchee Falls. Coming off a limestone lip across the river, the height of Steinhatchee Falls ranges from four to five feet down to being almost unnoticeable when the river is high.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinhatchee_Falls

map.mysuwanneeriver.com/tracts/steinhatchee-falls-185/

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

It's a tall boy. Barely fits in my tiny LEGO corner :) .

 

Video presentation:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGjWqEwY4U

Enjoy!

The Dixie Walesbilt Hotel, known as the Grand Hotel in later years, is one of a small number of skyscrapers built in the 1920s that still stand today and is a prime example of how optimistic people were during the Florida land boom. Built in 1926, it found financing through a stock-sale campaign in the local business community, costing $500,000 after it was completed(which equates to about $6 million today.)

 

The building architecture, masonry vernacular with hints of Mediterranean-Revival, is also a good example of the time is was built. It was designed by two well-known architects at the time, Fred Bishop who designed the Byrd Theatre in Virginia, and D.J. Phipps, whose designed both the Wyoming County Courthouse and Jail and the Colonial Hotel in Virginia.

 

The hotel was constructed using the “three-part vertical block” method, which became the dominant pattern in tall buildings during the 1920s. Three-part buildings are composed of a base, shaft and a cap, all noticeably visible.

The hotel opened as the “Walesbilt” in January 1927, shortly after the land boom had started to collapse and two years before the Great Depression began. It’s also best to note that the hotel opened around the same time the Floridan Hotel in Tampa opened, another hotel built during the Florida land boom.

 

In 1972, the hotel was purchased by Anderson Sun State and renamed the “Groveland Motor Inn”. The firm completely renovated the hotel and used it to host visitors to the area who were interested in Green Swamp, land sectioned off for land development. At the time there was heavy speculation in the land because of it’s close proximity to Walt Disney World and were selling for around $5,000 an acre at the time. That ended after a state cabinet designation of the swamp as an area of critical state concern, placing the land off-limits to any large land developments. The firm filed for foreclosure and the hotel was auctioned off in 1974. Despite RCI Electric purchasing the hotel, it remained empty for many years afterwards.

 

n 1978, the hotel was signed over to the Agape Players, a nationally known religious music and drama group, who would assume the mortgage and would pay the costs to make improvements to meet city fire and safety standards. The hotel was renamed the “Royal Walesbilt” and after extensive improvements were made, it became the headquarters for the Agape Players; using it as a teaching facility and the base from which the group launched their tours. In addition, they operated a restaurant, an ice cream parlor on the lobby floor and a “Christian hotel” on the upper floors, catering mostly to groups. The Agape Players disbanded in 1985 and put the property up for sale

 

Victor Khubani, a property investor from New York acquired the property and renamed the hotel “Grand”. The hotel closed briefly in December 1988, due to a variety of code violations and causing the owner to later pay $14,000 in fines. On August 31, 1990 it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, possibly for tax exemption reasons. In October 1991, The State Fire Marshall’s Office gave the owner one year to install a new sprinkler system and in May 1993, the code enforcement board gave Khubani until March to complete the work.

 

In March 1994, the hotel closed due to multiple code violations and was to remain closed until a new fire sprinkler system was installed. To reopen, the fire escapes and elevator, which did not function, would have to be repaired as well. In 1995, the hotel was auctioned off to a redevelopment firm, which dismantled part of the interior for reconstruction, which was never completed.

 

Since then, the hotel has deteriorated, becoming an eyesore to many of the residents of Lake Wales and nicknamed “The Green Monster” for the greenish color it has acquired from over the years. In 1995, it was even jokingly mentioned to become a sacrifice to “the bomb”, an economic boom that occurred in parts of Florida where movie production companies would pay cities to blow up buildings for their movies. In 2007, the city foreclosed on the structure for more than $700,000 in unpaid code fines, with hopes in finding someone to restore it.

 

Development firm, Dixie-Walesbilt LLC announced plans to restore the hotel, signing into an agreement with the city of Lake Wales in February 2010. By the agreement, the city would retain ownership of the building until a defined amount of work had been accomplished. The work must be completed within 16 months and the amount of money invested must succeed at least $1.5 million. The building would then be handed off the Dixie Walesbilt LLC, where they may continue with private funding or other methods to for debt funding.

 

Ray Brown, President of Dixie Walesbilt LLC, planned to invest $6 million into the renovation, with original plans to put retail stores on the ground floor and using the upper floors for as many as 40 condominiums.

 

On June 2, 2011, the city of Lake Wales agreed to deed the building off to Ray Brown in a 4-1 vote, after meeting the requirements of the redevelopment agreement. Though Brown submitted a list of costs to the city totaling $1.66 million, Mayor Mike Carter wasn’t satisfied with the results so far, pointing out that Brown failed to repair the windows and repaint the building. Previous owners had put tar on the building and then painted over it, so much of Brown’s investment went to stripping the tar off the exterior walls.

 

To repaint the building, Brown would also have to resurface the hotel with hydrated lime to replicate the original skin as well as the window frames would need to be constructed of Douglas fir, red cedar and gulf cypress. According to Brown, previous owners who renovated the building rarely removed the building original elements. They carpeted over intricate tile flooring, stuck tar paper above skylights and placed modern drinking fountains in front of the originals. He estimated about 98 percent of the building is still in it’s original form.

 

Restoration of the building’s exterior began in January 2015 and included surface repair, pressure washing, paint removal, chemical treatment, and a comprehensive resurfacing of the exterior.

 

While the original plans were for turning the building into condominiums, that has since changed and current plans call for operating the building as a boutique hotel. The hotel will feature geothermal cooling as opposed to traditional air conditioning, a permanent art gallery as well as theme gallery showings throughout the year, and the best WiFi/internet in the city. The project is expected to be completed in 18 to 24 months.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

www.fox13news.com/news/lake-wales-city-officials-aim-to-r...

www.cityoflakewales.com/505/Dixie-Walesbilt-Hotel

www.abandonedfl.com/dixie-walesbilt-hotel/

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

  

On-location photography of the GameTime playground at the Hamden Heights School in Denver, Co.

Photos by: PatrickSchneiderPhoto.com

Keld is a village in the English county of North Yorkshire. It is in Swaledale, and the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The name derives from the Viking word Kelda meaning a spring and the village was once called Appletre Kelde – the spring near the apple trees.

 

Keld is the crossing point of the Coast to Coast Walk and the Pennine Way long-distance footpaths at the head of Swaledale, and marks the end of the Swale Trail, a 20 km mountain bike trail which starts in Reeth. At the height of the lead-mining industry in Swaledale in the late 19th century, several notable buildings – now Grade II listed – were erected: they include the Congregational and Methodist chapels, the school and the Literary Institute.

 

A tea room and small shop operate at Park Lodge from Easter to autumn. Out of season, local volunteers provide a self service café for visitors in the village’s Public Hall. Keld’s Youth Hostel closed in 2008 and has since reopened as Keld Lodge, a hotel with bar and restaurant. There is a series of four waterfalls close to Keld in a limestone gorge on the River Swale: Kisdon Force, East Gill Force, Catrake Force and Wain Wath Force.

 

The Keld Resource Centre, a local charity, is restoring a series of listed buildings in the village centre and returning them to community use. The first phase involved restoring the Manse, the minister's house attached to the United Reformed Church, which was completed in 2009 and is now used as a holiday cottage, proceeds from which support the Centre's work.

 

In 2010 the Centre created the Keld Well-being Garden in the chapel churchyard. It provides a quiet spot for visitors to contemplate their well-being in the beautiful natural environment of Upper Swaledale.

 

The Keld Countryside and Heritage Centre opened in 2011; it provides interpretation of the countryside, buildings and social history of Keld, and displays of artefacts relevant to Upper Swaledale. It is open throughout the year, operating alongside The Upper Room which is used for meetings, exhibitions, workshops and social events. A range of guided walks, exhibitions, talks and other activities take place during the summer months.

 

Further projects will involve restoring Keld’s former school.

 

The ruins of Crackpot Hall lie about a mile east of Keld on the northern slope of the dale at grid reference NY906008. There may have been a building on this site since the 16th century when a hunting lodge was maintained for Thomas, the first Baron Wharton, who visited the Dale occasionally to shoot the red deer. Survey work by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has shown that the building has changed many times over the years. At one time it even had a heather or "ling" thatched roof.

 

The current ruin is of a farmhouse dating from the mid 18th century. It was an impressive two-storey building with a slate roof and matching "shippons" or cowsheds at each end for animals. The building may also have been used as mine offices, as intensive lead mining was carried out in the area, and there were violent disputes over mine boundaries in the 18th century.

 

In the 1930s Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley wrote of a wild 4-year-old child named Alice. On 7 November 2015, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a documentary about the story in the Between the Ears strand titled Alice at Crackpot Hall.[5]

 

The current building was abandoned in the 1950s because of subsidence. Crackpot Hall has been saved from further decay by Gunnerside Estate with the aid of grants from the Millennium Commission and European Union through the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust.

 

The name Crackpot is said to mean "a deep hole or chasm that is a haunt of crows".

 

The Yorkshire Dales National Park is a 2,178 km2 (841 sq mi) national park in England covering most of the Yorkshire Dales, with the notable exception of Nidderdale. Most of the park is in North Yorkshire, with a sizeable area in Cumbria and a small part in Lancashire. The park was designated in 1954, and extended in 2016. Over 95% of the land in the Park is under private ownership; there are over 1,000 farms in this area.

 

In late 2020, the park was named as an International Dark Sky Reserve. This honour confirms that the area has "low levels of light pollution with good conditions for astronomy".

 

Some 23,500 residents live in the park (as of 2017); a 2018 report estimated that the Park attracted over four million visitors per year. The economy consists primarily of tourism and agriculture.

 

The park is 50 miles (80 km) north-east of Manchester; Otley, Ilkley, Leeds and Bradford lie to the south, while Kendal is to the west, Darlington to the north-east and Harrogate to the south-east.

 

The national park does not include all of the Yorkshire Dales. Parts of the dales to the south and east of the national park are located in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The national park also includes the Howgill Fells and Orton Fells in the north west although they are not often considered part of the dales.

 

In 1947, the Hobhouse Report recommended the creation of the Yorkshire Dales National Park covering parts of the West Riding and North Riding of Yorkshire. The proposed National Park included most of the Yorkshire Dales, but not Nidderdale. Accordingly, Nidderdale was not included in the National Park when it was designated in 1954. In 1963 the then West Riding County Council proposed that Nidderdale should be added to the National Park, but the proposal met with opposition from the district councils which would have lost some of their powers to the county council.

 

Following the Local Government Act 1972 most of the area of the national park was transferred in 1974 to the new county of North Yorkshire. An area in the north west of the national park (Dentdale, Garsdale and the town of Sedbergh) was transferred from the West Riding of Yorkshire to the new county of Cumbria. In 1997 management of the national park passed from the county councils to the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

 

A westward extension of the park into Lancashire and Westmorland encompassed much of the area between the old boundaries of the park and the M6 motorway. This increased the area by nearly 24% and brought the park close to the towns of Kirkby Lonsdale, Kirkby Stephen and Appleby-in-Westmorland. The extension also includes the northern portion of the Howgill Fells and most of the Orton Fells. Before the expansion, the national park was solely in the historic county of Yorkshire, the expansion bringing in parts of historic Lancashire and Westmorland.

 

The area has a wide range of activities for visitors. For example, many people come to the Dales for walking or other exercise. Several long-distance routes cross the park, including the Pennine Way, the Dales Way, the Coast to Coast Walk and the Pennine Bridleway. Cycling is also popular and there are several cycleways.

 

The DalesBus service provides service in the Dales on certain days in summer, "including the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty". In summer, these buses supplement the other services that operate year-round in the Dales.

 

Tourism in the region declined due to restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and into 2021. Later in 2021, the volume of visits was expected to increase as a result of the 2020 TV series All Creatures Great and Small, largely filmed within the Dales. The first series aired in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in early 2021. One source stated that visits to Yorkshire Web sites had increased significantly by late September 2020. By early 2021, the Discover England Web sites, for example, were using the tag line "Discover All Creatures Great and Small in Yorkshire".

 

The Dales Countryside Museum is housed in the converted Hawes railway station in Wensleydale in the north of the area.The park also has five visitor centres. These are at:

Aysgarth Falls

Grassington

Hawes

Malham

Reeth

 

Other places and sights within the National Park include:

Bolton Castle

Clapham

Cautley Spout waterfall

Firbank Fell

Gaping Gill

Gayle Mill

Hardraw Force

Horton in Ribblesdale

Howgill Fells

Kisdon Force (waterfall) in Swaledale

Leck Fell

Malham Cove, Gordale Scar, Janet's Foss and Malham Tarn

Orton Fells

River Lune

Sedbergh

Settle

Settle and Carlisle Railway including the Ribblehead Viaduct

Wild Boar Fell

The Yorkshire Three Peaks (Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and Whernside)

 

North Yorkshire is a ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber and North East regions of England. It borders County Durham to the north, the North Sea to the east, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the south-east, South Yorkshire to the south, West Yorkshire to the south-west, and Cumbria and Lancashire to the west. Northallerton is the county town.

 

The county is the largest in England by land area, at 9,020 km2 (3,480 sq mi), and has a population of 1,158,816. The largest settlements are Middlesbrough (174,700) in the north-east and the city of York (152,841) in the south. Middlesbrough is part of the Teesside built-up area, which extends into County Durham and has a total population of 376,663. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Harrogate (73,576) and Scarborough (61,749). For local government purposes the county comprises four unitary authority areas — York, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and North Yorkshire — and part of a fifth, Stockton-on-Tees.

 

The centre of the county contains a wide plain, called the Vale of Mowbray in the north and Vale of York in the south. The North York Moors lie to the east, and south of them the Vale of Pickering is separated from the main plain by the Howardian Hills. The west of the county contains the Yorkshire Dales, an extensive upland area which contains the source of the River Ouse/Ure and many of its tributaries, which together drain most of the county. The Dales also contain the county's highest point, Whernside, at 2,415 feet (736 m).

 

North Yorkshire non-metropolitan and ceremonial county was formed on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. It covered most of the North Riding of Yorkshire, as well as northern parts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, northern and eastern East Riding of Yorkshire and the former county borough of York. Northallerton, as the former county town for the North Riding, became North Yorkshire's county town. In 1993 the county was placed wholly within the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

 

Some areas which were part of the former North Riding were in the county of Cleveland for twenty-two years (from 1974 to 1996) and were placed in the North East region from 1993. On 1 April 1996, these areas (Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton borough south of the River Tees) became part of the ceremonial county as separate unitary authorities. These areas remain within the North East England region.

 

Also on 1 April 1996, the City of York non-metropolitan district and parts of the non-metropolitan county (Haxby and nearby rural areas) became the City of York unitary authority.

 

On 1 April 2023, the non-metropolitan county became a unitary authority. This abolished eight councils and extended the powers of the county council to act as a district council.

 

The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority held its first meeting on 22 January 2024, assumed its powers on 1 February 2024 and the first mayor is to be elected in May 2024.

 

The geology of North Yorkshire is closely reflected in its landscape. Within the county are the North York Moors and most of the Yorkshire Dales, two of eleven areas in England and Wales to be designated national parks. Between the North York Moors in the east and the Pennine Hills. The highest point is Whernside, on the Cumbrian border, at 2,415 feet (736 m). A distinctive hill to the far north east of the county is Roseberry Topping.

 

North Yorkshire contains several major rivers. The River Tees is the most northerly, forming part of the border between North Yorkshire and County Durham in its lower reaches and flowing east through Teesdale before reaching the North Sea near Redcar. The Yorkshire Dales are the source of many of the county's major rivers, including the Aire, Lune, Ribble, Swale, Ure, and Wharfe.[10] The Aire, Swale, and Wharfe are tributaries of the Ure/Ouse, which at 208 km (129 mi) long is the sixth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river is called the Ure until it meets Ouse Gill beck just below the village of Great Ouseburn, where it becomes the Ouse and flows south before exiting the county near Goole and entering the Humber estuary. The North York Moors are the catchment for a number of rivers: the Leven which flows north into the Tees between Yarm and Ingleby Barwick; the Esk flows east directly into the North Sea at Whitby as well as the Rye (which later becomes the Derwent at Malton) flows south into the River Ouse at Goole.

 

North Yorkshire contains a small section of green belt in the south of the county, which surrounds the neighbouring metropolitan area of Leeds along the North and West Yorkshire borders. It extends to the east to cover small communities such as Huby, Kirkby Overblow, and Follifoot before covering the gap between the towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough, helping to keep those towns separate.

 

The belt adjoins the southernmost part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the Nidderdale AONB. It extends into the western area of Selby district, reaching as far as Tadcaster and Balne. The belt was first drawn up from the 1950s.

 

The city of York has an independent surrounding belt area affording protections to several outlying settlements such as Haxby and Dunnington, and it too extends into the surrounding districts.

 

North Yorkshire has a temperate oceanic climate, like most of the UK. There are large climate variations within the county. The upper Pennines border on a Subarctic climate. The Vale of Mowbray has an almost Semi-arid climate. Overall, with the county being situated in the east, it receives below-average rainfall for the UK. Inside North Yorkshire, the upper Dales of the Pennines are one of the wettest parts of England, where in contrast the driest parts of the Vale of Mowbray are some of the driest areas in the UK.

 

Summer temperatures are above average, at 22 °C. Highs can regularly reach up to 28 °C, with over 30 °C reached in heat waves. Winter temperatures are below average, with average lows of 1 °C. Snow and Fog can be expected depending on location. The North York Moors and Pennines have snow lying for an average of between 45 and 75 days per year. Sunshine is most plentiful on the coast, receiving an average of 1,650 hours a year. It reduces further west in the county, with the Pennines receiving 1,250 hours a year.

 

The county borders multiple counties and districts:

County Durham's County Durham, Darlington, Stockton (north Tees) and Hartlepool;

East Riding of Yorkshire's East Riding of Yorkshire;

South Yorkshire's City of Doncaster;

West Yorkshire's City of Wakefield, City of Leeds and City of Bradford;

Lancashire's City of Lancaster, Ribble Valley and Pendle

Cumbria's Westmorland and Furness.

 

The City of York Council and North Yorkshire Council formed the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority in February 2024. The elections for the first directly-elected mayor will take place in May 2024. Both North Yorkshire Council and the combined authority are governed from County Hall, Northallerton.

 

The Tees Valley Combined Authority was formed in 2016 by five unitary authorities; Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland Borough both of North Yorkshire, Stockton-on-Tees Borough (Uniquely for England, split between North Yorkshire and County Durham), Hartlepool Borough and Darlington Borough of County Durham.

 

In large areas of North Yorkshire, agriculture is the primary source of employment. Approximately 85% of the county is considered to be "rural or super sparse".

 

Other sectors in 2019 included some manufacturing, the provision of accommodation and meals (primarily for tourists) which accounted for 19 per cent of all jobs. Food manufacturing employed 11 per cent of workers. A few people are involved in forestry and fishing in 2019. The average weekly earnings in 2018 were £531. Some 15% of workers declared themselves as self-employed. One report in late 2020 stated that "North Yorkshire has a relatively healthy and diverse economy which largely mirrors the national picture in terms of productivity and jobs.

 

Mineral extraction and power generation are also sectors of the economy, as is high technology.

 

Tourism is a significant contributor to the economy. A study of visitors between 2013 and 2015 indicated that the Borough of Scarborough, including Filey, Whitby and parts of the North York Moors National Park, received 1.4m trips per year on average. A 2016 report by the National Park, states the park area gets 7.93 million visitors annually, generating £647 million and supporting 10,900 full-time equivalent jobs.

 

The Yorkshire Dales have also attracted many visitors. In 2016, there were 3.8 million visits to the National Park including 0.48 million who stayed at least one night. The parks service estimates that this contributed £252 million to the economy and provided 3,583 full-time equivalent jobs. The wider Yorkshire Dales area received 9.7 million visitors who contributed £644 million to the economy. The North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales are among England's best known destinations.

 

York is a popular tourist destination. A 2014 report, based on 2012 data, stated that York alone receives 6.9 million visitors annually; they contribute £564 million to the economy and support over 19,000 jobs. In the 2017 Condé Nast Traveller survey of readers, York rated 12th among The 15 Best Cities in the UK for visitors. In a 2020 Condé Nast Traveller report, York rated as the sixth best among ten "urban destinations [in the UK] that scored the highest marks when it comes to ... nightlife, restaurants and friendliness".

 

During February 2020 to January 2021, the average property in North Yorkshire county sold for £240,000, up by £8100 over the previous 12 months. By comparison, the average for England and Wales was £314,000. In certain communities of North Yorkshire, however, house prices were higher than average for the county, as of early 2021: Harrogate (average value: £376,195), Knaresborough (£375,625), Tadcaster (£314,278), Leyburn (£309,165) and Ripon (£299,998), for example.

 

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added for North Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.

 

Unemployment in the county was traditionally low in recent years, but the lockdowns and travel restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on the economy during much of 2020 and into 2021. The UK government said in early February 2021 that it was planning "unprecedented levels of support to help businesses [in the UK] survive the crisis". A report published on 1 March 2021 stated that the unemployment rate in North Yorkshire had "risen to the highest level in nearly 5 years – with under 25s often bearing the worst of job losses".

 

York experienced high unemployment during lockdown periods. One analysis (by the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership) predicted in August 2020 that "as many as 13,835 jobs in York will be lost in the scenario considered most likely, taking the city's unemployment rate to 14.5%". Some critics claimed that part of the problem was caused by "over-reliance on the booming tourism industry at the expense of a long-term economic plan". A report in mid June 2020 stated that unemployment had risen 114 per cent over the previous year because of restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic.

 

Tourism in the county was expected to increase after the restrictions imposed due the pandemic are relaxed. One reason for the expected increase is the airing of All Creatures Great and Small, a TV series about the vet James Herriot, based on a successful series of books; it was largely filmed within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The show aired in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in early 2021. One source stated that visits to Yorkshire websites had increased significantly by late September 2020.

 

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) bisects the county stopping at Northallerton,Thirsk and York. Passenger service companies in the area are London North Eastern Railway, Northern Rail, TransPennine Express and Grand Central.

 

LNER and Grand Central operate services to the capital on the ECML, Leeds Branch Line and the Northallerton–Eaglescliffe Line. LNER stop at York, Northallerton and on to County Durham or spur over to the Tees Valley Line for Thornaby and Middlesbrough. The operator also branch before the county for Leeds and run to Harrogate and Skipton. Grand Central stop at York, Thirsk Northallerton and Eaglescliffe then over to the Durham Coast Line in County Durham.

 

Northern operates the remaining lines in the county, including commuter services on the Harrogate Line, Airedale Line and York & Selby Lines, of which the former two are covered by the Metro ticketing area. Remaining branch lines operated by Northern include the Yorkshire Coast Line from Scarborough to Hull, York–Scarborough line via Malton, the Hull to York Line via Selby, the Tees Valley Line from Darlington to Saltburn via Middlesbrough and the Esk Valley Line from Middlesbrough to Whitby. Last but certainly not least, the Settle-Carlisle Line runs through the west of the county, with services again operated by Northern.

 

The county suffered badly under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. Places such as Richmond, Ripon, Tadcaster, Helmsley, Pickering and the Wensleydale communities lost their passenger services. Notable lines closed were the Scarborough and Whitby Railway, Malton and Driffield Railway and the secondary main line between Northallerton and Harrogate via Ripon.

 

Heritage railways within North Yorkshire include: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, between Pickering and Grosmont, which opened in 1973; the Derwent Valley Light Railway near York; and the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. The Wensleydale Railway, which started operating in 2003, runs services between Leeming Bar and Redmire along a former freight-only line. The medium-term aim is to operate into Northallerton station on the ECML, once an agreement can be reached with Network Rail. In the longer term, the aim is to reinstate the full line west via Hawes to Garsdale on the Settle-Carlisle line.

 

York railway station is the largest station in the county, with 11 platforms and is a major tourist attraction in its own right. The station is immediately adjacent to the National Railway Museum.

 

The main road through the county is the north–south A1(M), which has gradually been upgraded in sections to motorway status since the early 1990s. The only other motorways within the county are the short A66(M) near Darlington and a small stretch of the M62 motorway close to Eggborough. The other nationally maintained trunk routes are the A168/A19, A64, A66 and A174.

 

Long-distance coach services are operated by National Express and Megabus. Local bus service operators include Arriva Yorkshire, Stagecoach, Harrogate Bus Company, The Keighley Bus Company, Scarborough & District (East Yorkshire), Yorkshire Coastliner, First York and the local Dales & District.

 

There are no major airports in the county itself, but nearby airports include Teesside International (Darlington), Newcastle and Leeds Bradford.

 

The main campus of Teesside University is in Middlesbrough, while York contains the main campuses of the University of York and York St John University. There are also two secondary campuses in the county: CU Scarborough, a campus of Coventry University, and Queen's Campus, Durham University in Thornaby-on-Tees.

 

Colleges

Middlesbrough College's sixth-form

Askham Bryan College of agriculture, Askham Bryan and Middlesbrough

Craven College, Skipton

Middlesbrough College

The Northern School of Art, Middlesbrough

Prior Pursglove College

Redcar & Cleveland College

Scarborough Sixth Form College

Scarborough TEC

Selby College

Stockton Riverside College, Thornaby

York College

 

Places of interest

Ampleforth College

Beningbrough Hall –

Black Sheep Brewery

Bolton Castle –

Brimham Rocks –

Castle Howard and the Howardian Hills –

Catterick Garrison

Cleveland Hills

Drax Power Station

Duncombe Park – stately home

Eden Camp Museum –

Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway –

Eston Nab

Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo –

Helmsley Castle –

Ingleborough Cave – show cave

John Smith's Brewery

Jorvik Viking Centre –

Lightwater Valley –

Lund's Tower

Malham Cove

Middleham Castle –

Mother Shipton's Cave –

National Railway Museum –

North Yorkshire Moors Railway –

Ormesby Hall – Palladian Mansion

Richmond Castle –

Ripley Castle – Stately home and historic village

Riverside Stadium

Samuel Smith's Brewery

Shandy Hall – stately home

Skipton Castle –

Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications –

Studley Royal Park –

Stump Cross Caverns – show cave

Tees Transporter Bridge

Theakston Brewery

Thornborough Henges

Wainman's Pinnacle

Wharram Percy

York Castle Museum –

Yorkshire Air Museum –

The Yorkshire Arboretum

The Icon Brickell complex is an urban development center in Miami, Florida, United States. It is located on the south side of the Miami River in Downtown's northern Brickell Financial District.

 

The complex consists of three skyscrapers and the Icon Brickell Plaza, connecting the towers at their base. The first two towers, the Icon Brickell North Tower and Icon Brickell South Tower, are twin buildings. Each one is 586 feet (179 m) tall with 58 floors.

 

The third phase of the complex is the Viceroy Tower, which is now W Miami is 542 feet (165.2 m) tall with 50 floors. The complex is on the east side of Brickell Avenue between Southeast 5th and 6th Streets. The architectural firm Arquitectonica worked on the project, while the design was influenced by "yoo inspired by Starck", from yoo, Philippe Starck and John Hitchcox's design company.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_Brickell

skyscrapercenter.com/building/viceroy/4271

 

The Conowingo Dam (also Conowingo Hydroelectric Plant, Conowingo Hydroelectric Station) is a large hydroelectric dam in the lower Susquehanna River near the town of Conowingo, Maryland. The medium-height, masonry gravity dam is one of the largest non-federal hydroelectric dams in the U.S., and the largest dam in the state of Maryland.

 

The dam sits about 9.9 miles (16 km) from the river mouth at the Chesapeake Bay, 5 miles (8 km) south of the Pennsylvania border and 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Baltimore, on the border between Cecil and Harford counties.

 

The dam supports a 9,000-acre reservoir, which today covers the original town of Conowingo. During dam construction, the town was moved to its present location about 1-mile (1.6 km) northeast of the dam's eastern end. The rising water also would have covered Conowingo Bridge, the original U.S. Route 1 crossing, so it was demolished in 1927. U.S. Route 1 now crosses over the top of the dam.

 

The Conowingo Reservoir, and the nearby Susquehanna State Park, provide many recreational opportunities.

Contents

 

1 Construction and hydroelectric power generation

2 Flood control

3 Ecology and environmental impacts

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

 

Construction and hydroelectric power generation

Postcard of dam

 

The area, which appears on a 1612 map by John Smith, was originally known as Smyth's Falls.

 

On January 23, 1925, Philadelphia Electric Company awarded the construction contract for the dam to Stone & Webster of Boston, who did the design. Construction, which started in 1926, was carried out by Arundel Corporation of Maryland. (Abandoned railroad tracks for transporting heavy equipment to the dam site can be seen along the western shore of the river below the dam.) When completed in 1928, it was the second-largest hydroelectric project by power output in the United States after Niagara Falls.

 

Some 5,000 workers flocked to this rural northeastern corner of Maryland, seeking to earn good pay as construction got underway. In addition to those working directly on the dam, large numbers relocated railroad tracks, paved new roads, and constructed steel towers to stretch the mighty transmission lines toward Philadelphia. This was nearly fifty years before Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which guaranteed the right to a safe job. While these men struggled to earn a living, many suffered disabling injuries handling high voltage electric lines, tumbling from high elevations, managing explosives, encountering poisonous snakes, and much more.

 

When Maryland Public Television aired its documentary, "Conowingo Dam: Power on the Susquehanna" for Chesapeake Bay Week in April 2016, the question came up about how many workers died performing their duties. While investigating the death of Hunter H. Bettis on November 26, 1927, Darlington Coroner Wiliam B. Selse commented in the Baltimore Sun that more than twenty men had lost their lives. In an attempt to create a registry or census of job-related fatalities, death certificates, newspaper accounts, and funeral home books were examined. Fourteen individuals were identified.

 

The dam was built with 11 turbine sites, although only seven turbines were initially installed, driving generators each rated for 36 megawatts. A turbine house, on the southwestern end of the dam, encloses these seven units. One additional "house" unit provides 25 Hz power for the dam's electric railroad system (identical to that used by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which had an electrified line [now under Norfolk Southern ownership] running on the eastern shore). In 1978, four higher-capacity turbines were added. Each drives a 65-megawatt generator, increasing the dam's electrical output capacity from 252 to 548 megawatts. The four newer turbines are in the open air section at the northeast end of the powerhouse. The generators produce power at 13,800 volts. This is stepped up to 220,000 volts for transmission, primarily to the Philadelphia area. The dam currently contributes an average of 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours annually to the electric grid.[citation needed]

 

Through subsidiaries and mergers, the dam is now operated by the Susquehanna Electric Company, part of Exelon Power Corporation. The current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license for the dam was issued in 1980 and expired in 2014.

 

The Conowingo Hydroelectric Station would be a primary black start power source if the regional PJM power grid ever had a widespread emergency shutdown (blackout).

 

from Wikipedia

Not very accurate(because my DC Queena is on a platform) but just to get a sense.

 

Left to right:

Doll-Chateau Queena on K-08 body, Narae 410 on new Narae40 body, Fairyland Minifee Rendia on A-line body.

The 40th roll taken on my Canon AE-1.

The Trump International Hotel and Tower (aka Trump Tower Chicago and Trump Tower) is the fourth-tallest building in the US at a height of 1,388 feet. Architect: Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

This punning example of "Love at Its Height" is an early twentieth-century postcard with an illustration of a newfangled airship taxi that's traveling high over a city. A well-dressed couple is smooching in the back seat as the driver peeks at them from the corner of his eye.

 

See another postcard version of Love at Its Height that features a ladder instead of an airship.

 

Another copy of this card offered for sale online was postmarked in 1912.

Brookfield Zoo.

 

Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata

 

Height:Males: average 17'4"; Females: average 14' 2"

Weight:Males: 2,400–4,250 lbs; Females: 1,540–2,600 lbs

Geographic Distribution: Northeastern Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia

Habitat:Dry savannahs, open woodlands, and locations with acacia trees

Wild Diet:Primarily leaves from acacia trees and, to a lesser extent, mimosa and wild apricot leaves; also other kinds of leaves, flowers, seed pods and fruits

Zoo Diet:Alfalfa hay, grain, chopped carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, and bread; willow and maple browse when available

Status in the Wild:Vulnerable

Location:Habitat Africa! The Savannah

  

Reticulated giraffes are sexually dimorphic (with two distinct gender forms); males are taller and have a slightly different facial appearance. The males have protruding median ossicones (the hornlike knobs on their head) and can develop calcium deposits that form bumps on their skull as they age. The ground color for giraffes is white to buff. Spots are chestnut brown to almost black and vary in size and shape. They are unique to each individual. Spot patterns cover most of their body, but giraffes' underparts are lighter and more faintly spotted. The ground color appears as a network of lines between the spots from which they get their name: reticulated. The coat pattern not only serves as camouflage but also serves as "thermal windows": sites for complex blood vessel systems and large sweat glands. Their skin secretes up to 11 chemicals that produce a strong and unique scent that repels parasites and is suspected to have a sexual function. Giraffes have a very long neck, necessitating elastic blood vessels and valves to compensate for the sudden increase in blood pressure when the head is lowered. They have a long, gray prehensile (capable of grasping) tongue and flexible upper lips. Both sexes have a pair of short frontal ossicones. These are horns but made of ossified calcium and covered skin and hair. They are unique to giraffes and okapi. The nostrils have muscular openings, which giraffes can open and close to protect themselves against sandstorms and ants that inhabit trees they feed on. They have long eyelashes, and their forelimbs are slightly longer than the hindlimbs.

 

www.czs.org/giraffe

Successor to the low-height Bridgemaster, the AEC Renown was possibly a case of the right product at the wrong time. By the time that it was launched in 1962, there were better solutions to the perenial low-bridge problem. Demonstrator 7552 MX was finished in Bradford City Transport livery and initialled trialled by that operator, which did not follow-up with a purchase order. It subsequently spent time with a variety of operators, large and small. before finding a permanent home with Burwell & District (24-Feb-16).

 

This is a digitally-colour version of an official AEC photograph from the collection of Jim Neale, but I have dropped in a new back scene because of the format of the original print (24-Feb-14)

 

All rights reserved. Follow the link below for terms and conditions, additional information about my work; and to request work from me:

www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...

 

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