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London Set | Architecture Set | Night Set | London Underground
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Streaming Train in a Urban London UK Underground station...very quiet for a change, apart from a lost ghost train architecture. City of London Urban, Metropolitan
The London Underground is a metro system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in England. It is the world's oldest underground railway system. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube - the latter deriving from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels - although about 55% of the network is above ground.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network, which were built by various private companies, became part of an integrated transport system (which excluded the main line railways) in 1933 with the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), more commonly known by its shortened name: "London Transport".
The Underground has 268 stations and approximately 400 km (250 miles) of track,[1] making it the longest metro system in the world by route length,[4] and one of the most served in terms of stations. In 2007, over one billion passenger journeys were recorded.
Transport for London (TfL) was created in 2000 as the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. It replaced London Regional Transport. It assumed control of London Underground Limited in July 2003.
The London Underground's 11 lines are the Bakerloo line, Central line, Circle line, District line, Hammersmith & City line, Jubilee line, Metropolitan line, Northern line, Piccadilly line, Victoria line, and Waterloo & City line.
Until 2007 there was a twelfth line, the East London line, but this has closed for rebuilding work. It will be reopen as part of London Overground - part of the National Rail network and eventually connected to its North London Line - in 2010.
The Underground has been featured in many movies and television shows, including Sliding Doors, Tube Tales and Neverwhere. The London Underground Film Office handles over 100 requests per month. The Underground has also featured in music such as The Jam's "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" and in literature such as the graphic novel V for Vendetta. Popular legends about the Underground being haunted persist to this day.
The Underground currently sponsors and contributes to the arts via its Platform for Art and Poems on the Underground projects. Poster and billboard space (and in the case of Gloucester Road tube station, an entire disused platform) is given over to artwork and poetry to "create an environment for positive impact and to enhance and enrich the journeys of ... passengers".[
The London Underground's 11 lines are the Bakerloo line, Central line, Circle line, District line, Hammersmith & City line, Jubilee line, Metropolitan line, Northern line, Piccadilly line, Victoria line, and Waterloo & City line. Until 2007 there was a twelfth line, the East London line, but this has closed for conversion work and will be transferred to the London Overground when it reopens in 2010.
Transport for London (TfL) was created in 2000 as the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. It replaced London Regional Transport. It assumed control of London Underground Limited in July 2003.
TfL is part of the Greater London Authority and is constituted as a statutory corporation regulated under local government finance rules.[22] It has three subsidiaries: London Transport Insurance (Guernsey) Ltd., the TfL Pension Fund Trustee Co. Ltd. and Transport Trading Ltd (TTL). TTL has six wholly-owned subsidiaries, one of which is London Underground Limited.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
England
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Underground Life London Color
London Underground Life Color - December 31, 2007
March 28, 1982. Western Maryland SD35 7434 has just cut off from a coal drag at Terra Alta, West Virginia. She's dirty and most of her lettering has faded away but hasn't succumbed to the Chessie System's renumbering just yet.
Countdown to a new star ⏳
Hidden in the neck of this “hourglass” of light are the very beginnings of a new star — a protostar. The clouds of dust and gas within this region are only visible in infrared light, the wavelengths that Webb specializes in.
This protostar is a hot, puffy clump of gas that’s only a fraction of the mass of our Sun. As it draws material in, its core will compress, get hotter, and eventually begin nuclear fusion — creating a star!
See that dark line at the very center of the “hourglass”? That’s an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, or the disk of material being pulled into the star as it forms. It’s about the size of our solar system and may eventually clump into planets, giving us a window into our solar system’s history.
Light from the protostar is illuminating cavities in the dust and gas above and below its disk. (Think of flashlights pointing in opposite directions, each shining a cone of light.) The blue areas are where dust is thinnest, while orange represents thicker layers of dust.
Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-catches-fie...
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
[Image description: An hourglass-shaped, multi-color cloud set against the black, starry background of space. This cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar, a star in the earliest stages of formation. The upper “bulb” of the hourglass is orange, while the lower “bulb” transitions from white to dark blue. Together, the two bulbs stretch out like butterfly wings turned 90 degrees to the side. Extending from the upper and lower bulbs are long, wispy filaments of color, looking almost like burning fire. In the center of the hourglass shape is a small, dark demarcation line. This line is an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, a disk of material being pulled into a star as it forms.]
Vermont Rail System's White River Junction to Bellows Falls train, WJDA, crosses the Sugar River in Claremont NH.
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I've tried similar shots before but this is the best yet thanks to the use of my 8mm fisheye and managing to catch a selfie in the glass reflection.....
Click here for more of my underground photography : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157670949337253
From Wikipedia, "The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The Underground has its origins in the Metropolitan Railway, opening on 10 January 1863 as the world's first underground passenger railway. It is now part of the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. The first line to operate underground electric traction trains, the City & South London Railway in 1890, is now part of the Northern line.
The network has expanded to 11 lines with 250 miles (400 km) of track. However, the Underground does not cover most southern parts of Greater London; there are only 33 Underground stations south of the River Thames. The system's 272 stations collectively accommodate up to 5 million passenger journeys a day. In 2020/21 it was used for 296 million passenger journeys, making it one of the world's busiest metro systems."
© D.Godliman
Since the earliest days of our solar system’s history, asteroid impacts have shaped the planets and contributed to their evolution. New research funded by NASA shows that Mars experienced ten times fewer giant impacts than some previous estimates.
The ancient surfaces of Mars, like those on the moon and Mercury, are covered with the scars of asteroid impacts. The largest and most ancient giant impact basin on Mars, called Borealis, is nearly 6,000 miles wide and encompasses most of the northern hemisphere of the Red Planet. A smaller giant basin called Hellas is 1,200 miles wide and five miles deep.
Scientists Bill Bottke from the Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI, and Jeff Andrews-Hanna from the University of Arizona have been investigating the early bombardment history of Mars and the timing of giant impacts. While past theories have suggested other reasons, the new findings indicate that the Borealis basin carved out the northern lowlands 4.5 billion years ago, followed by a lull of 400 million years during which no giant impacts occurred, culminating in a shower of impacts between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago during which four giant basins and countless smaller craters formed.
Image credit: University of Arizona/LPL/Southwest Research Institute
The second and final qualification motor (QM-2) test for the Space Launch System’s booster is seen, Tuesday, June 28, 2016, at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems test facilities in Promontory, Utah. During the Space Launch System flight the boosters will provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, the first step on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
After taking the photo of the semi-express train straight into the sun, (in the previous photo), it was time to go home, but whilst passing the local NZ Army camp facilities, a loud engine noise suddenly drowned the car's stereo system (and believe me: the stereo system's volume wasn't low!).
There on the Camp's front lawn was a Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopter with its engines roaring and rotors spinning. Take-off was obviously immanent...!!!
Darn it all...! Where was my trusty Canon when I needed it???
Ah well... There was no time to cry over spilt milk or cameras languishing at home. The Mobile's "Pro" camera would have to suffice...!
Coming to an abrupt halt in an angle park on the side of the road, there was only time to leap out of the car, press the phone against the hurricane wire fence, focus and "click" before the aircraft rose majestically into the air! (And yes, there has been some very minor cropping here!).
Back in 2006, the New Zealand government had signed a NZ$771 million (Ouch!) contract to purchase 9 of these aircraft to replace the much older fleet of Iroquois helicopters. They became operational in 2014, and are used in a wide variety of roles that has included hurricane relief missions to Island Nations in the southern Pacific, and in delivering aid and supplies to the people of Kaikoura (on the east coast of NZ's South Island) following the massive earthquakes of November 2016...
ON A DIFFERENT NOTE:
Sunday (Tomorrow!) sees me leading a church service in the morning, whilst tomorrow afternoon, we play Host and Hostess to our 4 "kids" and their respective spouses, six grandchildren and two grandchildren-to-be! Life SHOULD return to normal by tomorrow night...!
In the meantime, be assured: I haven't forgotten you!!! Thanks for taking the time and trouble to leave a Comment; It's always nice to hear from you...!
Hull Classification: DDGS-64
Class & Type: Bainbridge-Class Guided Missile Destroyer
Affiliation: United States Space Navy
History:
As more of the United States of America’s economy and prosperity became tied to the endeavors of interstellar travel and commerce, it was recognized that an increased military presence in space would be required to secure America’s interests. To achieve this, the United States Space Force and United States Navy were integrated in 2105 to form the United States Space Navy. The USSF contributed its decades of experience in space operations while the USN brought its centuries of experience and doctrine of fielding complex, multi-crew warships and establishing power projection across vast areas.
As of 2165, the primary deep space combatant of the US Space Navy is the Bainbridge-class guided missile destroyer. The Bainbridge-class is a 2nd generation space-based destroyer. A total of 35 of the class have been built to date beginning with USS Bainbridge (DDGS-52). Additional hulls are slated for construction in upcoming fiscal years. The class acts as a screening vessel during fleet operations but has the capability and endurance to perform independent operations in remote star systems.
USS Halsey (DDGS-64) is the 12th Bainbridge-class destroyer built and the 5th US warship to be named in honor of Fleet Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr., who served in the United States Navy during both the First and Second World Wars.
Interlos Incident:
Halsey responded to a distress call sent by the European Union flagged bulk cargo transport Everstar on February 27th, 2158 in the Interlos Star System. Everstar reported being under attack by Narklar pirates. Upon arriving in Interlos from the Canis-Interlos jump point, Halsey identified a Narklar cruiser pursuing the Everstar near the system’s fourth planet. The Everstar had already suffered three hull breaches and was venting atmosphere. Halsey initiated multilingual warnings over both audio and visual communication channels for the Narklar ship to break off its attack and withdraw, but the cruiser refused all attempts at communication.
Moving to intercept at maximum military power, the destroyer rapidly closed distance with the Narklar ship and engaged the vessel with precision MAC fire and Mk 60 Spearhead Anti-Ship missiles. The Narklar ship suffered damage to its power distribution nodes but remained combat capable and returned fire against Halsey with their own missile systems. Halsey was able to defeat 90% of the missiles launched against her using a combination of her RIM-750 Interceptor Missiles and Phalanx-II CIWS. The remaining 10% of missiles detonated against the destroyer’s deflector shields, resulting in moderate damage and 33 crew members injured. Having closed the remaining distance, Halsey let loose with rapid fire strikes from all four of her turreted railguns, inflecting heavy hull damage to the aggressor and causing them to retreat.
With the area secured, Halsey rendered assistance to Everstar and escorted the damaged vessel to the USSN deep space outpost Coronado in the Gemini Star System. This engagement became known as the Interlos Incident and created a diplomatic crisis with the Narklar homeworld that would not be resolved for many years. For their efforts in defending the Everstar and saving 45 lives on the transport, Halsey received the Presidential Unit Citation while the commanding officer received the Navy Cross.
Complement:
25 Officers, 285 enlisted
Armament:
2x Ratheon Block 3a Spinal Mount Heavy Magnetic Accelerator Cannons
4x General Dynamics Mk 4 Spinal Mount Gauss Cannons
4x Ratheon Block 5b Turreted Electromagnetic Railguns
32x Lockheed Martin Mk 88 Mod 9 Vertical Launch System, Quad-Pack Cells
Capable of carrying 128x Missiles in customized loadout.
Mk 60 Spearhead Anti-Ship Missile
RIM-750 Interceptor Missile
BGM-509 Tomahawk-III Orbital Strike Missile
4x BAE Space Systems 300mm Rapid Firing Dual Purpose Guns
9x General Dynamics Phalanx-II Close-in Weapon Systems (CIWS)
2x Ratheon Block 2c Short Range Anti-Fighter Missile Launchers
Defenses:
8x Redundant Cycling Deflector Shield Generators
Nano-Composite Hull Armor
Propulsion:
2x General Electric Magnetic Bottle Fusion Plants
Support Craft:
Landing and Hanger Space capacity for 2 embarked support craft.
F/A-203 Banshee Multi-role Space Fighter
MQ-75 Reaper III Unmanned Space Vehicle
Behind the Scenes:
Built for SHIPtember 2021.
108 studs long
~5000 parts
Inspired from Red Spacecat’s USS Saratoga and Concept Art from Jaime Jasso.
Vermont Rail System's Trains Magazine Charter rolls into the yard in Rutland on a sunny late-September afternoon in 2024. Leading the way past a smattering of other VRS power was GMRC 405, an ALCO RS1 originally built for the Rutland Railroad.
Today we're heading home after our annual, summer visit to see my wife's family in Potsdam, NY. So, I'll share a shot from this particular trip for "Switcher Saturday."
Vermont Rail System's New York and Ogdensburg Railway is an interesting operation with a lot of history. Based out of Norfolk, NY (pronounced "Nor-FORK"), it utilizes original Norwood and St. Lawrence tracks from there to Norwood, then uses the last-existing section of the Rutland (nee-Ogdensburg & Lake Champlain) between there and Ogdensburg.
Power has been consistent in recent years, with VTR GP18 #801 and VTR GP38 #205 splitting the duties. However, the 801 may unfortunately be retired now. For now, its replacement is GMTX SW1500 #173. Photographically, the engine is so-so. Its yellow-orange paint is eye catching, but it's imperfect between a grey fireman's-side door and some other patches. But, prior to VRS bringing in "new" power, during the line's latter years under the St. Lawrence and Raquette River, it hosted a pair of SW900s. So, the 173 is a bit of a throwback to that era.
I decided I wanted to try to catch this engine running, so I got out in the early morning this past Tuesday and Wednesday and did just that.
On Tuesday morning, the 173 brought a pair of empty LPG tank cars (with a VTR hopper as a spacer) from Norfolk down to the CSX interchange in Norwood. On my drive up, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the old Norwood and St. Lawrence depot in Norfolk had at least been repainted, if not also having had some other exterior work done. Now, I'm not sure what the depot's original colors were, but I knew the new blue would contrast the 173's yellow-orange nicely. So, I made sure to get the shot you see here.
To see what this depot looked like previously, see my other shot from four years earlier:
www.flickr.com/photos/99942178@N03/51804492824/in/datetak...
New York and Ogdensburg Railway
Norfolk, NY
July 2, 2024
RAF BAe Systems Typhoon FGR4 Typhoon T.3 (ZK303/AX) in 41 Squuadron colours, part of the BAe System's Test Fleet based at Warton Aerodrome on short finals on Runway 25 post another test run over the Irish Sea.
The system's first tunnels were built just below the surface using the cut and cover method. Later, circular tunnels – which give rise to its nickname the Tube – were dug through the London Clay at a deeper level. The early lines were marketed as the UNDERGROUND in the early 20th century on maps and signs at central London stations.
[by en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground]
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Explore 14/01/06 - www.flickr.com/explore/2014/01/06#
thank you for all your gracious comments and faves! Very much appreciated!
Cu tren EC 275 "METROPOLITAN" Praha hlavni nadrazi - Budapest Nyugati
With EC 275 "METROPOLITAN" Praha hlavni nadrazi to Budapest Nyugati
Bratislava hlavna stanica,
12.08.2022
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London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground
EXPLORE # 10, FRONT PAGE on 14th May...Thank you to all!
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No photoshop to create this effect...I just had to wait a few minutes in the island platform for both trains to move at the same time ;-}
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Clapham Common tube station is a station on London Underground's Northern Line. It lies between Clapham North and Clapham South stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2.
The station is at the eastern tip of Clapham Common and was opened in June 1900 as the new southern terminus of the City & South London Railway, which was extended from Stockwell. It remained the terminus until the Morden extension was opened in 1926. Apart from a small domed entrance building on the tip of the narrow triangular island formed by The Pavement and Clapham Common South Side, the station is entirely underground. A subway link from the south-east side of Clapham Common South Side also links to the below-ground ticket hall. It is one of two remaining stations on the underground that has an island platform in tunnel, serving both the northbound and southbound lines; the other is Clapham North.
It is one of eight London Underground stations which has a deep-level air-raid shelter underneath it. Both entrances to the shelter are north of the station on Clapham High Street.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Common_tube_station
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The London Underground is a metro system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the UK. The first section opened in 1863, making it the first underground railway system in the world, and, starting in 1890, it was the first to operate electric trains. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube—the latter deriving from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels—although about 55% of the network is above ground.
The Underground has 270 stations and approximately 400 km (250 miles) of track,making it the longest metro system in the world by route length, and one of the most served in terms of stations. In 2007, over one billion passenger journeys were recorded.
The tube map, with its schematic non-geographical layout and colour-coded lines, is considered a design classic, and many other transport maps worldwide have been influenced by it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
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Double Vision in the London Underground...;-} London Underground in Double Vision ...;-}
Ever since she ran away from home, Violet's had to look over her shoulder. Her Father was a wealthy man, CEO of the system's largest company, he had connections everywhere.
Sure she was free, but at what cost? Having no money? Being stuck on a world she'd only read about in books? She was pretty sure she was going to die on Torei, broke, hungry and probably in a back alley somewhere.
What choice did she have though? She wanted more from life than to be some trophy wife. She wanted to be her own person, live her own life, not one of her father's choosing.
(Inspired by my Torei character and the bit of writing I've done on her so far.)
Hair: Monso Suni
Outfit: R2 Jyoya, with slight modding.
Taken on the Torei Sim.
Since its inception in 1953, Memorial Healthcare System has been a leader in providing high-quality healthcare services to South Florida residents. Moving health forward to meet the needs of the community, Memorial is one of the largest public healthcare systems in the nation and highly regarded for its exceptional patient- and family-centered care that creates the Memorial experience. Memorial's patient, physician and employee satisfaction rates are some of the most admired in the country, and the system is recognized as a national leader in quality healthcare.
Memorial Regional Hospital is the flagship facility of the healthcare system and is one of the largest hospitals in Florida.
Memorial Regional Hospital offers extensive and diverse health care services that include Memorial Cardiac and Vascular Institute featuring renowned surgeons, Memorial Cancer Institute treating more inpatients than any other in Broward County, and Memorial Neuroscience Institute providing innovative technology and world-class physicians.
Memorial Regional Hospital and Memorial Regional Hospital South are both located in Hollywood, Florida, and offer our community a variety of medical and surgical services. Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital at Memorial provides a comprehensive array of pediatric services and is the leading children's hospital in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Memorial Hospital West, Memorial Hospital Miramar and Memorial Hospital Pembroke serve the communities of western Broward County and others in South Florida. Memorial Home Health Services, Memorial Manor nursing home and a variety of ancillary healthcare facilities round out the system's wide-ranging health services.
Memorial has a reputation as one of Florida's leading healthcare systems and is supported by a distinguished medical staff. In fact, the vast majority of physicians are board certified, or board qualified in their specialties and have been trained at many of the nation's finest medical schools and hospitals. Because of its distinguished medical staff and services, Memorial moves health forward for patients from South Florida and beyond.
As Memorial continues to lead in providing the next level of healthcare, many prestigious awards have been earned throughout the system. The accolades include Modern Healthcare magazine's Best Places to Work in Healthcare, Florida Trend magazine's Best Companies to Work for in Florida, 100 Top Hospitals, Consumer Choice Award, Best-Run Hospital, Best Nursing Staff, Best Pediatric Hospital and Best Maternity Hospital. The health care system was also honored by the American Hospital Association with the "Living the Vision" award and the "Foster G. McGaw" award for which Memorial was selected from more than 5,000 hospitals as the national model for improving the health of the community.
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
web.bcpa.net/BcpaClient/#/Record-Search
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
"…Sienar System's basic TIE fighter—a commodity which, after hydrogen and stupidity, was the most plentiful in the galaxy…"
―Corran Horn
The TIE/LN starfighter, or TIE/line starfighter, simply known as the TIE Fighter or T/F, was the standard Imperial starfighter seen in massive numbers throughout most of the Galactic Civil War and onward. Colloquially, Rebel and New Republic pilots referred to the craft as "eyeballs."
In September of 1976 there was a wreck / derailment in Amtrak's B&P tunnel on the Northeast Corridor in Baltimore, MD. I don't recall if it was an Amtrak train or whether it was a Conrail freight that was involved. I can't find anything about it in multiple internet searches. S/B & N/B passenger trains were switched onto and off of the Chessie System at the connection between Conrail's Bayview Yard (On Amtrak's Northeast Corridor) and Chessie System's Bay View Yard.
Amtrak's S/B train #91, the Silver Star, has come to a halt on the Northeast Corridor, next to Bayview Tower, with GG1-909 on the point, pans down. A wreck in the B&P tunnel a few miles ahead will prevent it from proceeding on the NEC. SDP40Fs 644 & 608 have come to the rescue and have coupled on. They will pull the train forward and then back it through the connection to the Chessie System's Bay View yard. From there, they will take the train to Washington's Union Station via Chessie Systems Washington Sub.
While these images look horribly crooked look again. Yes the train is listing badly but the horizon is dead on. That should tell you how little used and less maintained these tracks are.
GMCR GP9 804 and VTR GP40-2 307 have dropped their train behind them at MP 3.15 on Washington County Railroad's M&B Division and are seem making an ultra rare move to the east on what is now known as the M&WR spur. These rails they are on once led another 35 miles east to a junction with the Boston & Maine / Canadian Pacific Conn River Mainline at Wells River. Built in 1873 it was a through route operated by the Montpelier & Wells River and later Barre & Chelsea Railroads. But in November 1956 the last train ran the length of the line and the rails were removed. All that remained on this end was about an 1800 ft stub from this switch to a couple of customers in East Montpelier. With those customers long since closed even this stub was out of service for years and overgrown with trees. Recently cleared by present operator Vermont Railway, they have been loading company material here and this is why the crew had to make the rare move up the old M&WR mainline to switch a couple tie gons.
The location of the junction where they diverged was once known as Barre Transfer because here the rails of the Central Vermont, Barre Railroad and Montpelier & Wells River all met. The particular rails their train is sitting on are ex Central Vermont, first laid in 1875 when the 1849 branch into the capital city was extended to Barre. In 1957 Sam Pinsly's Montpelier & Barre purchased them and he quickly consolidated the parallel CV and old Montpelier & Wells River (later Barre & Chelsea) routes between this point at Barre. The state purchased these rails in 1980 when the M&B petitioned for abandonment and they've had multiple contract operators over the years until finally setting on Vermont Rail System's Washington County Subsidiary about two decades ago.
One historical tidbit that this image got me thinking about was the similarity to two other long abandoned but one time east west thru routes cutting across northern New England. While nearly all the historic North South routes in New England still survive nearly intact only the Green Mountain's ex Rutland line, SLR's ex Grand Trunk and the former CP International of Maine east-west routes remain. The old Mountain Sub is a tourist operation and half out of service. This line is long abandoned and similar fates befell the Northern, the old Concord and Montreal. the Claremont and Concord and the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Routes.
The later two are particularly interesting in that like the M&WR route here both the C&C and StJ&LC came into the fold of the Boston & Maine in the early 20th century then were spun off to local interests within decades. In the middle 20th century all would end up in the Pinsly family of shortlines in some form or fashion before ultimately losing traffic and being abandoned. While Pinsly never owned the line between here and Wells River, his company did save the remainder of the M&WR and operate it for nearly two decades after the Barre & Chelsea petitioned for abandonment.
Montpelier, Vermont
Friday April 24, 2020
Washington County Railroad's (VRS) train NPWJ from Newport to White River Junction is southbound through the village of Lyndonville at MP L34.8. The red building at left is the circa former Boston and Maine freight house now a restaurant.
The railroad was first built through here to Canada in 1860 as the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad. It operated independently until 1887 when it was merged into the connecting Connecticut River Railroad which itself was swallowed up by the Boston and Maine in 1893. This was once the location of major shop facilities which were all shuttered in 1926 when the B&M leased the line from Newport to Wells River to the Canadian Pacific which ultimately bought it outright in 1946.
The CPR had been operating in the state of Vermont for 115 years when they finally retrenched in 1996 and sold the Newport and Lyndonville Subs to Iron Roads Railways which created the new Northern Vermont Railway which took over on September 28th of that year. The Iron Roads system was bankrupt within a half dozen years and the NV ceased to exist with the Lyndonville Sub and the former Boston and Maine Conn River Mainline between Newport and White River Junction being purchased by the State of Vermont and contracted to Vermont Rail System's Washington County Railroad Subsidiary. The WACR is now at the two decade mark operating the 103 mile line while the Newport Sub north into Canada passed to succesors Montreal, Maine and Atlantic and then Central Maine and Quebec until remarkably returning to the CP fold in 2020 when they purchased the CMQ.
Recently VRS and CP have been pooling power, with one unit from each running thru between White River Junction, VT and Farnham, QC on an up and back every other day schedule. This harkens back to the B&M pool power days so with a bit of imagination one can pretend this is train 904 headed down from Newport to hand off to the B&M.
Lyndon, Vermont
Friday August 11, 2023
Being pursued by angry aliens having mistakenly guzzled their sacred sausage grass? You need the latest in locomotion utilities from Llwyngwril Systems: S.T.I.L.T.S. The Super Tough Interplanetary Leg Transport System.
No more bulky rovers or buggies. Stilts are lightweight, compact and allow you walk through doorways. They also come with a one-time use ejection system, which allows you to leap tall buildings in a single bound (emergency use only).
01 April 2018
Its into the 9th year since I shot this and the situation in the DTES has only deteriorated. Governments have worsened the situation by piling more social housing in the area adding to the “customers with no cash” syndrome. The area is named “Canada’s poorest postal code” by activists and the poverty pimps love the situation making the area one of “Canada’s richest postal codes”, the only differenence being the pimp money goes home at night. Helpful groups support too many by offering them food daily with zero obligation. Its become an impossible sitiuation to address given the current state of political governance.
I wish this was just a sick April Fools Day joke but unfortuantely not.
Sleeping on a sidewalk in the Downtown East Side (DTES) of Vancouver BC takes on a different sense of survival than is observed in many west side sleepers. A combination of mental issues, drug sale and use, area resident poverty and the resulting community of "Customers With No Cash" combine for a perfect locale to take advantage of people on the edge where living is not comparable to what most of us bring to mind in our own comfortable world. Prostitution and drugs are a large part of this community. One can not help feel sorry and remorseful this exists in self important Vancouver.
The irony of this photo is it was shot about 10 feet from the entrance of BC Housing's recently opened Orange Hall office (open 10 am to 4 pm Monday to Friday) 297 Hastings Street at Gore Ave. This situation has steadily gone downhill since the Federal Governemt cut back funding for social housing.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH:
From BC Housing website:
October 3rd, 2014
VICTORIA – The B.C. government is strengthening the non-profit housing sector by transferring provincially-owned properties to non-profit housing providers.
The Province owns approximately 350 parcels of land throughout British Columbia that are currently leased long-term to non-profit housing providers who own and operate social housing buildings on these properties.
The non-profit housing sector has been asking for this step for many years. Having ownership of the land will improve a non-profit’s ability to support better long-term planning and selfsufficiency. Owning the lands they operate on will also help non-profits secure the financing they need to be sustainable.
In order to transfer title, the Province will end these leases, and then transfer ownership of the land to the societies. The properties will be transferred at fair market value. The Province will assist the societies to secure mortgages on the properties. The current operating agreement that BC Housing has with each non-profit society will remain in place. Approximately 115 properties will be transferred by March 31, 2015, and the rest will be transferred over the next three years.
In addition, the Province is looking to transfer ownership of two properties currently managed by BC Housing to non-profit societies. The Province will begin the process by posting Expressions of Interest for Nicholson Tower and Stamps Place in Vancouver shortly.
Tenants will not be impacted by these transfers, and the amount of affordable housing stock will remain stable. Non-profit societies have been providing social housing in B.C. for more than 60 years. Today more than 90% of social housing is managed by non-profit societies.
THE GLOBE & MAIL:
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 13 2014
Vancouver won’t solve street homelessness until both the city and province focus on targeting the limited supply of expensive social housing to those who need it most, say experts.
That means help can’t go to anyone who passes through a shelter or an outdoor camp or even to someone who sleeps outside temporarily. In the vast majority of cases, people who become homeless experience it briefly and are able to avoid losing housing again.
But people working on eliminating homelessness do not always understand that the thousands of people who experience homelessness in a year don’t all need expensive subsidized housing. That should be reserved for the chronically homeless, who are not sufficiently helped by temporary assistance with rent or other social supports.
“For nearly 90 per cent of people counted as homeless, they’ll get themselves out of homelessness on their own,” says Tim Richter, who led Calgary’s 10-year plan to end homelessness and is now the president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. “It’s critical to set priorities. It shouldn’t be first-come, first-served.”
One of the region’s most experienced homelessness researchers, former Vancouver city-hall staffer Judy Graves, said the city is reaping the results of city and provincial staff not always setting the right priorities for the past six years. This past winter, Vancouver still had a count of 533 people sleeping outside (less than in 2008, but more than in 2011), even though the province and city have opened up thousands of new social-housing units rented at welfare-level rates.
It’s an issue that is returning to haunt Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who promised in 2008 to end street homelessness by 2015, during this fall’s civic-election campaign.
His administration, which has pushed the issue non-stop since he was first elected, has recently exceeded previous efforts by jumping last month into paying for all the costs of converting a downtown Quality Inn to transitional housing, as well as all the costs of a new shelter nearby. Usually the province covers the majority of costs for both of those kinds of housing.
But Ms. Graves said even that unusual effort, accompanied by several hundred other new provincial units about to open, isn’t going to solve the problem by January, 2015.
That’s because the province is only committed to using half of the incoming housing units for the chronically homeless. And city staff also don’t always correctly identify who is the most in need.
“Both the city and province have bought into housing by wait lists,” said Ms. Graves. “It just can’t work. You have to work as though you’re in a disaster zone.”
She said she had doubts that the majority of people who camped in Oppenheimer Park over the summer were homeless, but they got priority for the scarce number of rooms available.
As well, in the early stages of the province’s big social-housing construction push, which will see 14 towers completed with around 1,400 units by the end, non-profit operators were simply moving people from residential hotel rooms into the new buildings.
That meant the housing didn’t go to the chronically homeless and the most in need, but worse, it then allowed landlords in the residential hotels to do renovations, raise rents, or refuse new low-income tenants once the former tenants were relocated to social housing.
That then reduced the overall number of private, low-cost housing units in the city. Ms. Graves said the whole region is experiencing an acute shortage of those kinds of private units now. It has become a game of musical chairs for housing-outreach workers to get a low-cost unit for someone trying to get out of shelters or off the street, she said.
All cities are grappling with constant pressures that create more homelessness at the front end: low working-class incomes that can’t keep up with gentrification and rising rents key among them, said Ms. Graves. That has left cities trying to solve the problem at the back end, trying to house all the people made homeless as a result of many larger forces.
24 HRS VANCOUVER - 16 OCT 14
16 Oct 2014 24 Hours VancouverJANE DEACON Comment at vancouver.24hrs.c
Laura Dilley, PACE Society Action Week, PACE plans to draft housing recommendations for city council before the coming election.
“Oftentimes we will create housing models not including the voices of those we would be housing,” said Dilley.
Rising rent prices that force people out of SROs is a significant factor, as well as landlords who refuse to rent to sex workers out of legal concerns, said Dilley. Low- income housing conditions that require tenants stay in at night or guests to sign in are also significant barriers. She estimates between 10 to 15% of sex workers fall under the category of “survival” or street- based prostitution. For that vulnerable population, simply switching professions is often not an option, said Dilley.
“They’re really forced and entrenched to continuously do that work because they have no options out of it, because we have such stigma in our society that they can’t seek help, they can’t find affordable housing, so they’re really stuck in that situation,” she said.
17 April 2019:
B.C. drug users demand clean supply, but fear they won’t live to see it happen
By David P. BallStar Vancouver
Tues., April 16, 2019
VANCOUVER—Several hundred Vancouverites marked three years since the province declared a public health emergency over the thousands of people killed by overdoses.
But as they marched Tuesday from the safe-injection clinic Insite through downtown Vancouver, advocates say “contaminated” drugs have taken a toll on their own leaders.
For B.C. Association of People on Methadone member Garth Mullins, the losses are mounting, and it’s been destabilizing and “disorganizing” for the drug-reform movement.
“We’ve lost rank and file members and leaders in such high numbers over the last five years,” he said, wearing a distinctive black case of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone on his belt. “It’s hard to organize or think strategically when you’re always doing triage, planning a memorial.”
Just last month the president of his organization, Chereece Keewatin, died from a fentanyl overdose. Mullins knew Keewatin for at least six years, and invited her to join the editorial board of the podcast Crackdown, of which he is executive producer.
“Chereece was really little, but she had this tremendous capacity to lift people’s spirits,” he said in an interview. “You’d have meetings where we talk about really, really bleak subjects, but she had these funny asides to cut through the bleakness.
“She made people laugh. In that way, she took responsibility for the whole collective emotional state of the group.”
It’s not just the B.C. Association of People on Methadone that’s seen the direct “casualties” of what Mullins called “a war.” The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the national Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs have also lost high-ranking board members in recent years.
Since 2016, nearly 11,000 people have died across Canada from opioid overdoses, according to the most recent federal and provincial data. The majority of those deaths were from opioids such as fentanyl or its more deadly variants, but B.C. remains the epicentre for roughly a third of those deaths, 1,500 of them last year alone.
On average, four British Columbians died every day from overdoses last year, much higher than the national average and largely unchanged since the province’s April 2016 declaration of a public health emergency.
11 May 2020
.
A wall mural in the DTES poses a valid question, "how do we end the drug crisis"? A more basic question, how did we get here?
Vancouver, B.C. is consistently ranked at the top of the list for the world’s most liveable cities - but not for many in the DTES.
The city has a dirty little secret that it has been trying to suppress for decades. The historic four-block area near East Hastings and Main Street — the DTES — known as one of the “poorest postal codes” in Canada, has a combination of drug use, HIV, homelessness, prostitution, mental illness, and crime all making up this poor off neighbourhood.
To be successful as a drug lord you need a steady, reliable, cheap supply of product, a location where you can operate relatively free from prosecution and away you go. The prime location ingredients Vancouver offers is the DTES.
Over the decades continuing city administrations have built a community of “customers with no cash” by loading the DTES with blocks of not for profit social housing. Along with the myriad of Single Room Occupancy hotels (SRO's) the area is prime territory for the drug trade.
Social housing should be spread throughout the city to provide a society of different financial means for common support - IMO.
Administrations over the years have been loath to attempt social housing in the rich city enclaves due to onerous push back. It was and still is more expedient to keep adding more social housing in the DTES where there is minimal opposition.
***** Today there are at least 6 City of Vancouver development permit applications on file for more social housing in the DTES.
The process is welcomed by the myriad of DTES support service groups who like their clientele close at hand and the clientele are fine with it as services are nearby.
DTES government and service support groups along with poverty pimp lawyers who have a hissy fit if anyone tries to change the dial, while also making money off the situation, has resulted in the perfect condition for drug dealers to flourish.
Social housing residents, many older, Asian and often mentally challenged are living in a hell hole neighbourhood with little individual voice.
In recent years, the area is seeing an east creeping gentrification. This is causing the DTES street population to be squeezed into a smaller footprint resulting in more confrontation and the appearance of a worsening situation even though overall the numbers of street people remains fairly constant.
The amount of taxpayer dollars spent in the area is staggering with little to show for the investment.
Vancouver has always had a drug problem. The opioids of choice — and the increasingly staggering death toll — have changed over the years.
In 2017 Fentanyl killed so many Canadians it caused the average life expectancy in B.C. to drop for the first time in decades. But for crime kingpins, it became a source of such astonishing wealth it disrupted the Vancouver-area real estate market.
SOME BACKGROUND:
Excerpt from the Province Newspaper by reporter Randy Shore 18 March, 2017.
When members of the Royal Commission to Investigate Chinese and Japanese Immigration came to Vancouver in 1901, they got an eyeful.
“There were whole rooms of Chinese lying stretched out on beds with the opium apparatus laid out before them — all unmindful that their attitudes and surrounding conditions are being taken note of to assist in keeping the remainder of their countrymen entirely out of Canada,” reported the Vancouver World newspaper.
The fringes of Vancouver’s Chinatown have always been the centre of Canada’s opiate trade. Ever more potent and easily smuggled versions emerged through the decades, culminating in the scourge of synthetic opiates — fentanyl and carfentanil — thousands of times more powerful and many times more deadly than opium.
Opium was a source of revenue for governments of the day. A federal duty imposed on importers fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars between 1874 and 1899. In B.C. ports, and cities charged hundreds of dollars to purveyors in the form of business licences.
Between 1923 and 1932, more than 700 Chinese men were deported for drug-related violations.
Under constant pressure from the police, opium users began to inject their hit, as the technique created no smoke or aroma and used smaller equipment, which could be easily hidden. In the 1920s and 1930s, white users tended to be young criminals, “racetrack hands, and circus and show people” who smoked opium or sniffed heroin.
By the mid-1930s, heroin was one of the most common drugs in circulation and white users were increasingly taking the drug intravenously, especially as prices rose due to scarcity brought about by vigorous law enforcement.
The outbreak of the Second World War put opiate addicts into a state of crisis, as opiate drugs were required in great quantities for the war wounded. The street price of a hit — whether heroin, morphine or codeine — shot up and crime along with it.
In the post-war period, right through to the mid-’60s, Vancouver was ground zero for Canada’s intravenous drug scene, made up mainly of petty criminals, troubled youths fed by drug lords.
Before the ’40s were over, highly refined white heroin had appeared and it was coming from overseas to satisfy a hungry market in Vancouver, home to half of the country’s drug users.
Heroin use remained a constant undercurrent in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during the ’70s and ’80s, even as alcohol was the neighbourhood’s real drug of choice.
But a flood of a new and even more potent “China White” heroin arriving into the city reignited public outrage in the early ’90s. A spate of 331 overdose deaths in 1993 spurred B.C. coroner Vince Cain to call for the decriminalization of heroin and addicts be prescribed the drug to legally maintain their habit.
It would be nearly 15 years before the Study to Assess Long-term Opioid Maintenance Effectiveness (SALOME) began in Vancouver, just about the time a new threat emerged.
Up to 80 times as powerful as heroin, fentanyl hit the streets and reduced the risk for traffickers as it was so concentrated, transportation was easier.
The carnage wrought by fentanyl has been without precedent.
Heroin seized in drug busts is routinely cut with fentanyl and in recent months the presence of carfentanil.
SUMMARY:
Where will this go next, who knows ?
The richest of societies should be especially judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and Vancouver has its challenge set out for the foreseeable future.
UPDATE 23 MAY 2020 - VANCOUVER SUN
John Mackie: The Downtown Eastside is a war zone disaster — stop ghettoizing it.
John Mackie, Vancouver Sun 23 May 2020
Twenty years ago local musician Kuba Oms was recording at the Miller Block, a now defunct Hastings Street recording studio near Save-On-Meats.
He jaywalked and was stopped by a cop, who handed him a ticket.
“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’” Oms recounts. “You know there’s a guy shooting up over there, and a crack dealer over there. And the cop said ‘That’s a health issue.’”
That story pretty much sums up the city’s attitude toward the Downtown Eastside over the past few decades.
In some ways the cop was right — it is a Vancouver health issue. But letting people openly do drugs in public and turn Hastings and the wider Downtown Eastside into a ghetto is political correctness gone mad.
Drive down Hastings Street between Abbott and Gore and you’ll see dozens, even hundreds of people hanging out on the street, in various states of sobriety. They are definitely not social distancing. It’s a miracle that COVID-19 hasn’t swept the entire area.
The height of this madness was the recent occupation of Oppenheimer Park. Vancouver has real issues of homelessness, but to some degree Oppenheimer was about a fringe group of politicos manipulating the homeless.
Many police resources were diverted to the park and there was a crime wave in nearby Chinatown — one business closed because they were being robbed a dozen times a day.
The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them?
Odds are if they do, it will be in highrises in the Downtown Eastside. For decades that’s where the city and province have been concentrating social housing, especially for the mentally ill and drug addicted.
Their argument is these residents feel comfortable there. But the reality is the more poverty is concentrated, the worse the area seems to become.
Maybe it’s time for the city of Vancouver to give its head a shake and realize that its much-ballyhooed Downtown Eastside Plan is actually part of the problem, not the solution.
Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.
Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city.
When the plan was unveiled in 2014, Vancouver’s former head planner Brian Jackson said the aim was to ensure that low-income people in the Downtown Eastside weren’t displaced.
“The plan is attempting to achieve balance,” he explained then.
In fact, the plan does the exact opposite. There is no balance in the Downtown Eastside: It’s been turned into a ghetto. A friend who’s worked there for two decades calls it a war zone.
The city desperately need some market housing, co-ops and development on Hastings and around Oppenheimer. The anti-poverty activists will scream blue murder that it’s gentrification, but it’s actually normalization. You don’t have to displace anybody, you just have add a different mix to make it safer.
I live in Strathcona, where about 6,500 people live in social housing and about 3,500 in market homes. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood that has the balance Brian Jackson was taking about — it’s diverse and features a variety of incomes.
Japantown and the Downtown Eastside could be a real neighbourhood again if the city retained its stock of handsome historic buildings but allowed some development of its many non-descript structures.
It could be like Strathcona, even the West End. But I fear it could get even worse, if the planners and politicians continue to concentrate all the Lower Mainland’s poverty and social ills in one small area.
jmackie@postmedia.com
John Mackie is a veteran Postmedia reporter who has written several stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan.
13 JULY, 2020
Vancouver can’t catch up to its housing crisis
ADRIENNE TANNER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED 13 JULY 2020
It is obvious now the cheers that erupted when Vancouver’s longest running tent city was dismantled were wildly premature. Fearing a COVID-19 outbreak would take hold in the overcrowded inner-city camp, the provincial government in April acquired emergency housing in hotels for homeless people living there and cleared the site.
Many camp residents embraced the offer of a clean room. Some refused and relocated outdoors. The camp shifted, first to some empty Port of Vancouver land, and when a court order quickly shut it down, finally landed in Strathcona Park. With each move, it grew.
Today there are about 150 tents Strathcona Park, roughly double the number there were in Oppenheimer Park. How many inhabitants are truly homeless is anyone’s guess. Some of the tents were erected by activists with homes. Others belong to people living in single room occupancy hotels, the worst of which are noisy, bug-infested and so hot that some residents prefer to spend summer outside.
There is already an air of permanence to the camp; the city has installed porta-potties, fresh drinking water and handwashing stations. Park rangers drop by a few times daily. The area is reasonably clean, but these are early days.
Strathcona residents are largely sympathetic to homeless people, but are understandably unhappy about losing a large chunk of park space. They fear the same violence and social disorder that cropped up at Oppenheimer is inevitable; there has already been a small fire and there appears to be a bike chop shop on site. There are cries for the city to sanction a permanent tent city location – elsewhere, of course.
So how exactly did the province’s efforts to shut down a tent city and house homeless people backfire so badly? The city and provincial officials have been out-manoeuvered and out-organized by anti-poverty activists who seized a COVID-19 opportunity when they saw it.
The pandemic raised fears the Oppenheimer tent city would turn into a reservoir of disease that could overwhelm the health system. The activists know that’s why the government cleared the camp and purchased hotels for social housing. They understand this is the moment to highlight society’s failure to solve homelessness, even if their end goals seem to differ. Some are calling for permanent housing – others prefer the idea of a permanent, free-wheeling tent city.
The sorry truth is, even with the addition of 600 units of temporary modular housing and, more recently, the purchase of three downtown hotels, there are still more homeless people than homes. Successions of governments at all levels have allowed this crisis to grow. They’ve failed to build enough social housing. Failed to provide adequate mental health services. Failed to fund enough drug rehabilitation programs for those who want to quit and provide a safe drug supply for those who can’t.
So, now here we are with the largest homeless camp the city has ever seen and another stressed-out neighbourhood. Legally, the new tent city may prove more difficult to dismantle – it’s a large park and the tents are well spaced so the pandemic may not wash as a valid reason. And unless housing is available for everyone who is homeless, it is unlikely the courts would grant an injunction.
Solving problems associated with homelessness is a huge challenge. We can start with housing, but that alone is not nearly enough. Many of the people living in the hotels and park are drug users. Many are mentally ill. Some are both. It takes money – and lots of it – to provide decent housing and supports for this segment of society.
But to cave to demands for a permanent tent city is an American-style admission of defeat. The park board seems resigned to tent cities in parks and is considering a bylaw seeking to control locations. City council has resisted sanctioning a permanent spot, instead offering up land for new social housing. The province has stepped up with money for temporary modular housing and purchases of hotels.
It will be tough to keep neighbourhoods onside if more parks are rendered unusable for recreation. There is only one palatable solution; the provincial government must stay the course and keep adding decent, affordable housing. It won’t be cheap or easy. Catchup never is.
01 APRIL 2022
More than 2,200 British Columbians lost to illicit drugs in 2021
The toxic illicit drug supply claimed the lives of at least 2,224 British Columbians in 2021, according to preliminary data released by the BC Coroners Service.
“Over the past seven years, our province has experienced a devastating loss of life due to a toxic illicit drug supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “This public health emergency has impacted families and communities across the province and shows no sign of abating. In 2021 alone, more than 2,200 families experienced the devastating loss of a loved one. In the past seven years, the rate of death due to illicit drug toxicity in our province has risen more than 400%. Drug toxicity is now second only to cancers in B.C. for potential years of life lost. We cannot simply hope that things will improve. It is long past time to end the chaos and devastation in our communities resulting from the flourishing illicit drug market, and to ensure, on an urgent basis, access across the province to a safe, reliable regulated drug supply.”
The last two months of 2021 saw the largest number of suspected illicit drug deaths ever recorded in the province, with 210 deaths in November and an additional 215 in December. The 2,224 total number of deaths is 26% more than the 1,767 illicit drug-related deaths investigated by the BC Coroners Service in 2020, and equates to an average of 6.1 lives lost every day.
The provincewide death rate in 2021 was 42.8 per 100,000 residents. Every health authority in B.C. experienced a record loss of lives.
Since the public health emergency into substance-related harms was first declared in April 2016, more than 8,800 British Columbians have been lost to toxic drugs.
Toxicological testing once again underscores the reality that the illicit drug supply continues to be unstable and increasingly toxic. Fentanyl was detected in 83% of samples tested in 2021. Carfentanil was present in 187 results, almost triple the number recorded in 2020 (66).
Additionally, 50% of samples in December tested positive for etizolam, more than three times the rate of detection in July 2020 (15%). Benzodiazepines create significant challenges for life-saving efforts as naloxone does not reverse its effects. As with previous reporting, almost all test results included the presence of multiple substances.
“We need decision-makers at all levels to recognize and respond to this public health emergency with the level of urgency it demands,” Lapointe said. “The reality is this: every day we wait to act, six more people will die. COVID-19 has shown what is possible when goverments act decisively to save lives. And in order to save lives in this public-heath emergency, we need to provide people with access to the substances they need, where and when they need them. Time has run out for research and discussion. It is time to take action.”
Additional key preliminary findings are below. Data is subject to change as additional toxicology results are received:
In 2021, 71% of those who died as a result of suspected drug toxicity were between 30 to 59, and 78% were male.
The townships that experienced the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2021 were Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest numbers of illicit drug toxicity deaths were in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health authorities (765 and 615 deaths, respectively), making up 62% of all such deaths during this period.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver Coastal Health (49 deaths per 100,000 individuals) and Northern Health (48 per 100,000).
By Health Service Delivery Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver, Thompson Cariboo, Northwest, Northern Interior and Fraser East.
By Local Health Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Upper Skeena, Merritt, Enderby, Lillooet and North Thompson.
Quotes:
Dr. Nel Wieman, deputy chief medical officer, First Nations Health Authority –
“The number of deaths due to toxic drug poisonings for 2021 translates to devastating losses of First Nations people: daughters and sons, aunties and uncles, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. These are people who loved and were loved. In every year since this public health emergency was declared, B.C. First Nations people have been over-represented in toxic drug-poisoning events and deaths. We must change our understanding of the root causes of substance use and addiction, and work together to address the stigmas surrounding toxic drug use and the people who use drugs. We must continue to invest in Indigenous-specific, culturally safe harm-reduction, treatment and recovery services that are accessible, timely and free from discrimination and racism.”
Guy Felicella, peer clinical adviser, Vancouver Coastal Health –
“I join the thousands of British Columbians who are heartbroken, frustrated and angry over this unfathomable loss. Every one of these deaths was preventable and represents a failure to act, a failure to learn from mistakes. Change nothing and nothing changes. That’s been the story now for years as the approach throughout this crisis has been to meet policies where they’re at, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. This approach is killing and continues to kill people. Who has the courage to step forward and make this stop?”
AUGUST 2023
Today’s release of the report on drug toxicity deaths for the month of July 2023 by the BC Coroners Service is a stark reminder that the ongoing toxic-drug crisis continues to have a devastating impact on communities across our province. We hold in our hearts the memories of the 198 people lost in July in British Columbia.
The coroners service said the 1,455 deaths from January to July are the most ever reported in the first seven months of the year since a public health emergency over drug poisoning deaths in the province was declared in 2016.
It puts the province on pace to potentially exceed the 2,383 deaths recorded in 2022. A total of 12,739 people in the province have died from drug overdoses in the seven years.
30 NOVEMBER, 2023
At least 2,039 British Columbians have died from toxic drugs so far this year, according to preliminary figures released by the B.C. Coroners Service on Thursday, 29 November, 2023.
Of those, 189 people died in October, which is about 6.1 deaths a day. Most of the dead were between 30 and 59 years of age, and more than three-quarters were men, according to the coroner.
While the largest number of deaths reported so far has been in urban centres, such as Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria, the health authority with the highest rate of death in 2023 is Northern Health, with 61 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the coroner.
As in previous months, fentanyl was found in most — 85 per cent — of the illicit drugs tested, often combined with other opioids or stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Earlier this month, Interior Health issued a drug advisory warning for people who use drugs that some substances being advertised as hydromorphone on the black market contain isotonitazine, a drug the coroner says is as potent as fentanyl.
Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined, the coroner said.
Since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, more than 13,000 people have died.
JANUARY 2024:
Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, has released the following statement regarding the BC Coroners Service year-end report on illicit drug toxicity deaths:
“Today, as we reflect on the year behind us, our hearts are heavy with the loss of 2,511 people in British Columbia to toxic drugs. Each of these lives was precious and important, each with their own story, their own dreams and people who love them. They were part of our community, and their loss is felt deeply by us all.
So what is the game plane to stop it?
C. seeks to keep cash seized from Downtown Eastside gang
Courtesy Kim Bolan and the Vancouver Sun.
Kim Bolan is an experienced and award-winning journalist who has covered gangs in British Columbia for the past 40 years. Bolan also investigated the Air India bombing for 25 years until the publication in 2005 of her book, Loss of Faith.
The B.C. government has filed a lawsuit against a group of alleged Downtown Eastside drug traffickers, seeking the forfeiture of more than $150,000 seized from them.
The lawsuit, filed this week by the director of civil forfeiture, names four defendants that it alleges are part of a criminal organization investigated by the Vancouver Police Department.
While the group is not named in the statement of claim, details of the VPD probe outlined in the court document match an investigation into Zone 43 — a gang that originated in Montreal but has taken over the Downtown Eastside in recent years. Zone 43 has connections to B.C.’s notorious Wolfpack gang alliance.
In June, the VPD announced arrests of several Zone 43 gangsters, though they were released pending approval of charges.
The VPD said it had seized firearms, 24 kilos of drugs and $150,000 in cash during searches on May 14 in Vancouver and Burnaby.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit refers to three VPD searches done on the same date in the same cities and alleges Shayne Cozier-Flanagan, Evantee Jevontee Eustace Stoney, Tristin Johnson and Raimon Geday were “participating in the activities of a criminal organization.”
When police searched Stoney’s apartment on the 30th floor at 2388 Madison Ave. in Burnaby, they found $143,910.75 in Canadian currency and $607 in U.S. currency, the lawsuit said.
Officers seized another $5,800 at Cozier-Flanagan’s suite, also on the 30th floor, at 5665 Boundary Rd. in Vancouver, it said.
About $3,417 was seized from Johnson, who also lives in the Madison apartment, when he was arrested in the 300-block of East Hastings. Another $1,920 was found in Geday’s room in a supportive housing building on Kaslo Street, the lawsuit said.
The VPD also seized a 2017 Acura RDX, of which Stoney is the registered owner and which was used “to facilitate the trafficking of controlled substances,” the civil forfeiture director alleged.
The statement of claim notes that both Stoney and Geday have previous trafficking convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
All four men named in the lawsuit “trafficked in controlled substances in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the surrounding areas,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the Boundary apartment, police also found a money counter and business cards with the number to call to purchase drugs — known as a ‘dialer’ number.
In the Madison suite, the VPD also found dilaudid pills, oxycodone pills and “score sheets” documenting drug sales, collection and debts.
In Geday’s room, police found crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and another 275 dilaudid pills, as well as score sheets, bear spray and “miscellaneous drug packaging materials.”
The cash and car should be forfeited to the government because they are proceeds of or were used for unlawful activity, the lawsuit alleged.
The crimes committed include possession for the purpose of trafficking and trafficking, committing offences for the benefit of a criminal organization, conspiracy, money laundering and failure to declare taxable income, it alleged
No statements of defence have yet been filed on behalf of the four men.
Vancouver Police Insp. Phil Heard said at the June news conference that Zone 43 gangsters “pose a very significant risk to the public. They’re involved in a well-documented conflict ongoing in the province of Quebec with a rival group.”
Sources say the gang is still selling drugs in the Downtown Eastside.
AUGUST 2025:
The law protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair
Pete McMartin: I'm tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse.
Published Aug 03, 2025
In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote a weeklong series of stories identifying the government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within the eight square blocks of the DTES.
Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients.
Five years earlier, in 2009, Province reporter David Carrigg also did a survey of the programs available in the DTES, and he identified 174 social welfare agencies offering services to about 5,000 clients.
In other words, in the five years between Carrigg’s survey and Culbert’s and mine, not only had the number of people needing help grown but so had the number of agencies serving them.
And the cost to taxpayers?
Over $360 million annually.
That astounding figure — almost a million dollars a day — did little to satisfy the DTES’s voracious appetite for tax dollars. More to the point, it did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.
Rather than winning the war on poverty — and what a quaint phrase that seems now — governments engineered a truce, with the unstated understanding that if they couldn’t solve the problem or spend their way out of it, they could contain it. Those 260 social service bureaucracies weren’t solutions to an intractable problem; they were barricades. They ghettoized their impoverished clientele by concentrating the services on which they depended.
And let’s be honest: The public was complicit in this, and content for it to continue as long as the misery stayed confined within the borders of the DTES.
And yet here we are. The squalor spreads. It corrodes a once-vibrant downtown core. It infiltrates the suburbs. Daily acts of random violence and vandalism have become normalized, while a cornucopia of drugs — some decriminalized, some tolerated, many deadly — act as accelerants.
In 2016, a year after our survey, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Act due to the alarming rise in opioid-related overdose deaths. Since then, over 16,000 people have died from those opioids. That’s not progress. It’s a plague.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Over the decades, the problem has been studied to death — admittedly, a poor choice of words — with consultants and academics and the legions of poverty industry advocates offering up solutions that ultimately fail. They fail because they’re predicated on two simple criteria:
1. Give us more money.
2. Give us more of everything — housing, hospital beds, food banks, drugs, injection sites, counselling or — and this is always implicit — empathy, with a side order of collective guilt.
I’ve seen this in my own newspaper.
In one recent opinion piece, the author laments that it has been the public’s and governments’ norm “to daily bypass our downtrodden, our homeless, our addicted or mentally ill on the street as though they are either invisible or merely equivalent to lampposts” — to which I have to reply: ‘Are you f—ng kidding me?’
The public and its governments have done exactly the opposite and, short of bathing their feet with Christ-like piety, have directed billions of tax dollars not only to ease the suffering of the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill, but also to make them completely dependent upon those dollars.
Another Sun story — this one again by Culbert — examined the merits of involuntary care through the experiences of three addicts who underwent the process, and while two saw it as beneficial and helped them get clean, the third condemned it as “dehumanizing” and a cause of her PTSD. Though she no longer does drugs, she said that if she relapses she would prefer to take her chances with street drugs that could possibly kill her rather than be readmitted to hospital against her will.
Well, OK, I thought, ‘You’re an adult. Good for you for having the honesty to express that choice, however idiotic I may find it.’
But what I thought was missing in her testimonial was (a) any appreciation of the monumentally expensive efforts governments and the public had tried to make on her behalf, however ill-informed she may have believed those attempts to be, and (b) her failure to recognize the destructive effects that a relapse would have not just on her own health and family, but, more importantly, also on the collective health of the public, who would be asked to offer up yet more money, and deal yet again with her relapse — providing she survives it.
Finally, in The Sun, there was another column, this one by Sam Sullivan, who wrote that, after 52 years, it was time to end the DTES “experiment” and the restrictive housing policies that he believes led to the homelessness and violence bedevilling it.
Funny thing about that.
Between 1993 and 2005, Sullivan was a Vancouver city councillor, and for three years after that, he was mayor. Yet despite the fact that his 15-year tenure at city hall placed him in the midst of that DTES experiment, if not close to its helm, it is only now, 20 years later, that he publicly declares the experiment to be a failure, and — as far as I could tell from reading his opinion piece — without taking any responsibility for it.
I will refrain here, in my own column, from claiming to speak for the public or with any inkling of what popular sentiment might be.
But this is how I feel:
My patience is Exhausted.
I’m tired of the endless, self-regenerating calls for more studies and more funding when all I see is a colossal waste of money and effort leading to no improvement. I’m tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. I’m tired of civil rights that supersede my own, and treat the right to defecate in the streets with greater regard than my right to be offended by it.
Finally, I’m tired of a social welfare system that not only encourages dependency, but refuses, out of moral timidity, to also admit its complicity in it, and which shies away from asking hard questions about personal responsibility and the consideration of measures more draconian than safe injection sites — measures like a return to complete drug criminalization, a higher threshold of minimum sentences for trafficking, the establishment of rehabilitation centres or work camps exclusively in wilderness areas far from the temptations of cities, the discontinuation of any efforts that facilitate drug use, and yes, the robust expansion of an involuntary care system.
It’s also my opinion that none of these measures, given the current legal climate, will become reality, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our Constitution and the Criminal Code, the law, in its majestic equality, protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair, and, as so often happens, bring about their own deaths.
How enlightened we have become! What progress we have made! We’ve reached that point when now sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing one’s daily bread are no longer evidence of a system’s failure.
They are the system.
For a while, Chessie System's C&O subsidiary owned the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend. During this time, an effort was made to provide Chicago-Cleveland passenger service, but the trains had to be diesel hauled east of Michigan City, as seen here with this westbound departing Cleveland, with a GP40-2 hauling the electric MU cars..........
Easter this year also happens to fall on April Fool's Day....SO DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THIS CAPTION. What was really going on is a special delivery movement of new Chicago, South Shore, & South Bend MU cars, seen departing west out of Cleveland. The first order of Nippon Sharyo cars (which are still in use) were assembled by General Electric at Cleveland, and therefore some special delivery moves took place. Happy Easter, and April Fool's Day!
T-Centralen (Swedish for "The T-Central"; T being an abbreviation for "tunnelbana", the Swedish word for "underground" or "subway") is a metro station that forms the heart of the Stockholm metro system, in the sense that it is the only station where all three of the system's lines meet. That, its central location, and its connections with other modes of transport make it the most used metro station in Stockholm.
Wikipedia
This is a Washington Metro station in the south-western Federal Center neighbourhood of Washington, DC. The station was opened on 1 July 1977, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). It is a transfer station, with two levels: this upper level has two side platforms and is used by the Green and Yellow Lines, while the lower level has an island (central) platform used by the Blue, Orange, and Silver Lines. It is also where the Yellow and Green lines converge going north. The station serves five out of the system's six lines, serving the most lines out of any station in the system; only the Red Line does not serve the station.
The Washington Metro is widely known for its soaring, brutalist vaults, but they aren't all the same. In fact, there are eight main station types, although many designs vary based on location. A few stations are unique and do not fit any of the station types.
Metro's architect was a Chicagoan named Harry Weese. His plans for stations mainly centred on creating an awe-inspiring space. Even though patrons may be well below the surface, they will almost always find a cavernous train room. These vaulted stations echo the Great Hall of Daniel Burnham's Union Station and provide the perfect conditions for the light show that occurs with each train's arrival.
The "Waffle" design consists of the coffered vault that Weese originally envisioned for all of Washington's subterranean stations. That spectacular ceiling resembles a waffle, hence the name. These stations were constructed using cast-in-place concrete and proved to be more expensive than other methods. For that reason, designs were later changed. Nevertheless, the Waffle architecture dominates in the downtown stations. Dupont Circle was constructed using pre-cast sections and is the only Waffle-style station to use this method.
Waffle architecture was only constructed during Metro's early years. The first Waffle-style stations opened with the first segment of Metro in 1976. The final stations to include Waffle architecture were Waterfront and Navy Yard, opening in 1991. By this time, other styles were already present in the system, including Arch II at Mount Vernon Square, which had opened earlier that year.
Cu tren EC 276 "METROPOLITAN" Budapest Nyugati p.u. - Praha hlavni nadrazi
With service 276 "METROPOLITAN" Budapest Nyugati p.u - Praha hlavni nadrazi
Budapest Nyugati p.u.,
07.08.2023
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the farthest active inbound comet ever seen, at a whopping distance of 1.5 billion miles from the Sun (beyond Saturn's orbit). Slightly warmed by the remote Sun, it has already begun to develop an 80,000-mile-wide fuzzy cloud of dust, called a coma, enveloping a tiny, solid nucleus of frozen gas and dust. These observations represent the earliest signs of activity ever seen from a comet entering the solar system's planetary zone for the first time.
Image caption: This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a fuzzy cloud of dust, called a coma, surrounding the comet C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS (K2), the farthest active comet ever observed entering the solar system. The image was taken in June 2017 by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credits: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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GMCR GP9 804 and VTR GP40-2 307 are near MP 6.5 on Washington County Railroad's M&B Division with a handful of empty gons destined for the top of The Hill at Websterville for loadout at Northeast Materials granite quarry.
They are passing the Vermont Granite Museum and their rail equipment display. The locomotive is former Barre & Chelsea GE 70 toner #14 built in Sept. 1947. It served for 20 years until throwing a rod in 1967 while working over on the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad. Never returned to service it was repatriated to Barre in the mid 70s as a display piece paying homage to the granite history that built the community. With it is one of 50 40ft steel frame granite quarry flats built by Laconia Car company in 1911. This car served more than a half century hauling granite slabs down the mountain.
The particular rails this train is on are ex CV, first laid in 1875 when the 1849 branch into the capital city was extended to Barre. In 1957 Sam Pinsly's Montpelier & Barre purchased them and he quickly consolidated the parallel CV and old Montpelier & Wells River (later Barre & Chelsea) routes between this point at Barre. The state purchased these rails in 1980 when the M&B petitioned for abandonment and they've had multiple contract operators over the years until finally setting on Vermont Rail System's Washington County Subsidiary about two decades ago.
To learn more about the Vermont Granite museum display equipment click this link: www.timesargus.com/news/business_vermont/new-railroad-exh...
Barre, Vermont
Friday April 24, 2020
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London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground
Explore # 79
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Back in the Train London Underground, not the rush hour...
The London Underground is a metro system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the UK. It is both the world's oldest underground railway and the oldest rapid transit system. It was also the first underground railway to operate electric trains. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube - the latter deriving from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels - although about 55% of the network is above ground.
The Underground serves 268 stations by rail; an additional six stations that were on the East London line are served by Underground replacement buses. Fourteen Underground stations are outside Greater London, of which five (Amersham, Chalfont & Latimer, Chesham, Chorleywood, Epping) are beyond the M25 London Orbital motorway. Of the 32 London boroughs, five (Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston, and Sutton) are not served by the Underground network, while Hackney only has Old Street and Manor House on its boundaries.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network, which were built by various private companies, became part of an integrated transport system (which excluded the main line railways) in 1933 with the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), more commonly known by its shortened name: "London Transport". The underground network became a single entity when London Underground Limited (LUL) was formed by the UK government in 1985.[2] Since 2003 LUL has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, which is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.
The Underground has 268 stations and approximately 400 km (250 miles) of track,[1] making it the longest metro system in the world by route length,[4] and one of the most served in terms of stations. In 2007, over one billion passenger journeys were recorded.
Underground trains come in two sizes, larger subsurface trains and smaller tube trains. A Metropolitan line A Stock train passes a Piccadilly line 1973 Stock train in the siding at Rayners Lane
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
Back in the Train London Underground, not the rush hour...
One of the brightest stars in the night sky and a dwarf galaxy right next to it: Regulus and the dwarf galaxy Leo I are a fascinating pair that I've had on my to-do list for quite some time. However, my first attempt turned out to be a failure because, after stacking, it turned out that a spike from Regulus was going right through the Leo I galaxy. I hadn't considered the spikes at all during the preparation of the capture. Fortunately, a new opportunity arose four weeks later, and I rotated the tube of my Newtonian telescope so that Leo I was now located between the spikes.
In the final stack, Leo I was nicely clear, bright, and clearly visible, so I could keep the editing very simple. Thanks to the CNC machined secondary spider, Regulus' spikes were also nearly perfect and required no corrections at all. I wish every image would work out like this...
I hope you enjoy my version of this odd couple!
Some more facts:
Regulus is not really a single star, but a multiple star system. It consists of two pairs of stars. Regulus A, the primary component in the Regulus system, is a spectroscopic binary star composed of a blue-white main sequence star with the spectral classification B7 V and a companion believed to be a white dwarf. With a visual magnitude of 1.35, Regulus A is reponsible for the star system’s brightness and bluish colour. The system lies approximately 79 light years from the Sun.
Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the constellation Leo. At about 820,000 light-years distant, it is a member of the Local Group of galaxies and is thought to be one of the most distant satellites of the Milky Way galaxy.
Leo I is located only 12 arc minutes from Regulus. For that reason, the galaxy is sometimes called the „Regulus Dwarf“. Scattered light from the star makes studying the galaxy more difficult, and it was not until the 1990s that it was detected visually. Typical to a dwarf galaxy, the metallicity of Leo I is very low, only one percent that of the Sun. The galaxy may be embedded in a cloud of ionized gas with a mass similar to that of the whole galaxy.
Skywatcher 200 1000 @750mm f/3.75
Starizona Nexus Coma Corrector & Reducer
Secondary Spider by Backyard Universe
EQ6-R Pro
ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro (Gain 100, Offset 18, -10°)
RGB (Baader UV/IR Cut Filter): 180 × 60″
Total: 3 h
Bortle 5
Darks, Flats, Darkflats, Dithering
N.I.N.A., Guiding: ZWO ASI 120MM & PHD2
Astropixelprocessor, Photoshop, Pixinsight
Amtrak E60CP 954 was passing underneath the Chessie System's line to Canton with a long-distance train in 1978.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy watches as a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Thursday, May 19, 2022, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2 launched at 6:54 p.m. ET, and will serve as an end-to-end test of the system's capabilities. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
CSXT GP40-2 #6158 idles in the yard at Hanover, PA on June 5, 2025. 6158 was manufactured by EMD in February 1977 for Chessie System's Western Maryland Railway and was numbered 4259. Ilford Pan F+, Kodak Retina lllS.
A worryingly practical transporter from Llwyngwril System's vehicle design department. These machines were a common sight across the Classic Space galaxy, carrying goods and people from place to place. It even had wheels made from wheels and not things such as sausages.
I still don't know to this day as to whether or not Walsall Corporation still technically owned Walsall's trolleybuses during the system's final months of operation under the control of West Midlands PTE? I say this because as far as I know, West Midlands PTE did not have the powers to operate the town's trolleys, the powers having been granted by Parliament to Walsall Corporation.
Following the WMPTE takeover in October 1969, all ex corporation buses and trolleybuses had the municipal coats-of-arms displayed on their panels painted out. In place of the coats of arm were affixed the new WMPTE vinyl WM logos. However, the trolleybuses were exempted and never carried the WM logo. That said, as with the motorbus fleet the operational trolleybuses did carry the legal address for West Midlands PTE on their front lower nearside side panels indicating that the WMPTE was the operator.
It has been suggested by some that that the lack of WM logos on the trolleybuses was at the bequest of the former General Manager and Chief Engineer, Edgley Cox. Cox was against the PTE ending trolleybus operations in the town and is said not to have wanted the trolleybuses to wear the new WM logo? Anyway, someone reading this might know the answer and can hopefully enlighten us as to what the actual situation was?
The picture shows trolleybus 857 turning from Ross Road into Harden Road at Coalpool during the last summer of trolleybus operations in 1970. The Willowbrook bodied Sunbeam F4 had been new in April 1955, a remarkable vehicle when new as this batch of trolleybuses were amongst the first 30ft long, 2-axle, 8ft wide passenger vehicles in Britain.
On the last day of trolleybus operations in Walsall on 3rd October 1970, 857 had been already withdrawn and was not used again. Along with most of the other remaining trolleybuses it was eventually sold for scrap. Today, two ex Walsall trolleybuses of this particular type survive in museums, these being 862 at the Black Country Museum, Dudley, and 872 at the Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum near Doncaster. A third ex Walsall F4 of the type 864 survived for a good number of years, but it was broken up in 2016 due to its deteriorating condition through decades of standing outside.
The second and final qualification motor (QM-2) test for the Space Launch System’s booster is seen, Tuesday, June 28, 2016, at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems test facilities in Promontory, Utah. During the Space Launch System flight the boosters will provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, the first step on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Just another take of Vermont Rail System's legendary septuagenarian diesel number 405 is in command of a three car Trains Magazine charter special paused at the VT Route 140 crossing at MP B39.5 of Vermont Railway's Bellows Falls Subdivision (the ex Green Mountain Railroad née Rutland mainline). They stopped here to let off passengers in the village of East Wallingford for a series of photo runbys before continuing over the top of the Green Mountains and down to the Connecticut River valley.
This line traces its history back to 1849 when the Rutland Railroad's mainline from the Connecticut River town to Burlington opened by way of its namesake community. The venerable Alco RS-1 rolled out of the Schenectady plant in November 1951 as one of a half dozen of the model and served the erstwhile Class 1 until it shut down for good in 1961. While her siblings were scattered to the wind she never left her home state being picked up by Nelson Blount (founder of Steamtown) and then staying with the Green Mountain Railroad in freight service even after Steamtown left in 1983. She has remained in service on her home rails for 73 years and still occasionally is called up to freight duty, though now largely enjoys an easier life on excursion and passenger duty such as this.
Wallingford, Vermont
Saturday September 28, 2024
With giant storms, powerful winds, auroras, and extreme temperature and pressure conditions, Jupiter has a lot going on. Now, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new images of the planet. Webb’s Jupiter observations will give scientists even more clues to Jupiter’s inner life.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley. De Pater led the observations of Jupiter with Thierry Fouchet, a professor at the Paris Observatory, as part of an international collaboration for Webb’s Early Release Science program. Webb itself is an international mission led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). “It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,” de Pater said.
This image comes from the observatory’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which has three specialized infrared filters that showcase details of the planet. Since infrared light is invisible to the human eye, the light has been mapped onto the visible spectrum. Generally, the longest wavelengths appear redder and the shortest wavelengths are shown as more blue. Scientists collaborated with citizen scientist Judy Schmidt to translate the Webb data into images.
In this wide-field view, Webb sees Jupiter with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea. The fuzzy spots in the lower background are likely galaxies “photobombing” this Jovian view.
“This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings, and its satellite system,” Fouchet said. Researchers have already begun analyzing Webb data to get new science results about our solar system’s largest planet.
Read more about the image and how it was processed by Judy Schmidt here: blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/08/22/webbs-jupiter-images-showc...
Image credit: Webb NIRCam composite image (two filters) of Jupiter system, unlabeled (top) and labeled (bottom). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt.
Image description: This image is labeled. A wide field view showcases Jupiter in the upper right quadrant. The planet’s swirling horizontal stripes are rendered in blues, browns, and cream. Electric blue auroras (labeled Northern and Southern Aurora) glow above Jupiter’s north and south poles. A white glow emanates out from the auroras. Along the planet’s equator, rings glow in a faint white. These rings are one million times fainter than the planet itself! At the far left edge of the rings, a moon (labeled as Andrastea) appears as a tiny white dot. Slightly further to the left, another moon (labeled as Amalthea) glows with tiny white diffraction spikes. The rest of the image is the blackness of space, with faintly glowing white galaxies in the distance. Also labeled are spikes of light eminating from the Southern Aurora, which are diffraction spikes. At far left there is also another faint line labeled as a diffraction spike from Jupiter's moon Io.
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London Set | Architecture Set | Night Set | London Underground
EXPLORE # 271
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Streaming Train in a Urban London UK Underground station...very quiet for a change, apart from a lost ghost train architecture. City of London Urban, Metropolitan
The London Underground is a metro system serving a large part of Greater London and neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in England. It is the world's oldest underground railway system. It is usually referred to as the Underground or the Tube - the latter deriving from the shape of the system's deep-bore tunnels - although about 55% of the network is above ground.
The Underground has 268 stations and approximately 400 km (250 miles) of track,[1] making it the longest metro system in the world by route length,[4] and one of the most served in terms of stations. In 2007, over one billion passenger journeys were recorded.
Transport for London (TfL) was created in 2000 as the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. It replaced London Regional Transport. It assumed control of London Underground Limited in July 2003.
The Underground has been featured in many movies and television shows, including Sliding Doors, Tube Tales and Neverwhere. The London Underground Film Office handles over 100 requests per month. The Underground has also featured in music such as The Jam's "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" and in literature such as the graphic novel V for Vendetta. Popular legends about the Underground being haunted persist to this day.
The Underground currently sponsors and contributes to the arts via its Platform for Art and Poems on the Underground projects. Poster and billboard space (and in the case of Gloucester Road tube station, an entire disused platform) is given over to artwork and poetry to "create an environment for positive impact and to enhance and enrich the journeys of ... passengers".[
The London Underground's 11 lines are the Bakerloo line, Central line, Circle line, District line, Hammersmith & City line, Jubilee line, Metropolitan line, Northern line, Piccadilly line, Victoria line, and Waterloo & City line. Until 2007 there was a twelfth line, the East London line, but this has closed for conversion work and will be transferred to the London Overground when it reopens in 2010.
Transport for London (TfL) was created in 2000 as the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. It replaced London Regional Transport. It assumed control of London Underground Limited in July 2003.[21]
TfL is part of the Greater London Authority and is constituted as a statutory corporation regulated under local government finance rules.[22] It has three subsidiaries: London Transport Insurance (Guernsey) Ltd., the TfL Pension Fund Trustee Co. Ltd. and Transport Trading Ltd (TTL). TTL has six wholly-owned subsidiaries, one of which is London Underground Limited.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_tube_station
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
London Underground in Urban Architecture England
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I'm going to begin a rare (for me) "theme week" today based on one of the most enjoyable days I've had trackside in a while. So, first, I hope you'll tolerate a little context as to why that is...
There's two things that have made the hobby of railroad photography a less pleasant activity for me in recent months. The first is what I'll call "mob chases." Thanks to the internet, there's a Facebook group for almost every railroad now, and it's therefore very easy to find out when a "special" engine or beloved shortline railroad is running. Case in point: I've been chasing the Batten Kill Railroad for years. Many of my successes there have simply been the result of taking drives to Greenwich Junction on nice days to see if they were running. Sometimes they were, and sometimes they weren't. With that approach, there were times I was the only person chasing the train, and other times where it was just a handful of guys who always respected each other and treated each other with kindness. Now--thanks to an infamous Batten Kill Facebook group and a Batten Kill Facebook chat, every single Batten Kill run has become a highly-publicized event. I've gotten more than enough photos of Batten Kill Alco RS-3 #4116, but the recent addition of an Alco RS-36 in a D&H lightning stripe-inspired scheme has peeked my interest as a history buff of the former D&H Washington Branch. I had one good chase of the RS-36, but my last chase was generally a pain due to the "mob" and people constantly getting in my shots so that they could get their close-up cell phone video of the engine. Even when I DID get a decent shot, I knew there was no point in sharing it anywhere other than with my friends on Flickr. Like clockwork, within a couple hours after each Batten Kill run, the Batten Kill Facebook group becomes littered with a diarrhea of photos of the engine, and most of them are not of very high quality. Even if I posted one photo from the chase (which would be my typical approach), it would get lost in the sea of other photos.
The second thing that has made railroad photography less pleasant for me in recent months is, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. No, it's not because I worry about getting sick or getting others sick (and, just for the record, I AM taking the virus seriously--I'm careful to "social distance" and I wear a mask in situations where that isn't possible). It's because of some railfans who have lost the ability to treat others with kindness due to their fear of the virus. Though I personally have not had any "incidents," I've now heard from way too many friends about their getting yelled at by other railfans for standing "too close" to them, etc. If you happen to be one of those who can't treat others with kindness during a time that's difficult for everyone, here's a word of advice: Don't go train chasing right now. Expecting the chase to revolve around you and expecting others to not start a photo line alongside you is very selfish.
Anyway, with the aforementioned current problems in the hobby, Memorial Day Weekend couldn't have been a better time for me, my wife, and my son to leave town and drive roughly four hours away to New York State's more remote North Country to visit her family in Potsdam. We drove up this past Thursday, and with the OK from my wife, I planned to spend the better part of Friday seeing what I could photograph in St. Lawrence County's sparse but interesting railroad scene. With CSX having recently sold their St. Lawrence Subdivision to CN and June 30th being the latest takeover date, it was certainly a key time to be in the area. But, there are other good options as well: Vermont Rail System's New York and Ogdensburg (NYOG), and the Massena Terminal.
The first railroad that typically gets going for the day is the NYOG, so that was my first focus. The short explanation of the NYOG is that it is a VRS-owned shortline that operates over former Norwood & St. Lawrence (later St. Lawrence and Raquette River) tracks between Norfolk and Norwood, then former Rutland (later Ogdensburg & Norwood and then St. Lawrence and Raquette River) tracks between Norwood and Ogdensburg.
Arriving at the NYOG's former Norwood & St. Lawrence enginehouse in Norfolk around 7:00 AM, I waited. A couple trucks were parked outside the engine house, so that was a good sign. From some last-minute intel, I learned that the "dreaded" 205 was in Ogdensburg, while the more favorable 801 was in the enginehouse in Norfolk. Would the crew "taxi" to Ogdensburg and get on the 205 (like they did the last couple times I chased), or would they start up the 801 and run down to Norwood first? After about 30 minutes or so, the door to one of the enginehouse stalls opened to reveal the 801! It started up, then shortly thereafter emerged. After getting a couple shots, I drove just down the road to get into position for a shot I've been wanting to get of them passing an old water crane from the line's steam era. While I lined up the shot, the 801 picked up a couple cars back by the enginehouse--even better! The light was perfect, and I was even able to work in nearby customer APC Paper into the shot as well. I fired off several frames before hurrying just down the street to also get the shot of them passing the former Norwood & St. Lawrence depot. After that, I was able to do two more sets with them before they reached the CSX interchange at Norwood. I was beaming, and if that little chase down the former Norwood & St. Lawrence ended up being all I did that day, it still would have been a huge success But, little did I know that it was just the beginning...
New York and Ogdensburg Railway
Norfolk, NY
Friday, May 22, 2020
Just another simple little sunlit wedge shot from this chase going into the album.
The Canadian Pacific Railway had been operating in the state of Vermont for 115 years when they finally retrenched in 1996 and sold the Newport and Lyndonville Subs to Iron Roads Railways which created the new Northern Vermont Railway which took over on September 28th of that year. The Iron Roads system was bankrupt within a half dozen years and the NV ceased to exist with the Lyndonville Sub and the former Boston and Maine Conn River Mainline between Newport and White River Junction being purchased by the State of Vermont and contracted to Vermont Rail System's Washington County Railroad Subsidiary. The WACR is now at the two decade mark operating the 103 mile line while the Newport Sub north into Canada passed to succesors Montreal, Maine and Atlantic and then Central Maine and Quebec until remarkably returning to the CP fold in 2020 when they purchased the CMQ
Recently VRS and CP have been pooling power, with one unit from each running thru between White River Junction, VT and Farnham, QC on an up and back every other day schedule. This harkens back to the B&M pool power days so with a bit of imagination one can pretend this is train 904 headed down from Newport now in the capable hands of a B&M crew.
CPKC GP20C-ECO 2280 and VTR GP38-2 209 lead train NPWJ past tall cornfields approaching Newbury Crossing Road at MP D6.6 on the former B&M Conn River Mainline.
Newbury, Vermont
Friday August 11, 2023
A view from the upper levels of the Vertical Assembly Center at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The massive blue structure supports the assembly and welding of the Space Launch System’s core stage, the primary rocket used for Artemis missions. This 170-foot-tall tool precisely aligns and joins large rocket sections, a key part of NASA’s ongoing production of deep space launch vehicles.
To the human eye, Mercury may resemble a dull, grey orb but this enhanced-colour image from NASA’s Messenger probe, tells a completely different story. Swathes of iridescent blue, sandy-coloured plains and delicate strands of greyish white, create an ethereal and colourful view of our Solar System’s innermost planet.
Source Data: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Search?SearchText=iridescent+&...
converted PNM file - Adjusted in Photoshop CC2017 for clarity and noise reduction
When the Little Green Men started to work on the factory floor at Magrathea certain items of equipment had to be modified in order to conform to their religious objection to applying direct drive to a wheel.
The standard Container Carriers were modified by Llwyngwril System's vehicle design department, using a special outboard engine. The resulting vehicle was strange, unique and surprisingly safe and effective.
You can watch a video of this odd machine in action here.
You can view the images separately here.
The Gran Prix XL1000 is Pontiac's newest addition to the full-size luxury hover-car line. The Gran Prix XL1000 comes with a removable hard top to convert the car to an roadster configuration for an open air driving experience. For days when planetary weather patterns do not cooperate, the hard top can be installed to allow for smooth and comfortable hovering in even the most oppresive of conditions. Featuring a highly tuned Super Duty 465ci V-8 combustion engine driving the new Series 12 magnetrons from Sirius Cyberdine Industries, the Gran Prix XL1000 provides a smooth, dependable ride with plenty of available thrust at the touch of the accelerator. Head down to your local planetary system's Pontiac dealer today to test-drive one for yourself, and see why Pontiac is an industry leader in luxury hover-car manufacturing.
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Hey everyone, here's a BRAND NEW BUILD from me! Jumping back into the retro-futuristic hover car game here. This one was a bit difficult to get looking just right and went from a six-stud to seven-stud width which presents its own set of challenges on a build of this nature. Going from closed car to roadster only requires replacing a few simple pieces. Minifig driver by my son. Hope you enjoy, comments and constructive criticism appreciated as always and thanks for looking!
Budapest and Budapest region has excellent public transportation system(s) which also we used during this visit, too. Fares are adequate and the operators have a clear understanding what a timetable is.
This train took us to Vác (photos below).
On the heels of Tuesday’s release of the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, data from the telescope’s commissioning period is now being released on the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. The data includes images of Jupiter and images and spectra of several asteroids, captured to test the telescope’s instruments before science operations officially began July 12. The data demonstrates Webb’s to track solar system targets and produce images and spectra with unprecedented detail.
“Combined with the deep field images released the other day, these images of Jupiter demonstrate the full grasp of what Webb can observe, from the faintest, most distant observable galaxies to planets in our own cosmic backyard that you can see with the naked eye from your actual backyard,” said Bryan Holler, a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who helped plan these observations.
Read more: blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/07/14/webb-images-of-jupiter-and...
Fans of Jupiter will recognize some familiar features of our solar system’s enormous planet in these images seen through Webb’s infrared gaze. A view from the NIRCam instrument’s short-wavelength filter shows distinct bands that encircle the planet as well as the Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow the Earth. The iconic spot appears white in this image because of the way Webb’s infrared image was processed.
This image:
Jupiter, center, and its moon Europa, left, are seen through the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument 2.12 micron filter. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and B. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
Image description:
Jupiter dominates the frame, appearing to glow with bands of bright white, light yellow, and darker, brownish oranges. The stripes circle the planet, with one especially thick bright band across the planet’s center. A spot of glowing bright white interrupts the darker brown band about a third from the bottom of the planet. To the left of Jupiter, Europa appears as a tiny, black circle with a bright starburst erupting from its edges. The background of the image is pure black.