posted
Steve Grande has been working on this problem trying to come up with some sort of temporary solution to the forum woes, as you now know Geoff Mayo has been locked out, and I'm sure he wants to participate in the "GUNS ON TRAINS OK" topic. It seems if you make any changes to your profile, or have an address change you'll be locked out; as well new members who would like to join have not been able to for months now. Obviously we haven't changed over to the new server yet and the earliest looks like October, or maybe a bit later, depends on Shivams' return from India. Steve has suggested that forum members can temporarily join the silver rails forum and post there until trainwebs' forum is back on track, or post on both forums. It is fairly new over there and the boards are not being used. I asked him if we could at least have an "off rail" topic so people can check in if they have been bumped from the trainweb forum; well, it's one way to keep in touch and let fellow members know what's happening.
the Moderator
the site is SilverRails.com online community
Posts: 169 | From: Northwest Wisconsin | Registered: Dec 2003
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Gee......I had been thinking that there only seemed to be a few handfuls of us posting lately.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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I only come here to learn about wine from the sommelier/epicures here...just kidding, Mr. Norman! But there is certainly a "core" of posters here; I find that phenomenon exists on most Boards I regularly visit...
Posts: 588 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
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I just keep lurking waiting for clues to where Zephyr lives. The drum therapy is not working on my Zip 5 inferiority complex. Only retribution will help.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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TwinStar - I understand bagpipes drive Zephyr mad. We must find his location!
I just reviewed my pictures from across Canada and home on the Coast Starlight. For some reason there are many pictures of ponies. What was I thinking?
-------------------- Vicki in usually sunny Southern California Posts: 951 | From: Redondo Beach, CA | Registered: Aug 2006
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I never realized that Ontario needed protection from Iowa.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Fortunately, Minnesota is a like a big, swampy, mosquito-infested moat between them and those Iowans.
Without that buffer, Ontarians would have a menacing green sea of John Deere's poised at their border.
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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Now that I have graduated with the master's degree, I'll be moving from one part of Zone 5 to another. No joke application for citizenship necessary, though.
-------------------- "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the Earth all one's life." Posts: 506 | From: Wisconsin | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ocala Mike: You forgot to mention Minnesota's greatest contribution to civilization...winter ice fishing (it doesn't work too well in the summer).
You got that right.
I swear, my cousins up north of Bemidji love to ice fish. On Puposky Lake. Even in the summer. Which partly explains why they sure go through a lot of F-150 4x4's.
With all those Ford's on the bottom releasing their petro liquids, I suspect the lake will soon look like it's been attacked by the Exxon Valdez.
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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The attack is being marshalled at the John Deere Works in Dubuque.
What a pity the forces could not arrive via Amtrak!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Elvis, I really don't think Iowa would actually invade Ontario. Jeez, lining up a bunch of John Deere's on the border might seem scary, but is actually harmless. Put it in perspective. It's Iowa, for crying out loud. It's a geographical area where 20 John Deere's surrounding a McDonalds is called a prom.
My only point is we don't want to frighten our nice neighbors to the north, so the buffer Minnesota provides serves a purpose.
And really, why would Iowa want to invade Ontario? Like, do they have Grain Belt or Old Milwaukee up there? It' boils down to a 'why bother'.
But back to the question you suggested of the preferred way of Iowans getting from Point A to Point B. Amtrak or John Deere?
Elvis, in Iowa, that's considered a non sequitur. A just plain silly question.
posted
It's Iowa, for crying out loud. It's a geographical area where 20 John Deere's surrounding a McDonalds is called a prom. ------------------------------------------
Now that is funny.
What makes it funnier is the recollection of seeing some 200 tractors in a parade in Dyersville, IA once or, another time, working with a tractor enthusiast who spotted an antique John Deere from the Dubuque works in the corner of a parking lot in Denver. The owner still used it for snow removal!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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[QB] You forgot to mention Minnesota's greatest contribution to civilization, winter ice fishing it doesn't work too well in the summer). ****************************************
Yaw! And keep the snowtires on your pickup for the winter months...September through June.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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Appropos of nothing (aren't all my posts appropos of nothing?), I was in Dubuque for the first time just last May. I did get there by train, but in a roundabout way, Amtrakked to Chicago, with Thruway bus to Madison WI. After a few days there, a friend came and got me with a car and we went to Galena IL, lovely town I'd always wanted to see. Overnight there, then went over to Dubuque to see the river. I saw the shot tower and some big bank from the heights and I forgot what all else, but not John Deere plant. Would like to go back some time to stay longer and visit Mississippi River museum I hear is there.
I think there should be a train from Chi thru Galena and Dubuque to Des Moines. I heard something to Des Moines is being considered but (a) don't know route and (b) don't know if I'll be too old by the time it ever comes to pass!
I hope forum woes get corrected soon. I miss Geoff and everyone else trying to post who cannot!
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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those who can't post here can on silver rails until ths mess gets straightened out. Of course the rest of us have to check out silver rails frequently
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by sojourner: Appropos of nothing (aren't all my posts appropos of nothing?), I was in Dubuque for the first time just last May. I did get there by train, but in a roundabout way, Amtrakked to Chicago, with Thruway bus to Madison WI. After a few days there, a friend came and got me with a car and we went to Galena IL, lovely town I'd always wanted to see. Overnight there, then went over to Dubuque to see the river. I saw the shot tower and some big bank from the heights and I forgot what all else, but not John Deere plant. Would like to go back some time to stay longer and visit Mississippi River museum I hear is there.
I think there should be a train from Chi thru Galena and Dubuque to Des Moines.
Dubuque is an attractive small city.....the campus of Loras College on a bluff overlooking the city and the river is very nice.
Amtrak did come to Dubuque from Chicago via Rockford and Galena (also an interesting town) until 1981.
Note though.....visiting Dubuque is wiser in July than in January!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Can't say anything bad about Iowa, as I married a girl from Des Moines. Around a year ago, we were visiting her sister in Nichols, and my brother-in-law took me to the locks/dam on the Mississippi in Muscatine in hopes of seeing some shipping come through; no luck! Spent the rest of the day listening to the corn grow!
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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All this talk of Iowa, so I'll throw in my one and only Iowa story (although it has nothing to do with trains). I was helping my sister drive across country as she had just left Broadway (she was Epinine in Les Miserables for 4 years) and was moving back to California. We stopped for the night in Sioux City, Iowa at the Hyatt (which I don't think is there any more). It was a few weeks after the United 232 crash of the DC-10 at Sioux City, and some media personnel were still in the hotel. We were at the front desk, and it was raining/lightning/thundering something awful. The front desk was located right next to the hotel bar (it was not a large Hyatt), and I made a comment that went something like this: "Wow, I haven't seen lightning in over 25 years!". You'd have thought I was from outer-space, as the place suddenly got quiet and people looked at me with the weirdest expressions. My sister then said, "He's from San Francisco"---to which everyone went, "Oh, okay..." and they went back to their cocktails. That's my big Iowa story.
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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All this ridicule of Minnesota! We have very typical mainstream average lives. Like yesterday I went to the Gardner Hardware Annual Anvil Drop in downtown Minneapolis. http://www.gardnerhardware.com/anvildrop.html Just wholesome American stuff. They have a band that makes music with power tools playing in a puddle in the rain. They drop lots of watermelons and other fruit and an anvil five stories into a car. And the Vikings cheerleaders work the crowd selling calendars. No alcohol or lutefisk is involved. Just hardware, none of those silly Iowa John Deere tractors that ya could get hurt playin' with.
Then this morning, we got up and chased the Empire Builder through St. Paul (it was right on time). And if anybody thinks this behavior is unusual my wife just says "he's a foamer, he can't help it". So if anyone was on the EB this morning and saw a little station wagon keep showing up with people waving, that was us. Ya sure, you betcha.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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Jerry, so sorry I missed the anvil drop. If only I had known about I would have been there. You miss things like that out here in sedate Southern California.
Rail related, we will board the Coast Starlight on Thursday, all the way to Seattle. Pray for Parlour car please.
-------------------- Vicki in usually sunny Southern California Posts: 951 | From: Redondo Beach, CA | Registered: Aug 2006
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Remember, we will be ahead of you cruising down the coast so please ask your Captain to try not to rear-end us along the way. We have that nice aft facing balcony so should be able to see you coming.
Frank in warm and soon to be HOT SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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Rocket, is the Anvil Drop anything like the rutabaga festival we got gridlocked in, in Wisconson? They did have a great parade
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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No, train lady. This is just a tiny parking lot, a few innocent fruit casualties and some lost looking Viking cheerleaders. Nothing like the massive slaughter of rutabagas in cheese country. Oh, and I forgot to say I got two Anvil Drop t-shirts. That should qualify me to drive a John Deere.
Vickie, I hope you can make next year's event. I won't tell anyone you didn't capitalize Anvil Drop.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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The Annual Anvil Drop? Now, that's a must do thing for everyone's bucket list.
Seems to me, such a great event should be immortalized by song. To this tune (note this linked version must have been taped in Minnesota since it features an accordian), here's a stab at it:
Well, get down the fiddle and rosin up the bow, Jump on the Builder and plow through the sno, Head to the land where the fun don't stop, Minneapolis Anvil Drop.
My brother Ole an' my other brother Jack, Belly full o'beer and lutefisk in the sack, Having a ball at Gardner Hardware shop, Minneapolis Anvil Drop.
When it's all over and we bid our adieus, We head to the street and get our ski-doos, Gotta get home and watch the Vikings flop, Minneapolis Anvil Drop.
Well, get down the fiddle and rosin up the bow.........
(Ah, my apologies. I was trying to make a polka out of an otherwise fine song. Ain't working, so I'll stop. Maybe Ira can salvage it.)
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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Zephyr, now you have really defamed ZIP5 and proved you have no respect for our culture. We don't listen to that sissy trailer park drivel with (ugh) guitars. Real ZIP5 men make music with circle saws and other power tools. This is the band that plays the Anvil Drop. They even played this catchy tune:
posted
You know, that reminds me of the last time I saw my dentist.
But seriously, the Anvil Drop must have been a very important event for the Twin Cities philharmonic orchestra to make an appearance. Your musical link makes it obvious why they are beloved throughout Zip Code 5.
And regarding your assertion that I don't respect Zip 5 culture, believe me, I do. I've had some experience with Petri dishes. I know there's just some cultures you don't mess with, like the Zip 5. I've seen what it can do.
Zip 5 kids soon learn not to be double dare duped into putting their tongues on metal flagpoles in January. Likewise, UZ5 bio-sci undergrads soon learn there are certain Petri dishes that you just don't get duped into licking.
Posts: 445 | Registered: May 2002
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