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Peoria, AZ, uses old school building as museum

You knew there was a Peoria in Arizona, right?  And you knew that it was named after our fair city because this was their home town, right?  Well, also on the History page for their Chamber of Commerce, I discovered this:
To accommodate the expanding community, Central School was built in 1906 and used continuously for the next 70 years. Today it is home to the Peoria Museum where tantalizing tidbits from the past await you.
Isn’t that interesting?  They had an old school built around the turn of the century, and instead of tearing down the building, they repurposed it as their city’s history museum!  Now, that would be novel to put the history museum in an historical building, wouldn’t it?
 
You might think I’m going to suggest Peoria convert one of the schools District 150 is closing into a museum.  You would be wrong.  I can’t see that working here, simply because of the location of the schools that District 150 wants to close.  But let me ask you this:  We have a big, historic building downtown right on the river in the central business district that currently has no tenants, save one.  You know which one I’m talking about?  That’s right — the old Rock Island Depot, also known as The River Station.  Wouldn’t it be cool to use that building to house the Peoria history museum?  It seems like it would be perfect for that use; it has everything going for it:  location, availability, already owned by the city, age, beauty, historical significance, space . . . .  What’s not to like?

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Calvin & Hobbes

I am so happy that Calvin & Hobbes is back in the newspaper.  It is my favorite comic strip of all time.  Bill Watterson is a genius.  I’d rather read a thousand reruns of this strip than one new “Brevity” panel. 
 
One of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strips is the one where Calvin is throwing snowballs at Susie — missing her every time.  She turns and yells, “Ha ha!  You’re such a bad shot, Calvin.  If it weren’t for gravity, you couldn’t hit the ground!”  Just then — POW — a snowball hits her dead on.  Calvin exults, “I DID IT!  I DID IT!  Just when it really counted, I did it!”  Next panel, he’s taking his boots off after returning home and announces, “Bad news, Mom.  I sold my soul to the devil today.”  His mother responds, “Oh?  So recently?”  Ha ha ha!  I love that one. 
 
I wish Watterson would start drawing Calvin again . . . . 

Kellar Branch

Official runaway train report incredible

 

The Journal Star reported on the runaway train today, a full five days after the incident occurred:
Runaway locomotive injures rail worker

PEORIA — An employee of Central Illinois Railway suffered minor injuries Saturday after he jumped from a shuttle locomotive that was out of control shortly before it crashed into three train cars, police said.

Thomas Stower, 64, of Peoria suffered abrasions but declined medical treatment, police said.

Allen Brown, the field operations manager for the railroad, told police the accident happened about 7:40 p.m. as he, Stower and two other employees were trying to move two rail cars loaded with lumber from near Caroline Street to Carver Lumber, 8700 N. University St.

The employees were using a shuttle locomotive that has less power than a regular locomotive because the regular locomotive was on a section of track that couldn’t be reached.  They got as far as Vine Street and decided the track wasn’t passable because of weeds growing across the tracks. 

They decided to back the locomotive down the track, and three of the employees went to train crossings to make sure no cars were crossing the tracks as the train was in reverse, police said.

Stower remained on the shuttle locomotive, but it started going too fast and the wheels locked up.  He put on the emergency brake, but the train remained out of control.  Stower jumped off the moving train after it crossed Adams Street, and it continued south, hitting three train cars that were parked on the tracks.

The accident didn’t damage the cars or the lumber but caused about $5,000 damage to the rail bed, police said. 

This is basically a recap of the police report that was filed on the incident with no independent investigative reporting.  There are several questionable items. 
First, an eye-witness only saw two crew members on the train going up the line, not four.  So that’s a bit fishy. 
Second, the police report says that rail workers checked the line first with a Ford Bronco equipped to run on rails and deemed the track safe.  (This was not reported by the Journal Star.)  So why did they only notice the treacherous weeds when they took the train up the line?  Did the weeds grow over the tracks suddenly?  And since when do a few weeds render a track impassable?  This is a spurious excuse.
Third, the “regular locomotive” that couldn’t be reached is the one that’s on the western spur that apparently isn’t yet connected to the Kellar Branch.  I thought this was supposed to be completed by now since Pioneer moved it’s cars and vacated the line.  I wonder what the holdup is.
Fourth, this bit of fiction:  “three of the employees went to train crossings to make sure no cars were crossing the tracks as the train was in reverse.”  The crossings have signals, so if the train is going at a reasonable speed, there is no need for workers to go to the train crossings to warn cars of oncoming train traffic — unless the train is out of control.  But when the train went out of control it started barrelling along at 30 miles per hour!  Between Vine Street and Caroline, there are seven grade crossings.  Are we to believe that three workers ran ahead of a runaway train going 30 mph and kept automobiles off of seven crossings?  Sign them up for the Olympics!
Fifth, regarding the wheels locking up and the emergency brake not working:  railroad cars are equipped with air brakes which are powered by the locomotive.  The experts I’ve consulted all say that if the air brakes were properly connected and tested, this train would have been able to stop.  It sounds the air brakes were not hooked up, or not hooked up properly, and they were trying to stop two loaded train cars using only the brakes of the trackmobile (“shuttle locomotive”).  Thus, the trackmoblile was dragged down the line with the cars — across seven grade crossings where they could have hit and even killed people driving through Peoria.
Now, just imagine for a moment that Pioneer did something boneheaded like this and caused a major public safety problem.  Do you think it would have been swept under the rug by the city and underreported in the Journal Star?  Nah.  More likely, it would have been on the front page of the Sunday paper and a vitriolic editorial would have appeared by Tuesday, complete with quotes from the director of public works decrying the railroad’s safety violations.

 

Kellar Branch

We can look back and laugh now….

 

Without deemphasizing the major public safety problem with CIRY (see previous post), I have to tell you that the scene is actually a bit comical. 
Here’s a quote from an eye-witness (all grammatical/spelling/punctuation errors are the witness’s):
my parents live next to the keller branch on rock island. saturday i was there visiting sitting in the back yard and saw the trackmobile(with 2 crew members) heading to carver lumber with the centerbeam and one boxcar.it sounded like it was working hard just to reach park street.after about 15 to 20 minutes i heard a rummbeling noise so i went to the alley and saw the two cars heading back at a high rate of speed, when it went by at around 30 to 40 mph and only 1 crew member i knew something was wrong. when it was out of my site i was still able to hear it,within a minute i heard aloud bang.while standing in the alley discussing what just happend, i looked up the tracks and saw a man limping badly towards mh equipment.since i was parked in the alley i drove up and meet him at park st. to my surprise he wasnt hurt but handicaped so i picked him up and took him back to caroline st where it had slammed into the parked cars that were left behind.it appears the engineer bailed out near madison and abington.i never heard it blow its horn at any point during the runnaway, luckly it crossed adams and jefferson without hitting anyone or anybody getting hurt. when it hit all the equipment stayed upright but damaged and derailed, the tracks receiving the most damage.
[The witness provided this additional information later:]
when i saw the runnaway the 2 cars were dragging the trackmobile with them. I noticed a week ago the swither was sitting next to the old I.P. plant near industrial drive, barely visible through the bushes.
Ha ha ha!  This is like something you would see on an old comedy reel!  Train cars rolling backwards down a hill, dragging the “engine” with them!  All this scene needs is Snidely Whiplash tying Belle to the tracks somewhere near Park Street where the train finally lost traction and slid backwards.
The silly thing is that CIRY actually does have an engine — sitting up at the old International Paper plant near Industrial Drive.  Why didn’t they use it?  Why would they even attempt to pull loaded cars up the Kellar Branch with a trackmobile?  The lack of judgement here is astounding.

 

Kellar Branch

City’s new Kellar Branch shipper derails

The city’s new railroad company, Central Illinois Railway (CIRY), found out the hard way that you need more than a trackmobile to get a load of lumber up the Kellar Branch.

I heard from a source who will remain anonymous that CIRY tried pulling two cars up the Kellar Branch’s steep grade this past Saturday using only a trackmobile, but the vehicle lost traction and ended up sending the two cars backwards down the line at approximately 30 mph. Miraculously, they didn’t hit anyone when they sped across Abington, Madison, Jefferson, and Adams. None of the cars tipped over, nor did the lumber load come loose or fall off.

However, the runaway cars did hit the remaining cars that were parked close to the switch where the Kellar Branch connects to the Tazewell & Peoria line (TZPR), derailing them and mangling the track. So, it looks like poor Carver Lumber will have to wait a little longer to get their order delivered. At least until CIRY gets a real engine and can fix the tracks.

Sounds like the city hired a real winner. First, their owner gets indicted for soliciting murder, and now they don’t have the equipment to provide the service the city contracted them to perform.

Just imagine if the people who hired CIRY were in charge of hiring someone to run the water works here in Peoria . . . .

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Blogging will be lighter than usual

We’re moving.
 
We currently live in a two-bedroom home (great starter house), but have three kids.  My son’s bedroom has been the living room the past four months.  So, as they say on The Jeffersons, “we’re a-movin’ on up” to a bigger house. 
 
If all goes as planned, we’ll be closing on the sale of our current house and the purchase of our new house on Thursday.  The big move will be Saturday.  That means, not much blogging for the next week or so.  But I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun moving stories to share when I get back to blogging!

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Expect shorter obits, more ads

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The Journal Star came out with their new obituary policies today.  Starting September 1, the Journal Star will only report “details of the person’s death, time and place of services, burial and visitation” for free.  Anything more than that will cost you $15 per column inch.  Some things for which they will now be charging include:  picture of deceased, survivors, where the person worked — all the “cold, hard, verifiable facts” they’ve been printing for free all these years.
 
They put a positive spin on it, naturally.  “At last,” I paraphrase, “our readers can say whatever they want about their dearly departed.  We wouldn’t let you do it before, but now we will.”  I would hope so at $15 per column inch.  A truly generous gesture would have been to provide the same service they always have for free, but charge those families who wanted to include additional information.  Let’s call a spade a spade:  this is nothing more than a cost-cutting, revenue-increasing strategy that they’re trying to pass off as an improvement in service. 
 
It’s a win-win for the paper — if the bereaved don’t buy the space, other advertisers will.  And since the PJS is the only daily paper in town, keeping advertisers happy is their primary concern.

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Deep thoughts about blogging

I was reading an excerpt of Yuval Levin’s essay from the journal The Public Interest on how the speed of technology adversely affects American politics. He has a paragraph on blogging I’d like to share here for your discussion:

Another example of the quickening of politics in the Information Age — and its mixed consequences — can be found in the first real new political institution of the Internet: the “blog.” Many blogs — or “web logs,” online diaries and sites of instant commentary and opinion — are homes for genuine political reflection. And in their interactions with one another, bloggers sometimes resemble a genuine community of citizens. However, this burgeoning institution embodies many of the Internet’s deficiencies: It often has the feel of an echo-chamber; it is placeless; and it thrives on instant responses to the latest events. Above all, blogging is immediate. This is part of its charm, for both the writer and the reader. But it is also its greatest drawback as a forum for political discourse and action. Blogging is a new outlet for political opinion, but for the most part it is unreflective opinion. Insulated from refining influences and institutions and unconnected to the direct political life of any particular place, blogging is mere instantaneous reaction. But the institutions of political life exist, to a great extent, to mediate, and hopefully to elevate, public opinion. This is why their practical effect is often to slow things down, and why the rise of unmediated institutions like blogging is a mixed blessing at best.

[ . . . ]

The framers of the Constitution certainly perceived a need for dispatch and energy in government, and the system they designed reflects that concern in some respects, particularly in its relation to foreign nations. But at the same time, they understood the danger of too much speed in politics. In its internal operations, the American system seems designed to work at a snailÂ’s pace, to avoid, as Alexander Hamilton put it, “haste, inadvertence, and a want of due deliberation.” The politics of the Information Age will break down these barriers to haste.

What do you think? Is blogging “unreflective opinion” for the most part? Does public opinion need to be “mediated”? Is blogging too instantaneous — too knee-jerk — to be of value in politics? If you accept Levin’s critique, what do you think can be done to keep blogs “homes for genuine reflection” and avoid “the Internet’s deficiencies”?

Kellar Branch

City and Journal Star continue smear campaign against Pioneer

In the Journal Star’s editorial today, they continue to insinuate wrongdoing on the part of Pioneer Industrial Railcorp:

In its filing with the [Surface Transportation Board], Pioneer suggests that customers will be “irreparably harmed” if they can’t be served on the Kellar [Branch]. It neglects to mention that it quit running trains on the track last week, leaving box cars intended for its last remaining customer sitting in the rail yard.

And the Journal Star neglects to mention that the reason Pioneer left is because of this letter from the City of Peoria’s attorney Thomas McFarland:

Letter from City to Pioneer

Read it for yourself. It’s dated August 15 and says, “This is to advise correspondingly that Pioneer Industrial Railway Co. (PIRY) should cease rail operations and vacate the Kellar Branch at Peoria-Peoria Heights, IL, no later than 11:59 p.m., Sunday, August 21, 2005.” (emphasis mine)

On August 18, the Journal Star reported under the headline “Railroad pulls out early“:

After fighting for more than a year to keep providing rail service on the Kellar Branch, Pioneer Railcorp abandoned the line and one of its customers without aiding in the transition to a new provider, as promised.

Public Works Director Steve Van Winkle said Wednesday that Pioneer Railcorp chairman Guy Brenkman had told the city’s attorney in the STB case that his company would assist for as long as 30 days in the transition period to the new short-line operator.

Instead, Pioneer Railcorp immediately stopped providing any service, leaving Carver Lumber without access to the track and forcing Granville-based Central Illinois Railway to expedite its takeover.

“(Pioneer Railcorp) did no days transition,” Van Winkle said.

So, Van Winkle is upset that Pioneer didn’t provide 30 days service in transition, yet the city gave Pioneer only six days to vacate the tracks. So who really left Carver Lumber in the lurch? Answer: the city.

Other questions:

(1) Is communication between city departments so bad that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing? Or is the city deliberately trying to vilify Pioneer?

(2) Did the Journal Star not read the STB filing on which they reported? Did they not notice the letter from McFarland? Or are they deliberately ignoring it and continuing to publish false information about Pioneer in an effort to discredit them?