Just a quickie about this distinguished Baltimore landmark on the harbor…
Below the iconic neon sign of ASR Group’s Domino Sugar Baltimore Refinery lies a state-of-the-art facility that produces 14% of the nation’s cane sugar.
More than 40 ships a year deliver 885,000 tons of raw sugar to the refinery, which refines more than 6 million pounds of sugar a day and produces 40 products on 23 packaging lines. The Domino Sugar Baltimore Refinery employs 485 people and supports an additional 125 local jobs.
The refinery is one of the Port of Baltimore’s largest bulk importers and has been an economic engine for the entire region since it began operations in 1922.
One never knows what one will find when out and about in this area, which is so well-populated with historic sites!
Another update on the postal service we are now receiving…a package mailed priority mail (advertised as two-day delivery) from Annapolis to our place, took 10 days for delivery. Usually it takes about an hour to get there by car and two days by priority mail. Very disturbing and discouraging.
I mailed a small package via first class mail to a business friend in Philadelphia (maybe two and a half hours away by car.) I inquired at the PO desk, and they advised me that it may indeed take 2 weeks to get there. First class mail. Again very disturbing. Guess I’ll have to consider startting to pay bills electronically to try to avoid paying a $35 service charge each time my payment (mailed as soon as we get the bill) is late…
Even though electronic payment has its own set of risks.
What happens when your overall presentation doesn’t precisely reflect the gender marker shown on your license, and you have an incident involving police when you’re on the road?
The short answer is: “nothing out of the ordinary.”
I was sitting at a red light on a side road in another county in Maryland, waiting for the light to change, listening to the radio and sort of daydreaming while staring at the light. While wearing one of my capri outfits with my white sandals and white toe nails gleaming. All of a sudden: BAM – my car lurched forward (but the brakes held), when the driver behind me ran into the back of my car at a relatively slow speed. (Always keep your foot on the brake, as I do, to avoid rear-ending the car in front of you when you are rear-ended. Using “Park” may mess up your automatic transmission.) I looked in my mirrors, and the driver was an older (than me) lady. There were no cars behind hers yet, and no lurking bystanders or passengers in her car, waiting to jump in and hijack my car. So I got out, the lady opened her window and apologized, and asked if there was any damage. Which of course there was, so I called police.
The officer arrived within a couple of minutes, (which amazed the lady). He used no gender specific greetings for me at first, addressed the other lady as a female, my face matched my driver’s license, and required papers for me and the other driver were all in order. There was no injury to anyone, and the officer facilitated our information exchange. Then to my amazement, when talking to both of us together, he finished with “Each of you ladies, report this to your insurance company, and they will work it out.” Before long, we were both on our way. My car with a dented rear, hers with little or no identifiable damage.
Of course, under different circumstances things with police involvement could turn out wildly opposite….”your mileage may vary.” But one’s composure and attitude could make a big difference. And handled carefully, it’s generally nothing to fear.
They were a fleet of streamlined passenger cars, with the parlor-lounge cars built by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul & Pacific Railroad (“the Milwaukee Road”) and designed by famed industrial designer Brooks Stevens. The fleet included both parlor-lounges and sleeping cars in 1946. The lounges entered service May 29, 2948 on the Twin Cities Hiawatha. They continued in service with the Milwaukee Road until the hiawathas were discontinued on January 23, 1970, when they were retired.
As you can see in the below photo of Cedar Rapids, taken by the writer in July 2005 near Portland, OR on the rear of an NRHS excursion train, the Skytop Lounge was 90% glass, with multiple rows of windows reaching up to form the ceiling. In the four parlor-lounges this “solarium” contained 12 seats, with an additional 24 seats in the interior of the car. At the front of the car was a four-seat drawing room. The interior featured wood paneling, characteristic of Milwaukee Road designs.
On the move!
Out of the four original tail cars, only Cedar and Coon Rapids survived, and today Cedar Rapids is the only one which is Amtrak certified. It is owned by the Friends of the 261 and kept at a rail storage repair facility outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
inside the Cedar Rapids lounge, on the high iron!
Yes, sadly, this is the only one you can ride anymore and have the same experience that passengers of the 1940’s and 1950’s did. Unable to find a buyer, but unwilling to scrap it following an incident with the leaked “unauthorized photo” of Priest Rapids which was burned and scrapped by the railroad, the Milwaukee Road kept Cedar Rapids in storage at its West Milwaukee shops through the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Railroad historians have evidence that the original seats in the Cedar Rapids were removed, a sign the car might have been very close to being scrapped. It is believed that seats from a Creek-series car or the Milwaukee Road shops were later re-added so the car could be re-sold.
When the Milwaukee Road was acquired by the Soo Line in 1985, Cedar Rapids was sold to Dave Stevens as a Christmas gift for his father, who is also the son of the original car designer. The car was kept at the East Troy Electric Railway Museum; it was here that the car was cleaned up, repainted in orange and maroon, and Milwaukee Road-style lettering was applied. During the late 1980’s, the car was operated by a group calling themselves “First Premier Express” based in Chicago, with the car operating on excursions out of Milwaukee.
The car was sold in 1990 to William Nicholson who formed a rail excursion company called Cedar Rapids, Ltd.; it operated for several trips on the back of Amtrak’s California Zephyr out of Denver, traveling up the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. For much of the 1990’s, however, the car was placed in storage when Amtrak required new rules for hauling private passenger cars that the Cedar Rapids was not compliant with. In early 1999, the car returned to the Midwest when it was purchased by the Friends of the 261. It operated on its first excursion in about 10 years during the weekend of May 22 and 23, 1999, pulled by Milwaukee Road Steam Locomotive #261
If you ever get a chance to ride…do so. It’s quite an experience!
As I briefly mentioned in a previous post, Mom passed away recently. While not a total surprise, it was not a pleasant time. I haven’t been active in posting since then, except for a few pre-prepared posts. And I couldn’t say anything on line at the time it happened, because I wasn’t sure how I’d handle any responses.
A few days afterward, when I picked up the box of Mom’s personal effects at the nursing home, unbeknownst to me someone had added something(s) to it. When I got the unopened box home, I put the it in the basement (to let any germs dissipate for several weeks, before opening it.) And when that day arrived, what a surprise I found!
Apparently the girl who cleaned out Mom’s room added two like-new, identical but blatantly feminine, black blouses, with a rather open neckline and pleats in the front, into the box. Very pretty, but also very curious. (I had authorized them to donate all of her clothes to folks there who needed them. So how did I end up with new clothes in my size? Don’t know. Probably never will.) But my best guess is that the girls noted my feminine outfits along with my hair, nails, and so on, guessed my size and decided to do something to cheer me up (and improve my wardrobe.) Afterthought: or perhaps a form of retail therapy for me?)
I wore one of them for the first time the next day, and wifey commented that she didn’t like it. When asked why, she just said “I don’t like it.” I said “no problem…like the couple other tops I have which you don’t like, I just won’t wear it when we’re out together.” Nothing more was said, so we’ll see what happens. If she continues to let me wear them when I’m around the house and when I go out alone, and nothing more is said, I’ll try to get a pic and post it on-line!
But until that discussion takes place, I chose from my tried and true wardrobe for my next errand run to the shopping center: a black boat-neck tunic and tan 3.5″ inseam shorts, with my barely-there gray rubber “strappy flip-flop type sandals.”
I’m not on hormones of any sort. My weight is at its lowest point in years. But my bustline is more noticeable. Apparently one of the meds I’m using may have a side effect. Perhaps I should be wearing a sports bra to compress them when I’m trying to be less feminine? Or might that accentuate the problem? (I.E. visible bra straps and miscellaneous bulges under the arms?) After I talk to the doctor with my next visit, I may need to procure a properly-fitted bra for times when I’m presenting fully feminine. Time will tell.
I had no sooner parked my “daily driver” at the shopping center and headed for the shops, when a 50something man stopped me to ask “is that a new car, Ma’am?” “No sir, its a 2018.” “Well, honey, it sure is pretty.” I could sense that this might veer somewhat off track from benign male flirting, so I did a bit of re-direct (like I had to do with Mom at times) and said, “yes sir, it really is a pretty color. But do you have any idea how much work it is to keep that red clean…it shows every speck of dirt.” Then I went on with cleaning tips and hints. A minute or two later, after essentially being shut out of the conversation, he looked at his watch and said “Please excuse me, but I’m running late…have a great day, Ma’am.” And he headed for his car, leaving me alone! Problem solved. (FWIW, his car was embarrassingly dirty!)
So I went into the store, did my shopping, and was treated to full appreciation of my femininity – by the check out clerk, the cart-cleaner who thanked me for appropriately for leaving the cart in the store, and several customers: “Excuse me, Ma’am, where can I find __________?” Surely they didn’t think this elderly lady worked there? But regardless of the reason, I enjoyed their comments even though that was the last stop of the day.
My next errand day in town was a couple days later. I went to the nail salon without an appointment, hoping they could work me in for a manicure and pedicure. My outfit was my “new” black blouse with white capri pants, my white sandals (thus displaying my white toe nails – which were in need of sprucing up), and carrying my purse, etc. Not a word from wifey… (That was a plus.) Picture to follow:
I got to the nail salon before it opened. And a few minutes later, a woman appeared, who asked me if I had an appointment, which I told her I did not…so we started some girl-talk out front while waiting. It seemed as though she was relating to me as a woman, but I wasn’t absolutely sure, until the shop opened and they asked her if she had an appointment. “Yes, my name is B_________ and my pedicure appointment is 10AM. But this lady with me needs to get her nails done. Can you help her?” OMG – it all sounded so warm and natural! You could have knocked me over with a feather.
The tech checked the first lady in, then assured me that she could do my nails without an appointment. Since B was getting a pedi, she got seated in the pedi chair first, and I got my fill first, to keep social distancing us as long as possible. But my fingers were finished first, and I was seated with 2 pedi chairs of distance between us. B and I immediately started girl-talking about our nails, nail colors and so on, for the few minutes till she was done. We gave very friendly good byes as she left. There was no doubt that to Mrs. B, I was every bit a woman. And the feminine environment even helped me to feel that way!
When I got home, nothing was said about my attire and I wore it the rest of the day… Yes, I think these tops are going to work out just fine!
Looking further through my “roll of mistakes” brought forth another one worthy of note. The following picture has two parts…the primary one is the roundhouse of the former Baltimore & Ohio Mt. Clare shops in downtown Baltimore. And the “recessed” ghost-like image is that of the Washington DC NRHS Chapter’s Pullman-lounge, the Dover Harbor, on a Northeast Corridor train. (You can see the station platform in the lower right, and the overhead catenary.)
Most visible is the B&O Railroad Museum’s roundhouse:
Undoubtedly it’s the most spectacular and best known of the Museum’s buildings. The Roundhouse was built to accommodate work on passenger cars and replace a similar shop destroyed by fire in February of 1883. Completed by the B&O in 1884 at a cost of $100,471.97, this 22 sided structure is 245′ in diameter, 135′ high and contains almost 1 acre beneath its slate roof. Designed by noted architect E. Francis Baldwin, this unique structure was practical as well as magnificent. Built of wrought-iron, brick, wood, and slate, it contained 22 bays, a turntable, and three rows of windows that allowed the maximum amount of natural light to illuminate the building.
In the middle of the Roundhouse is the 60′ turntable. It was used to position passenger cars in an available bay for necessary repairs and work. By the 1920s passenger cars became increasingly longer and the Roundhouse’s usefulness was limited due to the small size of the turntable. Subsequently the building was used less and less. The building was saved from demolition when it became the centerpiece of the Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum in 1953, and housed the B&O Railroad’s historic collection of locomotives and rolling stock.
In February 2003, after a record snowfall, the western half of the roof collapsed dropping thousands of pounds of slate, iron, and wood onto many significant locomotives, rolling stock and causing extensive damage to the structure. Through a Herculean effort the debris was removed and the remaining portions of the roof were replaced in a process that took 22 months to complete. During reconstruction the interior of the building was returned to its 1884 appearance. Today, the Roundhouse contains exhibits and the most significant collection of 19th century railroad equipment in the world. The turntable is functional and used to demonstrate how railcars were turned when the building was in use.
Then there’s the Dover Harbor!
It wasn’t always so named. The Pullman Company of Chicago built heavyweight railroad car Maple Shade in July 1923. The car was originally configured as a combine-baggage-library car, with four sleeping sections, a lounge, a barber shop, and a baggage area. It operated on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s name trains, including the Broadway Limited and the Spirit of St. Louis.
In March 1934, Pullman recalled the Maple Shade to its shops, where the company rebuilt the car as a sleeper-buffet-lounge and renamed it Dover Harbor. The rebuild added six double bedrooms, a buffet kitchen, and a 14-seat lounge. With its newly installed air conditioning, Dover Harbor now weighed 87 tons.
Following the renovation, Dover Harbor operated in revenue and pool service for 31 years. It ran on trains including the New York Central’s Cleveland Limited and Knickerbocker, and the Boston & Maine’s Montrealer and Washingtonian. The Pullman Company retired Dover Harbor to its Calumet, Illinois, shops in 1965.
The Pullman Company sold Dover Harbor in 1968. After Dover Harbor passed through the hands of four private owners, the non-profit National Railway Historical Society, Washington, D.C., Chapter, Inc. (DCNRHS) purchased the car in November 1979.
DCNRHS volunteers and contractors restored the car to its 1934 appearance, with a Pullman green exterior and a period interior. After a series of safety upgrades, Dover Harbor became Amtrak certified in May 1986. DCNRHS operates Dover Harbor on public excursions and private charters from Washington DC’s Union Station.
And though the new digital cameras have a lot of capabilities, the old-fashioned film types had more opportunities for mistakes like these to happen.
During our visit, son and I went out only a couple of times for supplies for construction at their home they are remodeling, and there was a trip to the grocery store for the perishables we couldn’t bring. But there was only a bit of confusion where a couple of times I was interpreted as female. Son either chose not to hear, or truly didn’t hear. So that worked OK in the end.
We were successful in helping with the house, although there is still a lot of work to be done… And we spent a lot of time playing with the 5-year-old. She had a good time. But all too soon, it was time to leave.
Enter tropical storm Isaias.
We typically use Interstate 81 for travel to and from. That area was getting a lot of rain. So we delayed leaving for a day, which gave us perfect travel weather. On our way home, we detoured to the incline railway in Chattanooga, to get a picture of the old style of incline cars, one of which is on display now that they have recently been replaced with new ones. We’re looking forward to experiencing the new ones now that they are in service.
Once again, we carried our own lunch for both days of travel, and stopped the first day to eat our picnic at a rest stop picnic table, which people did not seem to be doing. And since masks don’t work while one is eating, the fact that nobody was nearby, was a good thing.
Second day on the road home, I got the urge to stop at a commuter railroad station in Brunswick, MD for lunch. Needless to say, that got a groan from my wife. But we did it anyway. We had no problem finding a parking place near the tracks, because the patrons of the railroad are government employees, and they’re all working from home. With hundreds of spaces empty, the parking lot was sparsely populated by about 30 cars. Despite the fact it was a mid-week work day.
So there we were, wifey sitting in the car with the doors open while she was eating lunch and I was standing by the short fence separating the parking lot from the tracks – a lovely vantage point – while nibbling on my lunch. We expected to see at least a freight train, since commuter trains don’t run mid-day. But nothing was moving…yet.
Suddenly, we heard the strident tones of an approaching air horn! Then, a headlight appeared, coming around the curve a half mile from the station! Ding-ding-ding went the bell on the crossing gate as it closed, and click-click-click went the camera as I started taking pictures. What was it? A diesel pulling the three cars of the CSX track geometry train (a baggage car loaded with instruments, a rail car converted to an equipment car with a big generator on board for electric power, and a theatre car bringing up the rear.
You may ask “what the heck is a theatre car? I didn’t know they show movies on a track geometry train!” No, not that kind of a theatre. Picture the entire end of the car removed, and a big window installed to cover the opening. Now picture about 5 or 6 rows of seats, 2 on each side of the aisle, facing the rear, like…in a theatre! That is so the officials on board can visually inspect the right-of-way where the train has already traveled.
Back in the day, I had the privilege of riding on board one of the cars so equipped, during one of the railfan excursions, and it really is a fascinating experience. If you ever get the chance, just do it!
The rest of our trip home was quite uneventful, and even the bridge was thankfully easy to cross. They have eliminated the booths in favor of video tolling and E-Z-Pass, which really does seem to speed up traffic. No more separating 3 approaching lanes of traffic into 8 or 9 toll booth lanes, then merging those exit lines back down to 2 lanes to cross the bridge. That was a recipe for huge jams, gone now. YAY!
So now we wait to see if we can do it again in a few months…we’re looking forward to seeing little one again!
Mom passed away a few weeks ago (fortunately not from the virus or anything connected with it.) Sadness and mourning goes on. But now the settling of her estate is under way. And things are taking forever to get going.
I simply can’t believe it took a letter about her estate 5 days to go from an address in our town, to our home, a distance of considerably less than 2 miles. Strapping it to a snail’s back could have gotten it here faster, or I could have driven over to pick it up (thus wasting more in gas than the postage cost, and adding to air pollution.) No, this wasn’t last year, or even last month. It was this week!
To make matters worse, a first-class letter about her affairs just took 7 calendar days to get from North Carolina to our address, and 9 days for a first class envelope from our address to reach our son in TN. We could have driven it there in two days, and been home again – before the letter ever even reached TN in the mail. Never mind the cost to the environment.
Whatever is wrong with the Post Office needs fixed. NOW. If it takes a couple cents rate increase, so be it. Congress/Washington should start to do the job we have been paying them to do…they certainly aren’t. (Good thing there is an election coming – for all citizens of the US; be sure to exercise your right to vote for the candidates of your choice!)
Yes, there are many big problems to be solved, and our leaders are “fiddling while Rome is burning” as the old saying goes… Some people (including our beloved veterans, to whom we owe our freedoms) are going without their prescriptions due to postal delays. Everyone may have to start paying our bills the day we receive them, and still find ourselves being assessed late fees because poor postal service prevents payments from getting through before the due date. Either that or companies will have to stop charging those fees. BTW, the chances of the latter happening are somewhere between “Slim” and “None.”
Slim left town yesterday, and None’s packing…that $35 fee for a $25 minimum payment arriving one day late is a huge addition to revenue. Perhaps homing pigeons will come back into fashion? (That approach might even make “hacking” a lot more difficult. Which of the many homing pigeons do the hackers have to shoot out of the sky, to get the particular document they’re looking for?)
Back at Easter, we had planned to make a driving trip to Tennessee, to spend a couple weeks with our son, his wife, and the baby (who’s now going on 5 years old.) That had to be cancelled, due to the virus issue…both of his wife’s parents are in the medical field and could have been exposed to it. Thus, to err on the side of caution, we canceled. And there’s no way to tell if that was a good or bad decision, since nobody in the family got sick, but everyone “could have.”
And everyone knows what the headlines have been about the virus since then…
Now that school is about to start, we decided to reconsider the trip, before all the kidsies become “Typhoid Marys” and begin polluting each other, as well as everyone’s family members. You know the drill: plan what to take, prepare the car, figure out our enroute menu (since we were carrying our mid-day meals with us instead of doing restaurants), pack everything, and so on.
Enroute, there were no issues with my attire in restrooms. (I was wearing a car club polo shirt and women’s shorts, with my flats – and we both wore masks outside the car, like about 70% of the other travelers did.) I didn’t carry my purse into the restroom, so my long hair may not have been sufficient to cause confusion on its own. No issues beyond an occasional glance…
We typically do a bit of sightseeing enroute, so this time we detoured through a small Virginia town to check out the town’s (and likely one of the world’s) smallest church(es). It’s no more than a few minutes off of I-81.
Very pretty…too bad it was locked – they had some pretty (if smalll) stained glass specimens.
We typically spend one night in a motel enroute, and the challenge was to find one with a room not rented out the night before, as well as a king size bed – we carried our own bedding and pillows, too. Thank heaven for cell phones. (We didn’t see any active phone booths this trip, though a number of booths remained – sans phones. Maybe left for Clark Kent to change into Superman?) Perhaps we undertook a bit more prep than was truly needed, but at our age, and both with some non-contagious health issues of our own, we weren’t about to take any chances. We found a motel which met our needs, and settled in for the night.
For dinner, we ordered our evening meal by phone, and the restaurant delivered to the hotel. My wife was wearing a skort (yes, I was more than a bit jealous) and I had already changed into my house-dress and sandals when the girl arrived with our meals. And we were both addressed as ladies…despite my lack of makeup. Guess the white toe nails and long (not to mention by then a bit scraggly) hair combined to do their usual convincing job. (And the mask didn’t hurt either…)
The next morning, after our breakfast of a banana and a prepackaged sweet roll (yum) it was time to head south. And after another lovely sandwich lunch brought from home, we arrived! We had prearranged that we were staying at the house during the day most of the time, and we held to that fairly well. There was plenty of work to do, and one little girl to keep both of busy. And we’ll have plenty of time for fun things out and about once this virus thing settles down. The kids brought dinner over for us. Much better – and cheaper – than getting take-out food delivered from a restaurant.
This was taken back in 1995 – in the days of traditional “film” cameras. I had started a new roll of film, not realizing that it hadn’t rolled all the way up into the film can. And I took the entire roll of film as double exposures, and had it developed, before I realized what had happened:
At first, it looks like a jumbled mess. But look closer – the main feature, seemingly in the foreground, is former Reading Railroad #2101, nee American Freedom Train #1, in AFT dress, which was – and still is – resting ‘in state’ at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore. (It was damaged in a roundhouse fire years after its AFT gig,, and likely will remain a static display from now on, due to extensive damage.)
Seemingly in the background (the dark area under the red stripe and white circle), is the image of the USS Constitution, now berthed at the end of the Freedom Trail in Boston, MA. For you history buffs, the Constitution is also known as Old Ironsides – a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She is the world’s oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. You can see the masts sticking straight up, above the red stripe and white circle.
A mistake, to be sure, but likely one of the more photogenic photographic mistakes I’ve ever made. Enjoy!
Mandy's Miscellany 