My latest upgrade to my digital life is Foxmarks, which synchs all your bookmarks so you can use them on any computer - and (the reason I went for it) on the iphone. The iphone application (web based) is simple and nice. It fixes an annoyance I had with not being able to synch my bookmarks on firefox with my iphone. (Sure there is del.ish.us, but I never got into that).   more »

A video of my train in 1988 has shown up on you-tube! I'm on the first train, with 2 shots of me (at 18) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjt8lMP3i4Q&feature=related   more »

I suppose this conversation with myself must come up every year?  I blogged about it May of a year ago.

Anyway, I felt I'd forgotten how I wanted to be - not goals, but ways of being.  And that I needed to remember what values are important to me.  Here, the fruit of a nice journal session, is the list.

1. Romantic Relationship with love and spark and partnership
2. Taking care of my own spirit
3. Be happy with myself & enjoy my own company
4. Sleep enough, exercise, eat well
5. Be charismatic and confident
6. Live truthfully (integrity)
7. Find and learn from mentors
8. Taking care of my “customers” in work
9. Keep my commitments
10. Follow up with people

I can only handle a "top ten" list.  The rest is too much to remember in the moment as life arises.  But, for what it's worth, here is the rest of the list:

1. Spread love
2. Live Lightly on the environment
3. Approach People
4. Building a team in my work
5. Make money
6. Study People
7. Help & Teach
8. Celebration & creation of beauty
9. Listen to God
10. Be a desired lover
11. Welcome people
12. Win
13. Be a “success” in the world’s eyes
14. Following spontaneous inspiration
15. Be happy and charming to myself
16. Be loved
17. Be attractive
18. Spread peace
19. Confront oppression
20. Build community
21. Set high expectations for myself
22. Get out there and DO, even when I feel stuck
23. win
24. Be thankful
25. Set goals

You'll notice it's all color coded - that's different levels.  Red is what I really want and orange what seems essential.  And on down.

I'm trusting that you, the reader, won't be actually holding me to these standards!  I want to live this way . . . but I get no exemption from being human and do not claim so.  Actually these are my growing edges.  The values I've locked in I don't have to think about.

My housemate's new book is out and up on Amazon.com
Go Jim!
(It's worth reading!)

   more »

The following is quoted from an e-mail to the All_Aboard list by L.H. [nawdry@gmail.com]

Susan Pantell, a research associate with the Light Rail Now Project, has just completed an analysis of worldwide terrorist incidents in transportation spanning the past 40 years (1967-2007). Here's a quick breakdown of the percentage of total incidents by mode (rounded to 1 decimal):

Private Motor Vehicles 73.7%
Buses and Stations/Stops 9.5%
Aircraft and Air Facilities 8.6%
Rail Transit Trains 3.6%
Intercity Rail Trains 3.0%
Boats, Ships, and Maritime 0.9%
Other Transport Vehicles or Facilities 0.6%
   more »

Across the river in New Hampshire a Wal-Mart supercenter is going in. On iBrattleboro, someone linked their local currency campaign to concern that Wal-Mart was going to sap away the business from the two existing supermarkets in town (which I presume it will).

Two issues here - the local currency, which sounds good to me - and Wal-Mart vs. Hanniford's and Price Chopper. It's that latter that I want to address.

I can't cry too much for Hanniford's or Price Chopper loosing business to Wal-Mart. They are all big corporations.

Do you know anything about Price Chopper and Hanniford's? I thought not.   more »

[Published in the Windham County Commons February 1, 2008] Once upon a time, in 1830, after the second great awakening, 80 percent of Vermonters were regular churchgoers. “The most churchgoing people in the protestant world,” according to a state historical society paper written by Randolph Roth. And those who weren’t worshippers found themselves on the outside of society and many joined the westward migration.

Vermont’s beautiful emblematic community churches are a product of this age, before the automobile, before the rise of dairy farming, even before the railroad.

Now, according to the American Religious Survey, just 24 percent of Vermonters are church regulars — the lowest in the nation. Nationally, the rate is 42 percent. But the state's many churches have endured, marking human communities which also endure, despite the challenge of shifting demographic trends.

I was the pastor of one of these churches.

When I arrived at Vernon Union Church in 2001, I found a lovely classic white church, well kept, but quite empty. Only 15 to 25 regulars graced the sanctuary, built for 100. Some expressed concern that they were a dying church. Could I help?

It’s unexpected, being a Quaker and a pastor. But I’d been to seminary and when Sept. 11 happened, I decided to stop wondering what I was supposed to do and get up and contribute. Those were my skills and I could see that we needed community and healing and the institution ordained for that purpose is the church.

So I called Pam Lucas, the associate minister of the United Church of Christ, and asked how I could be useful. I’d discovered I liked the UCC — liberal, Christian, welcoming, and often at the center of small town Vermont. I liked that, unlike Quakers who have always held themselves a bit apart, the UCC is a mainstream church.

It turned out that days before, the Vernon church had called her in a panic, seeking a pastor. She figured this timing wasn’t a coincidence and suggested I call them. “Well,” said Steve Moore after my first sermon, “you didn’t embarrass yourself — do you want to come back?”

And so I began my sojourn.   more »

I'd prayed for an answer to what should give my life motivation and meaning, since I've been a bit low in that department, what with all the disappointments in people and reasons to be grumpy at God.

OK, so this is what I realized . . .   more »

Acceptance is what Eastern spiritual traditions suggest to alleviate suffering. This directly contradicts the world I grew up in, which was based on expectations.

As a teacher and leader, I know that expectations have their place – they spur us on towards something better. At the same time, I know I suffered from expectations that were other people’s notions of “normal” or some other box they wanted to keep me from expanding out of. And now, in my thirties, I find myself disillusioned because I had unrealistic expectations of human community. So I’m sorting this out for myself.

I’m grateful for the lesson of acceptance. I’ve become calmer and more accepting of how other people present themselves.

And yet . . .

I realize that I’m really unhappy because my expectations are not met. In fact, I’m really angry. I feel like somehow I was promised a better world than I find myself in.

So this is my spiritual crisis of the moment.   more »

It's probably trucks that is largely responsible for the condition of highway bridges, and thus rail is a solution - and a cheaper one than spending on highways. It is also that many highway bridges were cheaply constructed in the first place.

There has been a lot of mention about how rail bridges have stood stout for a hundred years and highway bridges are falling down, but in fact early rail bridges were cheaply built as well, usually tall spindly wood affairs and there were many bridge collapses in the 1800's. It was the rebuilding of the network from the 1890's-1920's that was done to very high standards for which we can be thankful.   more »

Here are some subjects I am qualified to teach which could be interesting:

History of local industry (I am writing a book on it)
All about trains, historical and contemporary (I was a conductor and am a free-lance railroad journalist)
Comparative Religion (I teach this now for CCV)
Religious Questions (I can teach religion in an open non-sectarian way that allows students to explore)
Free-lance writing & Journalism (which I do, and there is no reason they can't also learn and submit for publication.)
New Media - ie blogs, facebook, etc and making them work for you (I've blogged since 2004)
Massage (I'm certified by Kripalu, teach massage at CCV and have led massage workshops for high school students)

These are all subjects that I'm enthusiastic about, but at another level what I'd be offering is myself. I treat kids as individuals and also set limits and expectations. My teaching style is experiential, aiming to multiple learning styles. I am able to establish credibility, build community and inspire.   more »

The inner drama was like a switch changing from 'content' to 'I want' and quickly, 'I lack'. Not even that I did want very much, but once the switch was thrown all the repressed wanting was activated for every thing I've ever been denied. And that force seems stronger than my will. I can't choose 'abundance' then, no matter how many self-help books I've read in my life. So I was watching that inner drama with more awareness than before. And I didn't feel very good about it, or myself.

So I've been thinking about how I relate to people. I want to relate to everyone with love, but SO OFTEN there is some situation of wanting. Basically wanting love in some form. Wanting to fit in, wanting to be liked, wanting to be approved of, successful. I shoot myself in the foot that way, because then I get in my own way and am no service to others. I'm really grieving this. I want to find my power - in situations where it matters. I like being in situations where I am the leader or the teacher or the hero somehow - then people give me power and I feel approved of and it's all good. But I want to be able to feel my power in confrontive situations, when people don't like me. That is when things can be transformed (and also when you can go acting like a fool and hurt others). I want that for myself and instead I run up against my limits.

And so I've been living out the same drama that drives people to their God. 'I want' equals materialism, but it also equals thirst for God. 'I lack' calls for God to fill the space. But not even God can fill 'I lack.' Instead, we have to throw that switch back over to 'abundance.'

I have some power over that switch with myself. If I remain conscious, I can remember the that I can indeed always choose how I respond to situations, which keeps me away from the 'I lack' setting. But I have even more power with other people. So long as my own tangles don't wrap me up, I can set up an emotional climate with the people around me that help them remember they are secure. So I pray for help to do that as a leader.   more »

My Kenny G moment . . .

Now I'm not someone who listens to music as "background," unless I'm SO familiar with it that it moves me on some automatic sub-conscious level. I CAN multi-task with music as a soundtrack, but it becomes my main emotional animator while I'm doing something else. If there is music on (for example) while driving and conversing, I often give the music the lead voice in my brain.

I'd never heard of Kenny G (I don't listen to much of that genre) but one day I was in a travel-induced stress and boarded a United Airlines flight and this sound washed over me and completely changed the moment. 'What is THAT?!' I said to myself. I liked it.

The truth is there is a wide range of good music that could have affected me at that moment. The anxiety of travel is constrictive, pulling my body tight as I worry about missed connections and things that can go wrong. Music takes me on emotional flights - good music, anyway. It also has intrusive power, in the best sense - it will butt into whatever grumph of a snitch I've worked myself into, transforming it, making me happy.

In that moment, the soaring saxophone of Kenny G was exactly right to lift me into bliss.   more »

I reconnected with an old friend Laura who was very important to me when I was in college. Her letters have prompted me to look back at how my spirituality has changed over the last ten years or so.

I think what I have reworked is my expectations of community and people. My disappointment with Quakerism was being hit with the difference between what we Quakers say we aspire to and what we are actually being - normal humans. I've needed to make space for brokenness and healing and not healing yet and the wide category of "things that happen that I don't understand or are not according to my plan."

I was disillusioned about leadership roles because I wanted others to be as on board and committed as I was. I still feel that, even when I'm not in a leadership role, but I guess I have more of a sense of humor about it. (I've lately become aware of just how uneducated and unknowing politicians of my acquaintance are . . . It astounds me . . . And reminds me that there is work to do of communication and education.) So it's less about "The Cause" now and more about the individual relationship, starting with wherever they are at. But I don't give up easily on wanting things to be perfect, or at least measure up to my expectations (because obviously MY expectation are what's important in any situation, right?). And I've got a streak of British judgmentalism I can't exercise, especially when it concerns myself.

I've become less focused on seeking and discerning the spirit's leading.

At some point (actually I remember the moment - it was on an American Airlines flight, when I had time to think) the message came into my head that God was not leading me on to the next step in my life because it was time for ME to step up to the plate - that I needed to develop my own will and desire and that being a human is to be a co-creator, not only a follower. It was time for me to step out.

I've also become much more humble about leadings. First of all, I'm far more aware that I could be sensing impulses from my own ego and fear and pride. Easy to dress that up in nice spiritual language and I'm sure I have. I also trust less my own ability to discern. And I take it much less seriously - I no longer think that it is crucial, critical that I follow the leading because (the unspoken idea) everything depends on me. No, I'm just not that important. And, even more importantly, if I make a mistake (willfully or unintentionally), the world can handle it. Just move on.

(That's a very different attitude than many people around me have who say "there are no mistakes." I say instead, it's OK to make mistakes because you can handle it. You move on and mistakes become grist for what follows. Not to say there isn't trauma and distress.)   more »

In the department of fun and imagination and dreaming – with a base of vision – is this exercise of reworking the freight train schedule of Vermont Rail System as if all freight traffic that could went over the rails. All of this is based on traffic that is already moving, just waiting to be hauled by a train. It would be quite profitable. The catch is that it would take sizeable capital expenditures to realize this plan, and while the return on that investment would be better than that realized for road expenditures, it would not satisfy the capital markets.

The major through trains are the following:
Selkirk NY – Burlington – St. Albans (with mixed freight, autos and intermodal)
Mechanicville NY – Syracuse NY (CSX intermodal connector)
Selkirk NY – Brattleboro – St. Johnsbury – Orleans-Newport
St. Johnsbury-Groveton connection
New Haven CT – Orleans – Newport (connecting with MMA)
Selkirk NY – Florence (mostly Omya traffic for Selkirk)
Florence – Glens Falls NY (mostly Omya traffic for NY paper mills & CP)
Bellows Falls – Ticondaroga NY


In addition to switchers and locals there are bulk hauler shuttles that run all day long (maximizing car utilization) as mini unit trains (as short as just a few cars, but usually more like 10 cars). These haul aggregate, logs, wood chips and garbage. Cars used will be quick unloading bottom dump gondolas strengthened to haul logs so trains can be loaded in both directions and cars shuffled around from job to job. Because car utilization is so high and the trains are moving most of the time, these shuttles can make money (when operated with a crew of one person) even if the haul and train length is short.

You will note I’ve taken the liberty (as long as we are dreaming a bit) to expand the VRS system in a few directions that make sense. These could be services operated in cooperation with connecting railroads or outright takeovers.

The plan below assumes that main lines are operated at 40 mph (that’s the bulk of the capital expenditures) with new sidings as needed to facilitate operations and switches that are used every day equipped with time-saving radio controlled power switches.

Because of the power switches, improvements in track configurations and changes in switching procedures, time spent switching in this schedule is considerably reduced. Some of this could be because I’m not quite as familiar with operating requirements as I might be. Through freights will be blocked to drop set-offs off the rear with no switching, just a simple uncoupling and break test. Yard personnel with have a new FRED (flashing rear end device) ready to stick on the new last car.

Lowering time spent switching brings considerable improvements in productivity for all of the other cars in the through train that don’t need to wait as well. Faster timings will allow intermodal service to be operated competitively on the Selkirk-Burlington route.   more »

I'm occasionally frustrated by advocates for good causes who make a lot of noise but aren't effective. And there are others who choose apathy and feel powerless when seeing that. I offer below a quick course in effective political communication. This is not regarding elections and voting but in working with those we've elected. The point is to have an impact, to be effective, rather than simply complaining among the choir.

Three main points: - All Politics is Local (the representative or official cares about how it will effect their district)
- QUALITY of communication is important (be concise and focused)
- Build a long-term relationship (we're all humans here!)

The mindset here is to be strategic; to ask, "What will it take to get X to happen?" Then you plan backwards, thinking about the laws and regulations that might have to change, who you'll have to reach to make that happen, and what points of leverage you have. Obviously there are other powers in play, so I'm not saying you can win all the time . . . But there ARE some things you can achieve.   more »

I'm adding some of my favorite links I've discovered lately:

Pandora (from the Music Genome Project) - This is being written to the accompaniment of music streamed from Pandora. You give it an artist you like and it proceeds to set up an internet radio channel just for you serving you songs it thinks you'll like that are similar - not based on "genre" but on harder to quantify (but they have) elements like tempo and lyrical quality and emotion. It's now my favorite musical listening means except for live music.

Emerald Stream - I've sung with this group, covering the Vermont repertoire of shape note tunes, gospel, Balkan, Georgian and other worldwide traditional songs, led by Mary Cay Brass. This link gets a CD offering from CD baby that includes downloadable music that is worth hearing.

Business 2.0 - Smart, hip, technologically aware, interesting. To me.

Barbara Micheals - My friend Barbara is a smart thinker who uses art to elevate people and society. This is her new home page. Yes, you should hire her! She's good.

And here are some I'm especially excited about but I just don't have the categories for yet:

CouchSurfing.org - You share your home, your coach with travelers and stay with others when you go afield. What makes it cool and different is that it has social networking features so everybody has a profile and can leave recommendations (or not) for each other. So it becomes safer and more fun and more of a community.

more »

If you want to be well informed about railroading in New England, get Atlantic Northeast Rails & Ports.  There is nothing else like it.  You'll know the scoop before anybody else, and more accurately.
http://www.atlanticnortheast.com/

I took today to rest. In several ways . . . I'm having a fast. Which is not an easy thing, at least not for me. I'm pretty hungry right now, weak, and fairly well preoccupied with food. But my body was calling out for this fast and I thought it would be a good idea to give my systems a rest. Actually, this recent trip was fairly stressful on me, especially because I didn't sleep well. Along with working hard and travel anxiety and the general disruption of being in a new place. Mostly it was just work, this trip, but I learned things and had some good times. I'm also taking a day of silence with my fast. Fasting from the stress of connecting.

I believe in rest. The good book says God rested on the seventh day and we should do the same. It seems to be written into the design of nature, as fields benefit from rest as well. There is a time for work and a time for play (to quote the same source!). At Kripalu they say it is "integration," which is to say that there is stuff happening below the surface, necessary to complete the change you make with your outward effort.

As a culture we do not believe in rest. We value hard work and working late and we work more than most other countries. And our spirituality is more intense, more driven, as well. But a more intense and driven spirituality does not actually make you more spiritual (although it may make you more religious, and indeed we are a more religious country than many, at least when compared to Europe). I don't have the space or longing to do it as much as I could, but I practice sometimes several types of fasting, not just avoiding food. There is avoiding computers and computer screens. Avoiding people (perhaps silence), avoiding being scheduled, avoiding a particular issue for a day. I believe that laying fallow for a day gives one part of me a rest, lets changes happen under the surface and is therefore very beneficial.   more »

I’m writing this from a big MCI intercity coach owned and operated by Vermont Transit. I just got on, at the Bellows Falls train station, and I’m heading to Boston en-route to Logan Airport and Atlanta. This is my report of the bus ride.

Immediately I realize this bus is more comfortable than my car. Not if someone were sitting beside me, but the bus is mostly empty.   more »

An interesting re-working of Amtrak's Florida service was posted by Bruce Richardson, of United Rail Passenger Alliance. My response is below:

Bruce, I liked your re-work of the Florida service in the latest TWAA. I hope somebody is listening.

Anyway I have a couple thoughts of my own to contribute to the scenario:

1. For Montreal service I suggest extending the Palmetto to Montreal instead as it could then roughly follow the schedule of the old Montrealer - but using only one additional trainset. This would give the Montreal service the beneifit of the Vermont ski trade, which is considerable, business to Burlington and Vermont-Florida business. Population along the Adirondack route is pretty sparse north of Albany. At the south end, an overnight Miami section could be added over FEC, making a nice two nights and one day service from Montreal.

2. Looking at the number of trainset required brings up the issue of late trains. If the trains ran more reliably, the service could be run with less trainsets   more »

I’ve been grieving. The full process: denial, bargaining, depression, anger, tears . . . I’ve really been knocked onto the floor. Hard. I lost something very important to me.

So I’ve been thinking about this. What have I lost? Most important of everything was love, receiving it, participating in it. It’s not that someone has stopped loving me, it’s that what’s been lost was the evidence of love and that “being” in it was what I, looking back, most valued.

There’s more to it, which I don’t want to blog about. And there is the whole aspect of giving my love, but I guess that doesn’t feel like a loss in the same way.

I realize that I let that love make me very happy and that I gave it importance.   more »

I ride from Bellows Falls (or Brattleboro) Vermont down to New York or Philadelphia (or DC) a few times a year. (sometimes I take the bus instead). Some of these trips have been to visit a (now ex) girlfriend. Others have been for work or church business of one sort or another.

I went to Chicago a month or so ago via the lake shore - for a rail advocates meeting. A few years ago I went across the country via Lake Shore and California Zephyr. That was to cover a writing assignment. I haven't flown domestically since then. (My driving has all been short-distance, except 2 trips to a friend in Halifax NS - not gracefully rail accessible and one driving trip to Virginia for a writing assignment)

I have traveled in various places by train in Europe (to visit friends and be a touriest). My most recent trip, I wasn't very adventuresome and traveled around London by train on various routes and companies, and ditto for Paris (took the bus in between) and that’s it.

I travel on commuter trains from time to time as well - I was on the MBTA and Metra (Chicago) recently, SEPTA last summer.

It would be nice to travel more, but I can't afford it.   more »

As spring comes, I’m remembering who I am, how I want to live. I wrote down in my journal what is most important to me – not causes, priorities, but my manner of being.

In order:

1. Following spontaneous inspiration
2. Sleep enough, exercise, eat well
3. Romantic relationship
4. Taking care of my own spirit (being happy, quiet time, journaling)
5. Building a team in my work
6. Taking care of my “customers” in work
7. Follow up with people
(   more »

I’d heard the mornings incoming Lake Shore at Chicago was late and wondered if we’d be late leaving Chicago. But when I arrived at 6:50, the board said it was on-time. So I walked a few blocks up the canal for my last chance at exercise. When I returned I found a gigantic line stretching through the Amtrak boarding area. Apparently both we and the Capital Limited would be late boarding by at least an hour, though nobody seemed to have truly hard information. Something about a dinning car problem.

At first disruptions like this bring people together. A fellow behind me couldn’t speak English. I can’t speak Spanish, but the search for someone who did brought me together the charming Russian immigrants behind me. Then I heard music and found a group of dirty interesting young travelers (ie, without a permanent home) who (I was pleased to see) had an accordion and ukulele. A likable Dartmouth student joined us. We made plans to play music and sing and play charades later in the lounge car.

It was 10:15 before our 7:55 scheduled departure boarded. As the line moved forward a tall black woman was yelling at everyone, “have your tickets out of the envelopes,” over and over. I heard later on the train that she had been really rude to a number of people. Hopefully some apology and information announcements had earlier been made, but from my part of the line we couldn’t hear any. This women was my first contact with Amtrak staff. Then as we headed out to the train we were handed a bottle of water and a bag of chips. I assume this was “service recovery” for being late, but no explanation was offered, nothing to explain why we were getting this. No welcome aboard or apology; no words at all. Tickets were collected in the station and quickly people went to sleep. We postponed the music in the lounge car for the morning.

The coaches were almost completely full. At Toledo it was announced that the train was completely sold out.

Morning light came at Toledo; 6:45 am. Word circulated that the train was 6 hours late. And still we were crawling behind a string of yellow blocks. Perhaps it was 30mph, all across the top of Ohio and Pennsylvania. I had a very nice and reasonably priced breakfast in the rebuilt and half-empty dinning car. The steward had been good at making good announcements promoting the dinning car, but the volume of the PA in my car was too low to hear. It would really help to pass out menus for coach passengers.

As people roused themselves in the morning they became aware of how late the train was (now 7 hours) and grumbling became louder. Many “never again’s”. Boston passengers started to wonder what was going to happen when they arrived in Boston after the public transit system had shut. People started alerting their hosts. I lent my cell-phone to someone without so she could call her friend.   more »

I’d have taken the Vermonter to Springfield if it made the connection, but instead I drive to Schenectady. From Brattleboro Albany is not much further than Springfield. The time savings of going to Albany instead of the earlier departure at Springfield means I can work an extra day of teaching. My ticket is from Albany, but I changed my plans to Schenectady so I can meet a friend who lives a block from the station. This also solves my parking problem since I can leave my car at her place.

Schenectady station has all the charm of a 1970's bus station with it’s black waiting chairs and hard tiled floors and walls which smell like a locker room. The agent is tired but good natured. He tells us the Lake Shore left Albany about 15 minutes late, but when he makes his second announcement, giving us a 10 minute warning he interrupts himself, saying, “Oh it is here now, go upstairs now.” I’m caught unprepared (so is he, I guess) and I quickly stuff everything into my backpack and up we go, just as the train is rolling in. He’s rushing up with the baggage (in a garden cart) and the crowd sees the open door of a viewliner and heads that way. “Coach is this way,” I say.

The train is less than half full. Baggage, 2 viewliner sleepers (one is blanked out, I hear), rebuilt dinner, rebuilt lounge and 3 coaches. I’m directed into a coach that seems mostly bound for Erie, Cleveland and Toledo.

The coach attendant is fine but nothing beyond.   more »

Passenger Train Journal just ran an article on the Illinois Central’s “mini-corridor” from Carbondale to Champaign to Chicago. In the late sixties, when Paul Reistrup was Vice President – Passenger at Illinois Central, this route was developed.

Two lessons from this article: that local management of specific routes (the “brand manager” concept) does wonders, and that so much was lost when Amtrak began.

People re-creating organizations and networks have a proclivity to disregard the good in what came before them. After all their task is to sweep away all the deadwood, which indeed may be a problem. But it seems to come with the territory to sweep away a good bit of what was going well. At Amtrak George Warrington and David Gunn both fell into this trap. So did the DOT planner and congress when first creating Amtrak.
What if, instead of starting from zero with a skeleton map, the planners looked at each train service that was running and asked if it was performing well (Seaboard Coast Line’s Florida routes, for example), underperforming in a way that could be addressed or irredeemably useless to the whole network.

More below the fold, but here are the direct links to the two schedules I worked up in this 1971 "what-if" scenario: Chicago-Champaign-Carbondale "Mini-Corridor"
Chicago/St.Louis/Nashville-Memphis-New Orleans "Panama Ltd" / "City of New Orleans"   more »

Friend Sarah Pullman has a post on Howard Kunstler how has warned darkly about Peak Oil -- and a number of other sceneries in which he predicts a catastrophic currency devaluation, global flue epidemic, stock market collapse war with china, between India and Pakistan . . . et. al. It's the peak-oil scenario that is getting the most attention around me right now. There's two parts - the cause of trouble and then the prediction of collapse, the end of the automobile, suburbs, are nice comfy lifestyle, political order, domestic peace and the Republican party.

Sarah's post has a list complied by her reader Tom about all the predictions made (and passed without much effect). It reminds me to just take life a little more lightly and not to worry so much.

Which isn't to say that all those things aren't a worry.   more »

Yes I think the British rail scene can be called successful. I've spent a fair bit of time in Britain (I'm half English). 'Successful' is a subjective term of course, but let me be more concrete:

1. Passenger ridership has increased more than 40% across the country. Virgin Trains has increased ridership by 40%. The increases are system wide. Chiltern Railways posted a 90% increase.

2. Half the fleet of passenger vehicles has been replaced and overall fleet size has increased 12%   more »

A friend wrote, distressed, about the situation in Iraq and lessoning our dependence on oil via biodiesel. My responce:

1. Maybe the biggest impact you can make is by your driving habits. You can cut your fuel use 20-30% (more than a hybrid) if you become a more gentle driver, don't go over 65 mph (55 when you aren't in a hurry), don't go under 35 when you can, don't accelerate quickly. And you can not drive or organize carpools. Can you carpool to work? To dances? Can you bicycle?

2. Biodiesel is better than oil, but our planet does not have the capacity to simply switch to biodiesel. Do that and we start massively impacting food supplies. This will impact the poor and cause massive starvation. The potential is not unlike what happened in Scotland as food was displaced by sheep so the mills could have wool. Those driven off their land went to Ireland and the political issues involved there brought forced famine. This could be worse and global. The only answer is to consume less.

3. In the economy of grains for food and fuel, much is taken by meat. If you want to cut-back consumption, this too is important. Meet is quite inefficient in terms of the amount of land and fuel oil required to feed a person.

4. Greater public transit use is important (though unlikely in your town except for commutation into Boston), but actually probably not as important as bicycling. In Europe, where they have excellent public transit, bicycling still captures a greater market share of travel than public transit - as it does in this country. Gas is more expensive in Europe so the competitive balance favors bicycles more.

5. The most effective step would be to increase the cost to consumer of fuel and to end the practice of government subsidizing oil companies, road maintenance and make users of fuel pay for the environmental damage they cause. Then people will make their own decisions that start to reflect the actual costs they create which are now being paid by the rest of us. This would take a rather massive political change and it ain't going to come from the politicians. WE, our culture has to shift. I don’t know how that would happen. Except possibly shifting from one kind of tax to another, ie eliminating property on a state-wide basis tax in favor a higher gas tax and a separate income tax to pay for education. We're not even talking about this kind of thing. Just getting people talking about it starts to make it possible.

6. There is no way around it, we have to give up our culture of mobility. We act as if it is a right, but it's a situation that is paid for by other people. We Americans are off-loading the consequences of our lifestyle onto other people in the world and onto future generations. And we are in denial, have our heads stuck in the sand.

7. Changing the price of mobility means changing the real estate market and the retail market. The retail market will cope - people will still buy things, but more will be on-line and so forth. UPS will do fine. The real estate changes that WILL come will be wrenching. There will be real losers in the new economy.

8. These changes WILL come, although not really for ten years probably. Will we resist and cause more problems for ourself, or will we start changing now. We already are. Oil will become more expensive.   more »

Jim brought up on the Pioneer Valley Contra Dance List the perennial issue of the middle line at contra dances, and I thought I'd respond with some observations . . .
I'm not sure it's all snobbism. The experienced dancers, who know many people, often either book ahead or practice a kind of quick short-hand communication of looks and nods to arrange dances with our friends. The result is we often have partners much more quickly than the dance as a whole. I think many people end up in the middle line because it's the first line forming and they follow the flow. It's as exclusive to be unavailable without booking ahead as it is by booking ahead.
Perhaps we need not only courtesy lessons, but lessons in grace and a measured pace?   more »