Quotulatiousness

October 10, 2018

Riding the Rocky Mountaineer

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Railways — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Fred Frailey just got back from a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer and he’s enthusiastic about the train and the experiences it offers (for a price):

I’m just back from railing from Banff, Alta., to Vancouver, B.C., aboard the Rocky Mountaineer … my first such trip in 23 years. Then, it was eight or nine Silver Leaf coaches and a single Gold Leaf bilevel first-class car. This time, it was two coaches and five packed Gold Leaf cars. From the rail trip alone, I figure that Armstrong Group grossed a minimum of $600,000.

The Rocky Mountaineer in the Rockies.
Photo by The Land via Wikimedia Commons.

Usually (but not this time) there’s a section of roughly equal length out of Jasper, Alta., that joins the Banff train at Kamloops, B.C., so this train can easily be a $2 million-dollar baby when the passenger count tops 1,000 (we had 350). But my sense is that Armstrong Group brings in a at least a much money booking people on pre-train and post-train tours and luxury hotel stays.

I’ve always sensed a lot of railfan resentment of Peter Armstrong. The beef is that he “stole” from VIA Rail Canada the idea of an all-daylight trip along the Rocky and Selkirk mountains and the Thompson and Fraser rivers. For sure, the man plays for keeps; he is forever wishing to axe VIA’s Toronto-Vancouver Canadian as a government-funded competitor west of Jasper or to have the train sold to his company to redo in some Rocky Mountaineer manner.

But give the man his due. He created something lasting by becoming one of the few people to run passenger trains more than a few miles and make money at it. Who knows where the Canadian will be in a decade; it keeps losing fingers and hands as frequencies are trimmed and schedules lengthened. But the Rocky earns its way commercially, having proven its durability by weathering 2008-2009’s Great Recession.

In the latest issue of Trains, my colleague Bob Johnston writes an excellent capsule history of this service: “One factor driving the decision to move the Canadian over to [the Canadian National] route was lobbying by Vancouver entrepreneur Peter Armstrong to privatize VIA’s summer excursions to Banff, Alta., introduced in 1988. This came with the understanding that his fledging operation would get route exclusivity and some initial financial assistance from VIA to ensure the venture’s success. After a few shaky early years, Armstrong invested heavily in specialty dome cars to make Rocky Mountaineer a financial and creative success in a way the public funded operator never could.”

July 28, 2018

Historical vandalism at Stonehenge

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Jocelyn Sears on the barbaric “souvenir” habits of 18th century English “tourists”:

A photograph of Stonehenge taken in July 1877 by Philip Rupert Acott
Via Wikimedia Commons

In 1860, a concerned tourist wrote to the London Times decrying the “foolish, vulgar and ruthless practice of the majority of visitors” to Stonehenge “of breaking off portions of it as keepsakes.” Today, taking a hammer and chisel to a Neolithic monument seems like obvious vandalism, but during the Victorian era, such behavior was not only common but expected.

English antiquarian tourists, who were mostly upper class, had developed the habit of taking makeshift relics from the historical sites they visited during the 18th century. By 1830, the practice was so widespread that the English painter Benjamin Robert Haydon dubbed it “the English disease,” writing, “On every English chimney piece, you will see a bit of the real Pyramids, a bit of Stonehenge! […] You can’t admit the English into your gardens but they will strip your trees, cut their names on your statues, eat your fruit, & stuff their pockets with bits for their musaeums.”

For centuries, both locals and visitors had taken pieces of Stonehenge for use in folk remedies. As early as the 12th century, rumors of the stones’ healing properties appear in the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and in 1707, Reverend James Brome wrote that their scrapings were still thought to “heal any green Wound, or old Sore.” In the 1660s, the English antiquarian John Aubrey reported a local superstition that “pieces or powder of these stones, putt into their wells, doe drive away the Toades.”

Eventually, tourists were not just taking from Stonehenge, but also leaving their mark, too. By the middle of the 17th century, tourist graffiti was appearing on the stones. The name of Johannes Ludovicus de Ferre — abbreviated “IOH : LVD : DEFERRE” — is etched, and so is the engraving “I WREN,” which may refer to Christopher Wren, the famed architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral.

As early as 1740, the archaeologist William Stukeley was decrying “the unaccountable folly of mankind in breaking pieces off [the stones] with great hammers,” and by the end of the 19th century, according an 1886 commenter, “Almost every day takes some fragment from the ruins, or adds something to the network of scrawling with which the surface of the stone is defaced.”

April 5, 2018

Amtrak decides to abandon one of its few profitable sidelines

Filed under: Business, Railways, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Kevin Keefe discusses the recent Amtrak announcement that it will be discontinuing support for private railcar movements on Amtrak trains:

Amtrak’s announcement last week that it intends to shut down most of its haulage of private cars and its support for special trains was a stunner. Within hours, hundreds or perhaps thousands of people working in the heritage end of railroading scrambled to react.

It hasn’t taken long for a credible protest movement to take root. An official objection was made to Amtrak on behalf of the American Association of Private Car Owners, and a similar move is expected from the Rail Passenger Car Alliance. Railfan social media has erupted with protest exhortations. As of this morning, more than 7,000 people have signed a petition at change.org.

Meanwhile, in this moment of limbo, a number of plans have been put on hold. The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society has postponed ticket sales for its September 15-16 “Joliet Rocket” trips on Chicago’s Metra, featuring Nickel Plate 2-8-4 No. 765. The operators of West Virginia’s famed New River Train fall foliage trips — a 51-year tradition — are faced with closing up shop. Like all private-car owners, the Washington, D.C., Chapter, NRHS, might wonder when its heavyweight Pullman Dover Harbor might once again turn a wheel. Countless other organizations face the same dilemma.

In announcing the new policy, Amtrak President and CEO Richard Anderson cited three main reasons why the company feels this move is necessary: operational distractions from providing for special moves, a failure to capture “fully allocated profit margins,” and delays to paying customers on scheduled trains.

One thing Anderson didn’t mention in his announcement, but should have: the subsidy the American taxpayer gives to prop up his corporation every year. In 2017, that largesse amounted to $1.495 billion.

Anderson’s complaints about the effects of special moves are specious. Amtrak has plenty of “operational distractions,” but most of them have little to do with factors related to private cars or special trains, the grateful operators of which strive mightily to make their moves seamless. As for delays, why isn’t Anderson pointing the finger at the real culprits, some of their Class I partners for whom delaying a passenger train is second nature? As for relative profitability, if it’s true that the “special trains” business operates in the black, how can Amtrak walk away from it? Where else does Amtrak make a profit?

June 15, 2017

The “killer app of space tourism”

Filed under: Space, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The “mile-high club” will soon be replaced by the “sixty-two-mile-high club“, says Glamour in their coverage of “Sex in Space“:

As Elon Musk announces a plan to start colonizing Mars in 2020 and space tourism companies begin offering (very pricey) trips outside the planet, space vacation is suddenly looking less like a sci-fi plot and more like a real possibility. And like any other type of vacation, one of the best parts will probably be sex. But sex in space? Is that even a thing?

To our knowledge, no one’s boldly gone there, but that hasn’t stopped the experts from guessing. Here, they answer some of our most pressing questions about the future of hooking up in space.

Is it even possible?

Sure, though keep in mind that in space capsule conditions, there’ll be considerably more fumbling around. Just getting our parts to touch could be a puzzle, since it turns out gravity is the important sex aid you didn’t even realize you were using.

“Because successful coitus for humans relies on gravity to achieve correct alignment and maintain contact with the participants’ genitals, its absence will pose a novel problem,” says OBGYN Kyrin Dunston, MD. “In addition, the thrusting motions required for successful coitus will present unique reactions in the female, where she will be propelled away from her partner during coitus, making the act very difficult.” (Though it’s pretty hilarious to picture.)

According to Dr. John Millis, Ph.D, a physicist and astronomer at Anderson University, it would be almost like two ice skaters pushing their hands against each other while standing on ice. “This two-dimensional example is complicated further by the fact that, in space, the astronauts would be moving in three-dimensions,” he says.

Will we need a whole new genre of sex toys, then?

If we want to streamline space sex, we may have to enlist technology to stop people from floating away from each other. A good space-sex device would have to attach the astronauts to their partners and the space station, says Millis.

Dr. Dunston elaborates: “That could be a jungle gym-type apparatus that allows people to position themselves appropriately to a strap system that holds them together, or clothing that accomplishes the same thing. Imaginative minds will create something ingenious, I’m sure.”

May 16, 2017

11 Things to see in Athens

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 5 Mar 2017

On February i got a few days away to relax from everything. I left you with some automatic videos, so you wouldn’t be without new documentaries and i went on holiday to Athens, Greece. I wanted to share a little bit about what i saw. This video is the first video made by me. (Be good, please!)

March 17, 2017

QotD: No True Irishman

Filed under: Europe, Humour, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I speak for every true potato-loving mick on the planet when I say that St. Patrick’s Day is a genuine Irish holiday that’s been corrupted into Amateur Drunk Day by us filthy Americans. Nobody in Ireland really cared much about it until dumb American tourists started going over there every March, demanding green beer and tunelessly bellowing “Danny Boy” out of their vomit-encrusted cakeholes. St. Paddy’s Day is fake. It’s Kwanzaa for white people.

Jim Treacher, “No True Irishman Loves St. Patrick’s Day”, The Daily Caller, 2016-03-17.

June 20, 2016

Getting to L’Anse Aux Meadows

Filed under: Cancon, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

A few days back, “Weirddave” posted a little account of his recent visit to L’Anse Aux Meadows:

You can fly into Gander, but it’s expensive AF and you’ll have to make a jillion connections and live in airports for 2 days. Driving from the US means taking I-95 as far as it goes, then transiting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to North Sydney. There you get on a ferry for an 8 hour trip to Port Aux Basque. Do it overnight and splurge for a cabin (trust me on this). Even then, you can’t get into Port Aux Basque if it’s too windy (a not uncommon occurrence in the North Atlantic). Our ferry sailed in a circle off Port Aux Basque for 12 hours until it was calm enough to go in, costing us a whole day (you don’t drive at night in Newfoundland because the island is infested with moose and you’ll hit one). There is no WiFi on the ferry.

From Port Aux Basque it’s 699 kilometers to L’Anse Aux Meadow, 699 kilometers of 2 lane highway with lots of potholes. If you love scrub pine and birch, you’ll be in heaven. It’s very pretty, and Gros Morne National Park, which you’ll go through about halfway, is gorgeous. The drive is miserable when it’s raining, and it’s always raining in Newfoundland. As a bonus it was 2 degrees C today. After you’ve seen L’Anse Aux Meadow ( a day at most ) you have to do it all over again going the other way. The local hootch is a rum called Screech that aspires to be Val-U-Rite. On the plus side, the locals are friendly, if occasionally unintelligible, and I ate 6 lobsters in four days, so yum.

If you find yourself in Newfoundland, you must go to L’Anse Aux Meadow. If you’re thinking of going, my advice would be to take an RV and make it a leisurely trip across the Maritimes. Take 2 weeks off and really enjoy yourself.

May 29, 2016

New York City through the eyes of a young German visitor

Filed under: Germany, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The anonymous author visited New York City recently, having visited many other US cities, and recorded the disappointment of seeing the Big Apple in real life:

I expected NYC to be at least somewhat of a modern and shiny skyscraper city. The secret capital of the US – and – maybe the world. I expected something at least iconic.

Now when I landed at JFK moldy carpets and a worn down airport greeted me. I took the train to Manhattan that overpasses ghettos.

I could not believe how loud and shaky the subway was. The awful state of maintenance. How extremely dirty it is. How bad signs are placed. How counterintuitive everything is made.

Everything must have been great some decades ago but was never kept well. There was no good way to get from one part of the city to another. Taxis are stuck and the subway is disgusting. Buses are worse.

The smell. When I think of NYC I no longer think of lawyers in suits on a rooftop terrace. I think of the strong smell of death – of rotten rat meat.

The garbage. Everywhere. On the streets. I mean black sacks full of garbage to be picked up in few hours stinking and leaking.

How unimpressive 5th Av is. Or Times Square.

The skyline is really not so impressive or iconic if you have been to Hong Kong or other places.

I was amazed by the the awful German translations on the large signs of the 9/11 sight. I always thought that this was a place of big importance and that NYC would not use Google translator to greet the world when they are visiting to show respect.

You might think that I am exaggerating and describing things that one could look over. Maybe. But I am just trying to justify my disappointment.

H/T to Never Yet Melted for the link.

October 10, 2015

“We’re very inefficient … and proud of it”

Filed under: Business, Cancon — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 3 Oct 2015

Craft Brewery tourism is on the rise. Ontario Craft Breweries are opening throughout the province; eventually there will be one in every community. These breweries are a catalyst for economic growth. They have become sought-after tourist destinations, event venues, culinary centres.

September 21, 2015

QotD: True believers visit the Workers’ Paradise

Filed under: Europe, History, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I have never forgotten these visitors, or ceased to marvel at them, at how they have gone on from strength to strength, continuing to lighten our darkness, and to guide, counsel and instruct us. They are unquestionably one of the wonders of the age, and I shall treasure till I die as a blessed memory the spectacle of them travelling with radiant optimism through a famished countryside, wandering in happy bands about squalid, over-crowded towns, listening with unshakeable faith to the fatuous patter of carefully trained and indoctrinated guides, repeating like schoolchildren a multiplication table, the bogus statistics and mindless slogans endlessly intoned on them. There, I would think, an earnest office-holder in some local branch of the League of Nations Union, there a godly Quaker who had once had tea with Gandhi, there an inveigher against the Means Test and the Blasphemy Laws, there a staunch upholder of free speech and human rights, there an indomitable preventer of cruelty to animals, there scarred and worthy veterans of a hundred battles for truth, freedom, and justice – all, all chanting the praises of Stalin and his Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It was as though a vegetarian society had come outwith a passionate plea for cannibalism, or Hitler had been nominated posthumously for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, 2006.

July 12, 2015

QotD: Choosing the right language to use as a tourist

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

From Baden, about which it need only be said that it is a pleasure resort singularly like other pleasure resorts of the same description, we started bicycling in earnest. We planned a ten days’ tour, which, while completing the Black Forest, should include a spin down the Donau-Thal, which for the twenty miles from Tuttlingen to Sigmaringen is, perhaps, the finest valley in Germany; the Danube stream here winding its narrow way past old-world unspoilt villages; past ancient monasteries, nestling in green pastures, where still the bare-footed and bare-headed friar, his rope girdle tight about his loins, shepherds, with crook in hand, his sheep upon the hill sides; through rocky woods; between sheer walls of cliff, whose every towering crag stands crowned with ruined fortress, church, or castle; together with a blick at the Vosges mountains, where half the population is bitterly pained if you speak to them in French, the other half being insulted when you address them in German, and the whole indignantly contemptuous at the first sound of English; a state of things that renders conversation with the stranger somewhat nervous work.

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, 1914.

June 24, 2015

Ceremonial Guard 2015 Season

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Published on 22 Jun 2015

The Ceremonial Guard is one of Canada’s most recognizable military units. For over 50 years, the Changing of the Guard has been a top Ottawa attraction, having thrilled thousands of visitors on Parliament Hill, at Rideau Hall and at the National War Memorial. The Changing the Guard Ceremony will take place daily at 10 a.m. on Parliament Hill from June 28 to August 22, 2015.

March 7, 2015

22 Minutes: Halifax Tourism Ad

Filed under: Cancon, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Published on 3 Mar 2015

The capital of Nova Scotia attempts to attract tourism by embracing winter’s reality.

August 20, 2014

QotD: Maine

Filed under: Humour, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

The entire state is oceanside, just like in the video. There are rumors of some vast, undiscovered bogs or swamps or mountains or something out west, but no one would ever go there. LL Bean is in Freeport, and you’re not allowed to be in Maine more than an hour’s drive from there. If we had police, they’d check. Bean’s used to have catalogs filled with shotguns and fishing poles, but now they only sell banana hammock bathing suits for Canadians that go to Old Orchard Beach and think it’s the Riviera, and button-down men’s shirts for ladies to wear.

Maine has various slogans. They used to call it Vacationland, but Mainers couldn’t help themselves, and got to reading the Vacationland road signs while driving to work in the office park in Westbrook, and forgot the signs were for people “From Away” — the charming soubriquet Mainers use when they want to call someone a Masshole, but the guy hasn’t paid his bill yet. Anyway, everyone in Maine went to Disneyworld at the same time, on the same bus, and there was no one left in Maine to direct the tourists from Massachusetts to the best places to icefish in June, or where to find all the huggable bull mooses in rutting season, or how to properly approach a black bear cub. Note: Always get between Mama bear and Baby bear. They love that.

“Maine: The Way Life Should Be,” was another one. It was less of an overt threat than New Hampshire’s motto, it’s true, but it left too much room for rumination on its meaning. I haven’t been to New Hampshire in a while, but if memory serves, their slogan is “Live Free, Or Else,” or something to that effect. Maine’s sounds friendlier, but its ambiguity rankles some. It’s never wise to get the tourists thinking. It smacked a bit of “Your life is bad, and you should feel bad, and we’re here to tell you so.”

Sippican, “Maine Is Totally Like This, Totally”, Sippican Cottage, 2014-02-26

July 10, 2014

Argentina’s economic woes – tourist edition

Filed under: Americas, Economics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:56

How bad is the Argentinian economy right now? So bad that middle class Argentine tourists in Brazil eat at soup kitchens, according to the Wall Street Journal‘s Miriam Jordan:

The state-funded Citizen Restaurant in downtown Rio is accustomed to serving a balanced meal at an unbeatable price to about 5,000 poor residents of this city each day. During the World Cup, however, this cafeteria has been catering to another clientele as well: middle-class Argentines.

“We serve homeless people, drug addicts, blue-collar workers and retirees,” said Jose Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro state coordinator for food security. “This World Cup we have been welcoming Argentine soccer fans, too.”

With the value of the Argentine peso deeply eroded amid the country’s economic woes, many Argentines who have flocked here to root for their soccer team […] say they’re counting every Brazilian real they spend — and hunting for bargains. On Monday, dozens of Argentines lined up alongside Brazilians to buy lunch at the cafeteria, where a meal of black beans, white rice, salad and choice of meatballs or chicken sausage cost 1 real, or about 40 U.S. cents.

“Rio is very expensive — that’s why I am here,” said Fernando Castillo, a 24-year-old bartender from Buenos Aires. With gusto, he dug into his plate of food, which sat on a plastic-blue tray beside a cup of guava juice and a fresh orange for desert, both included in the price. “This is perfect,” he said, “especially at this price.”

“The generous portion keeps us filled all day,” added his cousin, Thomas Castillo.

[…]

To save on accommodations and flights, many Argentines drove to Brazil. In Rio, their campers and cars occupied prime beachfront parking spots until the city evicted them.

It then allowed them to park vehicles and pitch tents in a vast parking lot downtown that abuts the permanent bleachers where Rio’s samba schools perform during the annual carnival celebrations.

Word spread quickly at these parking lots that Citizen Restaurant, within walking distance of the Argentine encampment, offered good Brazilian fare at a bargain-basement price in a clean, safe environment. “It started with 10 of them one day, then 50 of them came and now we’re seeing about 200 Argentines each day,” said Ricardo Chaves, the eatery’s administrator.

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