Belfast Titanic Quarter Update

Belfast is planning a new rapid transit system that will not only handle tourists to the Titanic Quarter but the needs of the city as well.

www.geograph.ie/photo/1862577
www.geograph.ie/photo/1862577

One item on the table is bringing back the bendy-bus. Called an articulated bus in the U.S., it is essentially two buses put together with a flexible middle. This allows it to make turns and get around road hazards more easily. They are tricky to run and London phased them out some years ago due to accidents and general dislike of them. Other cities did it as well in the U.K. and Northern Ireland. They were replaced with conventional and double-decker buses.

With Belfast wanting to have high speed buses arriving every five minutes, the bendy-buses are getting a second look. I have taken such buses in San Francisco. They are used on high density lines (the 30-Stockton) where you need such buses to handle the large numbers of people. On that route, the buses are electric so no worry about diesel fumes wafting around. And that line has to weave its way through Chinatown (where the majority of its passengers are heading for or leaving) where traffic is usually heavy during the day.

Buses, whether they are conventional or electric, are a more flexible alternative than light rail. Light rail is very expensive and limits their use to where the rails are laid. When the tourists arrive in 2012, they will need a system that is easy and convenient to use. Perhaps the bendy-bus will be part of it.

Source:
Belfast Telegraph, The Possible Reintroduction Of New ‘Bendy-Buses’ Could Be Part Of The Plans For A £150M Rapid Transit System For Belfast, 13 October 2011

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Caltrain Blues Update

Finally those Clipper Add Value Machines are finally coming to Caltrain. At least at the San Francisco Station at 4th & King. This is good news for Caltrain passengers who had to go over to Walgreens to add passes or buy a Clipper card. The machines are at the east end of the station (where people enter from King Street). They are not functioning yet but hopefully ready before November 1st.

The shiny new machines have a nemesis, namely the pigeons that hang around the station. They have a nasty habit of really messing up the floors, seats, and people who are sitting around in those uncomfortable benches. And it can make reading a newspaper or book dicey at times. You are sitting there minding your own business when the pigeon decides to use you as a toilet. That is why you always check the seat before you sit down at 4th & King.

The janitorial staff does do a good job of trying to keep it clean but it is a diffcult task. Caltrain really needs to find a solution to keeping the pigeons out of the station.

Titanic News Stories for 10 Oct 2011

1. A Titanic Story  (8 Oct 2011, Fernie Free Press)
The Deadly Voyage is part of the popular I Am Canada series, which uses events in Canadian history as a backdrop to exciting adventures of daring young men.  The book focuses on 14 year old Jamie Laidlaw, who has no idea that his world is about to turn up-side down, until he finds himself in the icy waters of the north Atlantic watching the “unsinkable” ship go down.

2. Cardboard Boat Regatta Designed To Engage Students, Craig Community (8 Oct 2011, Craig Daily Press )
“It has to have something to do with sinking,” said Hebert, a Moffat County High School junior, looking at the craft made of cardboard and duct tape as it waited on the shore of the pond at Loudy-Simpson Park. Hebert, along with Katlyn and Nicole Sollenberger, also juniors, made the boat for the sixth cardboard boat regatta Friday, an annual competition in which students make boats out of cardboard, duct tape and little else. Finally, Hebert settled on a name: “Titanic II.

3. The Unheard Story Of Amy And The Titanic (8 Oct 2011, Trinidad Guardian)
Amy Pollard was a Guyanese infant who lost her English mother Elizabeth, in Guyana, at the age of one. The year was 1872. Her father William Branch Pollard, was from Demerara, but his ancestors had migrated to, and lived continuously in Barbados from the early 1600’s. William’s father was Barbadian. The Pollards’ ancient origins were Cornwall, England. Amy’s maternal English aunt was Hannah, nee Blackley, the barren wife of the “prince of shipbuilders,” illustrious William Imrie.

4. Titanic Exhibit Opens At Science Centre (8 Oct 2011, St. Albert Gazette)
Nearly a century later, the fascination continues as the Telus World of Science hosts Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, opening Oct. 8 and running until Feb. 2012. The exhibit features nearly 200 artifacts divided into seven galleries. The focus is on telling Titanic’s human stories through genuine artifacts and recreating the ship’s interior of a third-class compartment and boiler room. Visitors to the exhibit receive a replica boarding pass with the name of a real Titanic passenger, the passenger’s class, destination and with whom they travelled. At the end of the exhibit is a memorial board listing all the passengers’ names and whether or not they survived.


Titanic News Stories 1-7 Oct 2011

Due to computer upgrades, I am posting the news articles here.

 
1. PHS Graduate Writes Titanic Book (7 Oct 2011, KC Community News)
Although many books have been written about the Titanic, Paola High School graduate Stephen Hines wanted readers to experience the tragedy as if they were there with his newest book “Titanic: One Newspaper, Seven Days, and the Truth That Shocked the World.” For a year and a half, Hines pored over 208 articles from London’s “Daily Telegraph,” which was from just one week of coverage after the sinking. His aim with the book is to show readers the roller coaster of emotions the sinking brought with it, he said.

2. Titanic Centennial: Salvage And Memories (6 Oct 2011, New York Times)
On Oct. 21 Philip Weiss Auctions in Oceanside, N.Y., will offer the archive of a couple who spent the last days of their honeymoon on the ship. John Pillsbury Snyder, a Minnesota garage owner and grain-mill heir, and his new bride, Nelle, got into the first lifeboat when the crew sounded warnings. Other first-class passengers on the deck had milled around the Snyders, refusing to disembark, convinced that the Titanic just needed minor repairs. The Snyders’ lifeboat left the wreck half-full; the saved lives onboard included a Pomeranian dog. The family papers, with correspondence on Titanic stationery and photos of rescue ships, are estimated to bring $30,000 to $50,000.

3.  Top Flight Recreation Of Titanic Staircase (6 Oct 2011, Belfast Telegraph)
Sean, Francis and Pius Diamond from the family-run Oldtown Joinery in Bellaghy have been working on the RMS Titanic replica staircase for two months. Sean, who runs the firm, told the Belfast Telegraph that the project has been a painstaking process and “the most challenging” the company has undertaken in its 20-year history. Using mostly traditional joinery techniques as would’ve been the case in the making of the original creation, Sean said there are some little differences. “We are subject to building control, so certain things are different. For example, we’ve had to install a brass handrail for health and safety purposes.

4. View Of Titanic Wreckage A Deep Emotional Experience (5 Oct 2011, Edmonton Journal)
Lytle looks like Captain E.J. Smith, the man at the helm of the Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912. The resemblance landed him a job with RMS Titanic Inc. and in 2000, a seat on one of their expeditions to the ship wreck and its debris field. This week, Lytle is in Edmonton to play Smith at the opening of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at Telus World of Science. Starting on Saturday, visitors can see 200 artifacts recovered from the Titanic, from pieces of the ship to passengers’ personal belongings. They’ll also be issued a replica boarding pass at the door, with the name, age and class of an actual passenger. At the end, they can look on the memorial board to see if they were among the 706 who survived or the 1,522 who perished.

5. Titanic Centenary Must Be Exploited (5 Oct 2011, Belfast Telegraph)
The Belfast Tourism Forum believes that government and industry must work together more closely to exploit the potential from the Titanic’s centenary year in 2012.”We cannot under-estimate the importance of both central and local government continuing to work in close partnership with all the relevant agencies and our highly professional colleagues in the tourism industry to deliver the goods, to the benefit of everyone in the city,” said John McGrillen, Director of Development with Belfast City Council and chairman of the group.

6. WB Woman Shares Family’s Titanic Tale  (3 Oct 2011, Citizens Voice)
“My mother told her, ‘My daughter does not lie. I am a survivor,'” Mae said. Mae shared her mother’s gripping account of surviving the nearly century-old tragedy Friday at a “Last Dinner on the Titanic” event at the Stage Coach Inn in Butler Township. More than 30 people attended the gathering, which was organized by a historical entertainment company known as The Passion Projects. Mae took the audience back to the late night hours of April 14, 1912, when an ocean liner billed as “unsinkable” struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from England to New York.

7. Conn. Site To Mark 100 Years Since Titanic Sinking (3 Oct 2011, Boston Globe)Mystic Aquarium will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with an exhibit that will virtually take visitors to the ocean floor. The aquarium, home of Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck of the British ocean liner in 1985, says it will break ground next month on the exhibit. It is scheduled to open next April.

Titanic Body Art

Titanic enthusiasts collect all kinds of things from books to rare memorabilia. However I believe Steve Hide of the U.K. has outdone them all by having Titanic’s sinking as body art. It started in 2006, the Daily Echo reports, with the first lines drawn.

“When I started having it done five years ago I always planned to have it finished in time for the 100th anniversary.” (Steve Hide)

Hide says he was always interested in Titanic and used books and pictures to design the tatoo.  It has also made him a celebrity of sorts. His wife reports that people want photographs with him when they see the body art.

Okay but pretty weird if you ask me. Then again some people actually change their names to that of fictional sci-fi characters or characters from Lord of the Rings (and perhaps now from the Harry Potter movies/books as well).

Source: Daily Echo, Steve Hide Has Sinking Of The Titanic Tattooed Across His Back, 1 Sep 2011



Ghostly Halifax

The Guelph Mercury  reports that those seeking ghosts in Halifax will not be disappointed. A restaurant that once was a mortuary and served some of Titanic’s victims and those of the 1917 Halifax Explosion, is haunted. The restaurant owner claims cutlery has been moved, disembodied voices are heard, and shadowy figures seen. There is even a report that ghosts texted the word death.

A ghostly silhouette is sometimes seen at an upper window at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, a brewery is haunted by its old brewmaster, a fiery ghost ship is claimed to have been seen was well.

I like a good ghost story but generally find more mundane explanations for hauntings. It has become a business of sorts in many places to offer tours and stay in places where ghosts are supposed to roam. Even the local Titanic exhibit is not immune. There are claims people “sense” Titanic victims when they are visiting the museum. Stories of sightings are sometimes just that, stories written down long ago and then passed down. Suspected cases of poltergeist activity are often solved by hidden cameras that show items being moved by people.

So go visit Halifax but not for the ghosts.  And have a good time!

Source: Guelph Mercury, Ghostly Halifax, 21 Aug 2011

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Caltrain: How To Use The Zone Upgrade

[Update 12 Dec 2015:Updated to reflect that Zone Upgrade also applies to day passes and single ride tickets.]

[Update 2 Sep 2013: I have deleted reference to the 8-Ride Ticket as the zone upgrade only applies to holders of monthly pass. Otherwise all the other information remains the same.]

While sitting on the train the other day, a conductor explained to a confused passenger how the zone upgrade works. Apparently the person had purchased the wrong zones. Fortunately since the train was stopped and waiting for an express to pass, the passenger had time to run out and purchase the correct upgrade. It made me realize how easy to be confused in using the upgrade.

The Caltrain Zone Upgrade
The Zone Upgrade is for passengers traveling on a monthly pass, day pass or single ride ticket. It allows you to travel beyond the zone(s) purchased. The cost per zone is $2.00. You cannot purchase a Zone Upgrade with Clipper e-cash.

Caltrain
Caltrain

Buying a Zone Upgrade
Purchase the upgrade at Caltrain ticket machines. Select Zone Upgrade from the main menu. The extra zone(s) are the ones not covered by your monthly pass,day pass or single ride ticket. For instance, you have a Zone 1 pass for San Francisco-San Bruno and want to go to Redwood City in Zone 2. That is a one Zone Upgrade so the cost is $2.00. A trip to Menlo Park in Zone 3 is a two zone upgrade ($4.00) and a trip to San Jose in Zone 4 is three zones ($6.00).

Why bother with a Zone Upgrade? It saves money. Two one way tickets to San Jose and San Francisco costs $17.50 compared to $12.00 using the zone upgrade.

Remember it is the zone(s) outside your pass or ticket that count for the upgrade. Show both your upgrade and Clipper card or ticket to the conductor when asked.

Zone Upgrades are good for 4 hours in one direction. This allows you to get off along the way and then get back on to continue your trip. Remember to allow enough time to complete the trip. If your ticket expires while aboard the train, you can be cited for fare evasion.

For monthly pass holders, you do not need to purchase zone upgrades on weekends and holidays. One of the perks is that you can travel through all zones on those days using the monthly pass.

To Sum Up:
*Zone upgrades are for traveling beyond the zone(s) on your pass. You can only use them with monthly pass, day pass, or single ride tickets.
*Zone upgrades are cheaper than a one way fare and can only be purchased at Caltrain ticket machines.
*Zone upgrades are good for four hours in one direction.
*Zone upgrade validity period does not supersede the original ticket.

Sources:
Caltrain.com (Codified Tariff)
Clipper card (website)

Animal Shelter Needs Food For Titanic’s Pantry

Over the years I have heard many different ways Titanic is used. It is overused as a cliché. These days it is hard not to here someone say “like rearranging deck chairs on Titanic.”I never knew that an animal shelter in Sacramento, CA had named its pantry for animals Titanic’s.

Titanic, the Sacramento Animal Care Services Mascot (sacbee.com)
Titanic, the Sacramento Animal Care Services Mascot (sacbee.com)

According to the Sacramento Bee , the city’s Animal Care Services has been providing free animal food to those who cannot afford to buy it. This is to help struggling families so that the do not give their pets up. This year the cupboard is bare due to high demand and low contributions. Donations usually come from people either dropping off animal food or from pet stores. They are asking for help to meet the increased demand.

In case your wondering, the pantry is named for their mascot who is described as “gargantuan” and hence the name Titanic.

Source: The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Animal Shelter Seeks Pet Food Donations For Pantry, 17 Aug 2011

Titanic, historic ship, and general history news.