Hobo Jungle

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I think cautious, not stubborn.

There was a good measure of stubborn and irrationality as well combined with the usual underlying isolationism.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

As a teacher of 7th and 8th grade mathematics, during the early 1970's, I was ordered to include the Metric System in the curriculum. We were provided with hands-on equipment for measuring weight/mass (grams), liquid volume (liters), and linear dimensions (meters). Having had absolutely no education, personally, in that system during my basic education during the 40's - 60's, including college, it was a pleasant challenge keeping a few chapters ahead of my students and being able to inculcate the basics. The whole adventure was enjoyable for its newness and it's logic - using base 10 for everything, as multiples-of and decimal-fractions of. I strove for absolute mastery by 100 o/o of the class and got it. The metric system was crystal clear in its simplicity.
Mr. Murph

[healey36]

I was out to Western Maryland this week for my daughter's graduation from Frostburg State. I had a few hours to kill Wednesday afternoon, so I had a walk around the hotel in Cumberland.

The C&O Canal was completed in 1850, with operations lasting 93 years (1831-1924). It was 184.5 miles long, running parallel to the Potomac River from Georgetown to Cumberland. The terminus was originally located directly behind the Fairfield hotel near the confluence of Wills Creek and the Potomac. The basin is filled in now, but the last few hundred yards of the canal have been excavated and "restored":


The Potomac, looking south. The old B&O mainline runs along the bank on the left:


Traces of the original canal stonework remain, but most were obliterated by the flood-control levee's built by the Corps of Engineers back in the late 1950's/early 1960's:




They built a replica canal boat about forty years ago...I remember seeing this when I was at Frostburg in the 1970's. Back then it sat down near the old PPG plant south of Cumberland, a mile or so downstream from the CSX yard and the old B&O mainline:


There's a monument to all of the Irishmen who died digging the canal:


Here's the point where the Potomac and Will's Creek join. The girder bridge in the foreground is used today by the WMSRR to bring their excursion train across the river to the old Western Maryland station just beyond the I-68 overpass:


Here's couple of pic's of the old station, still looking pretty sharp:




At the end of the station right-of-way sits the old Algonquin Hotel, now an assisted-living facility. This was a top-of-the-line hotel in Cumberland, built in 1926 as a residentail hotel for the affluent but converted to a traditional hotel with individual rooms in the 1930's. The New York Yankees stayed here once when they played an exihibition game against their minor league affilitate Cumberland Colts. My father recalled staying there during the early 1950's when he was out to the western part of the state for meetings for the State Roads Commission. I imagine it was convenient for folks staggering off passenger trains during one of Cumberland's winter snow-storms, just a short walk from the station:


A fitting reminder for this weekend, a monument sits at the end of the station platform, erected by the employees of the Western Maryland on behalf of all of their WM comrades lost during The Great War, 1917-1918. There's over six hundred names here, a seemingly hefty price paid by one company, one region:


Hope you all have a good, thoughtful Memorial Day weekend.

Healey

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Seeing your photos and reading your explanations is certainly a treat. Thank you for sharing it all here on MTJ, Healey
Murph

[rogruth]

Ditto Murph.

[E7]

Healey,

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing! The station is a work of art!

When I think of the Potomac, the area around Harper's Ferry, West Virginia always comes to mind. Some spectacular scenery there also. Sadly I have no photos from there to share.

Rich

[sarge]

Healey:

We missed each other only by a day each way. I went through Cumberland and Frostburg on 68 on Tuesday headed out west to the very southwestern tip of Indiana, and came back through Thursday. Saw many of the structures in your photos from motorway height.

I had to go out to my late uncle's and box up his model railroad equipment. A bit wistful as he was the guy that started me down this road at a very tender age. We also met every year up in Altoona at least once a year from 1972 through 2013, some 40 years of a pleasant tradition only broken by periods of overseas duty. We also got a lot of model railroad tourism done whenever I was stationed at Ft. Campbell, for he and his mob were only 100 miles away; near enough to drive for a weekend and far enough to be very culturally untainted by my world.

However, it is life. I see old friends pass. My son enters junior high next year; every old man should have a young son around to breathe life in his soul (Right, Jon?), your daughter graduated college, another old friend (this one in Australia) has been made a grandfather three times over in the last nine months. I'm glad your trip was for the reason it was, and congratulations are in order, I believe?

[healey36]

Thanks Sarge...too bad we didn't get the chance to pound a few at the Baltimore Street Grill. And sorry to hear about your Uncle...people tell me that it's just the progression of life, but I never seem to be able to take the losses well.

I spent Thursday packing out the kid's apartment...never could have imagined the amount of stuff she had accumulated in four years. Fortunately the place was furnished so I didn't have to haul furniture, but both the SUV and the Beetle were packed to the point of bursting. So for now she is home, and I'm glad...she pushes me, much more so than her mother. It will be a long summer.

The happy grad and parents:


Note: This is a perfect case study of genetics and the law of averages, lol...

Healey

[Daisy]

Well at least it's not snowing! Happy Saturday Night to all hobos who snuch their way into the CLub CAr and the drinks are on me.

[rogruth]

We will see you there,I hope.

[ChipR]

Healey,

Go 'Noles!

ChipR

[webenda]

Well at least it's not snowing! Happy Saturday Night to all hobos who snuch their way into the CLub CAr and the drinks are on me.

Thank you Daisy. Whoa, here it comes!!!

Did the train hit a bump?

Next round on me. Anyone else want to join?

Ah... this is good. It is getting kind of hot here in Tucson.

[rogruth]

I'll do the next round.
It has been hot here in Georgia also.
Not as hot as Tucson but we have had @ half of May at 90+,earliest ever to be that hot.

[webenda]

This is a change for both of us then Roger.

Where are we? I know we are in the lounge car but the engine is stuck in the snow.

Where is Sarge with his covered lawn tractor when we need him?

[webenda]

Here he comes:



What is he in? Is that a snow blower... or