#locomotive fanatics

[violet-evergarden-typo-quotes]

Isildor: If you're wondering why we attacked the train, we weren't. We were attacking the people ON the train. We're big trainaboos, you see, and we didn't approve of them decommissioning the train for scrap metal. I mean... it's a historic train, you know! So much history is on that train! Why would you decommission it!? 💢😭

[tyranitarkisser]

Detective Finnegan “Windward” Dauphin… a seasoned and perhaps a bit overconfident private investigator from out of town, Detective Windward has only recently been separated from his long-time partner (personal differences, long story!) and is struggling on his own more than he would like to admit. He has a razor sharp wit and is quick to make judgements, though his intuition isn’t always correct, and in situations where he isn’t, he’s very skilled at saving face and playing his aloof persona. He talks like an old-timey 1950s radio show host.

Mara Eleana Fusilli is a humble clairvoyant who has worked most of her life in a tent by the undersea wharf. Equipped with her unique psychic powers, her sonar abilities are leagues above other dolphins. Where many others would abuse this power for personal gain, Mara doesn’t quite know what to make of it and tries not to let it affect her personal life, preferring to help others with it instead. Because of this, she is a bit lonely and fast to cling to people that show her positive attention. She is prone to acting on impulse and getting into trouble as a result.

Trick Turntable is one half of the ocean’s first train conductor duo. She carries herself with a kind and motherly persona, ready to hear out anyone who may need assistance or god forbid, is lost. She’s very protective of her adoptive brother, Track, and the two are rarely seen apart from one another. The two of them are very interested in locomotives and it was Trick’s idea to begin the ocean’s first public transit system to ensure all whales get to their destinations safely. She is known to be a little playful and curious, too!

Track Turntable is the other half to the iconic narwhal/beluga train conductor duo. Having lost his way from the rest of his birth family as a young calf navigating northern waters during the summer time, he was subsequently found and taken in by Trick’s pod and treated like one of their own. Today he is just as helpful as his sister, though he can be a bit slow on the uptake and forgetful. (Don’t surprise him from behind or you might just get a wack in the face from his tusk!) He is the more technical-minded of the two and a skilled repairman. Growing up in Trick’s family, he picked up their light southern American accents into adulthood.

Stevie Bermuda is a slimy con man with an annoying Trans-Atlantic accent with a grandiose sense of self that has traveled much of the world’s oceans to find new dolphins to assimilate into his fraudulent causes. Everything from pyramid schemes, impersonation, fake business scams, and even cults, it doesn’t seem like anything he tries brings him any sense of personal fulfillment. He doesn’t care for love or friendship, just shallow gratification. He also seems to have an irrational fear of children and teenagers… They might just be his downfall someday! 

Kanpacho is a guitar playing cool guy that has found his home by the wharf where he met Mara. He makes most of his money by playing nice songs for visiting dolphins and cargo workers alike. He’s well liked by everyone and has a Brazilian accent.

Ben Sleepy is a dolphin that seems to get a kick out of sleeping in the most inconvenient of places. When he’s not sleep-swimming or finding an (un)comfortable spot to snuggle up in, he can be found at buffets completely decimating the shrimp bar.

Casper Cantor is a businessman by day and prankster by night. He is the CEO of the business that runs the undersea wharf, dealing with most of the transport and cargo shipments going in and out of the town. He is an avid fanatic of clowns and in his free time will don his jester persona and entertain others with his magic tricks. The only person that knows his secret is his daughter, Melody, of whom he is very supportive of her creative endeavors. Maybe he’s where she gets her imagination from?

Melody Cantor is a young hypochondriac dolphin and elementary school student with an irrational fear of getting wet. She can easily be identified in a crowd with her umbrella she takes with her everywhere and her yellow raincoat. She is a talented artist and poet.

Cat is a zoologist with a sprawling collection of specimens from all seven seas. She is eager to educate all who are willing to listen to her ramble about all the different species of sea slugs.

Skip is a studious young foreign exchange student. Both of his parents are busy back home being surgeons and expect great things from him, which can sometimes be stressful on an impressionable little sea lion. This doesn’t dampen his spirit though, and his best friend Melody does a great job of bringing out his creative side. He is sometimes teased by his classmates for being different, and whenever he feels homesick Trick and Track will act as his parents away from home.

Henry XVIII is the 18th in a long line of Turntable family pets and mascot for Trick and Track’s Arctic Express. He's a great listener, even if he is quite old for a nautilus. 

James Circuits is the local record shop owner, right next door to Mara’s fortune telling tent! He can be a little spacey and hangs around questionable folks but he means well... His music knowledge is all encompassing, but his favorite is classic R&B.

Pollux Cantor, like his brother Casper, is a businessman, albeit a much less successful one that can’t ever catch a break. He’s bent on moving up in Stevie’s company and doesn’t seem to realize he is being taken advantage of. He's hopelessly addicted to caffeine and remoras frequently attach themselves to him and feed on the excess.

Madame Roachè is a prideful socialite on the cutting edge of all fashion trends that hit the Arctic landscape.

[prof-lemon]

What's the most fascinating fact about Voltorb?

-@fox-poke-fanatic

Hello! Hmm... its hard to pick one. One that I find particularly interesting is their second set of eyelids. A Voltorb's primary form of locomotion is rolling, and that often means rolling directly over their face. As an adaptation, Voltorb have a second set of eyelids that helps them keep out dust and debris from rolling on the ground!

[borntobecheap]

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… THE NICEST KIDS IN TOWN!”

IF I HAVE one regret in life, it's that I wasn't a Buddy Deaner. Sure, as a teenager I was a guest on this Baltimore show. I even won the twist contest with Mary Lou Raines (one of the queens of "The Buddy Deane Show") at a local country club.

But I was never a Deaner. Not a real one. Not one of the Committee members, the ones chosen to be on the show every day—the Baltimore version of the Mouseketeers, "the nicest kids in town," as they were billed. The guys who wore sport coats with belts in the back from Lee's of Broadway (ten percent discount for Committee members), pegged pants, pointy-toe shoes with the great buckles on the side and "drape" (greaser) haircuts that my parents would never allow. And the girl Deaners, God, "hair-hopppers" as we called them in my neighborhood, the ones with the Etta gowns, bouffant hairdos and cha-cha heels. These were the first role models I knew. The first stars I could identify with. Arguably the first TV celebrities in Baltimore.

I'm still a fan—a Deaner groupie. I even named some of the characters in my films after them. So you can't imagine how excited I was when I finally got a chance to interview these local legends twenty years later.

"The Buddy Deane Show" was a teenage dance party, on the air from 1957 to 1964. It was the top-rated local TV show in Baltimore and, for several years, the highest rated local TV program in the country. While the rest of the nation grew up on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" (which was not even shown here because Channel I3 already had "Buddy Deane"), Baltimoreans, true to form, had their own eccentric version. Every rock 'n' roll star of the day (except Elvis) came to town to lip-sync and plug their records on the show: Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Fats Domino, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon and Fabian, to name just a few.

You learned how to be a teenager from the show. Every day after school kids would run home, tune in and dance with the bedpost or refrigerator door as they watched. If you couldn't do the Buddy Deane Jitterbug (always identifiable by the girl's ever-so-subtle dip of her head each time she was twirled around), you were a social outcast. And because a new dance was introduced practically every week, you had to watch every day to keep up. It was maddening: the Mashed Potato, the Stroll, the Pony, the Waddle, the Locomotion, the Bug, the Handjive, the New Continental and, most important, the Madison, a complicated line dance that started here and later swept the country.

Although the show has been off the air for more than twenty years, a nearly fanatical cult of fans has managed to keep the memory alive. The producers of Diner wanted to include "Buddy Deane" footage in their film, but most of the shows were live and any tapes of this local period piece have been erased. Last spring five hundred people quickly snapped up the $23 tickets to the third Buddy Deane Reunion, held at a banquet hall in East Baltimore, to raise money for the Baltimore Burn Center. Buddy himself, the high priest, returned for the event. And more important, so did the Committee, still entering by a special door, still doing the dances from the period with utmost precision. I was totally star-struck and had as much fun that night as I did at the Cannes Film Festival. All on tacky Pulaski Highway.

IN THE BEGINNING there was Arlene. Arlene Kozak, Buddy's assistant and den mother to the Committee. Now a receptionist living in suburbia with her husband and two grown children, Arlene remains fiercely loyal, organizing the reunions and keeping notebooks filled with the updated addresses, married names and phone numbers of all "my kids."

She met Winston J. "Buddy" Deane in the fifties when she worked for a record wholesaler and he was the top-rated disc jockey on WITH — the only DJ in town who played rock 'n' roll for the kids. Joel Chaseman, also a DJ at WITH, became program manager of WJZ-TV when Westinghouse bought it in the mid-fifties. Chaseman had this idea for a dance party show, with Buddy as the disc jockey, and Buddy asked Arlene to go to work for him.

On the air "before Dick Clark debuted," the show "was a hit from the beginning," says Arlene today.

The Committee, initially recruited from local teen centers, was to act as hosts and dance with the guests. To be selected you had to bring a "character reference" letter from your pastor, priest or rabbi, qualify in a dance audition and show in an interview ("the Spotlight") that you had "personality." At first the Committee had a revolving membership, with no one serving longer than three months.

But something unforeseen happened: The home audience soon grew attached to some of these kids. So the rules were bent a little; the "big" ones, the ones with the fan mail, were allowed to stay.

And the whole concept of the Committee changed. The star system was born.

If you were a Buddy Deane Committee member, you were on TV six days a week for as many as three hours a day-enough media exposure to make Marshall McLuhan's head spin. The first big stars were Bobbi Burns and Freddy Oswinkle, according to Arlene, but "no matter how big anyone got, someone came along who was even bigger."

Joe Cash and Joan Teves became the show's first royalty.

Joanie, whose mother "wanted me to be a child star," hit the show in early 1957 at age thirteen (you had to be fourteen to be eligible, but many lied about their ages to qualify), followed a few months later by Joe, seventeen. Like many couples, Joe and Joan m* through the show and became "an item" for their fans. Many years later they married.

"I saw the show as a vehicle to make something of myself," remembers Joe. "I was aggressive. I wanted to get into the record business" —and years later he did.

Joe started working for Buddy as "teen assistant" and, along with Arlene, oversaw the Committee and enforced the strict rules.

You received demerits for almost anything: Chewing gum. Eating the refreshments (Ameche's Powerhouses, the premiere teenage hangout's forerunner of the Big Mac), which were for guests only.

Or dancing with other Committee members when you were supposed to be dancing with the guests (a very unpopular rule allowed this only every fourth dance). And if you dared to dance the obscene Bodie Green (the Dirty Boogie), you were immediately a goner.

"I got a little power-crazed," admits Joe. "I thought I was running the world, so they developed a Board, and the Committee began governing itself." Being elected to the Board became the ultimate status symbol. This Committee's committee, under the watchful eye of Arlene, chose new members, taught the dance steps and enforced the demerit system, which could result in suspension or expulsion.

Another royal Deaner couple who met on the air and later married was Gene Snyder and Linda Warehime. They are still referred to, good naturedly by some, as "the Ken and Barbie of the show." Gene, a member of "the first Committee, and I underline first," later became president of the Board. Linda reverently describes her Committee membership as "the best experience I ever had in my life." They later became members of the "Permanent Committee," the hall of fame that could come back to dance even after retiring. "That was our whole social life, being a Buddy Deaner," says Gene. "It was a family: Buddy was the father, Arlene was the mother."

Even today Gene and Linda are the quintessential Deaner couple, still socializing with many Committee members, very protective of the memory, and among the first to "lead a dance" at the emotion-packed reunions. "Once a Deaner, always a Deaner," as another so succinctly puts it.

The early "look" of the Committee was typically fifties. And although few will now admit to having been drapes, the hairstyles at first were DAs, Detroits and Waterfalls for the guys and ponytails and DAs for the girls, who wore full skirts with crinolins and three or four pairs of bobby socks. Joe remembers "a sport coat I bought for $s from somebody who got it when he got out of prison.

I was able after a while to afford some clothes from Lee's of Broad-way" (whose selection of belted coats and pegged pants made it the Saks Fifth Avenue of Deaners).

One of the first ponytail princesses was "Peanuts" (Sharon Goldman, debuting at fourteen in 1958, Forest Park High School Chicken Hop), who went on the show because Deaners were "folk heroes." She remembers Paul Anka singing "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" to her on camera as she did just that. She became so popular that she was written up in the nationwide Sixteen magazine.

"On the show you were either a drape or a square," explains Sharon. "I was a square. I guess Helen Crist was the first drapette: the DA, the ballet shoes, oogies [tulle scarves], eye shadow—eye-liner was big then—and pink lipstick."

Helen Crist. The best little jitterbugger in Baltimore. The first and maybe the biggest Buddy Deane queen of all. Debuting at a mere eleven years of age, taking three buses every day to get to the show, wearing that wonderful white DA (created by her hairdresser father) and causing the first real sensation. She was one of the chosen few who went to New York to learn how to demonstrate the Madison and was selected for the "exchange committee" that represented Baltimore's best on "American Bandstand." She was the only one of the biggies who refused to be on the Board ("They had power; a lot were disliked because of it").

Helen's fans flocked to see her at the Buddy Deane Record Hops (Committee members had to make such personal appearances and sign autographs). "I got all these letters from the Naval Academy," Helen remembers, "so I went there one day, and all the midshipmen were hanging out the windows. It was a real kick!" Her fame even brought an offer to join the circus. "This man approached me, telegrammed me, showed up at the show. He wanted me to go to a summer training session to be a trapeze artist. I wanted to go, but my parents wouldn't let me. I was really mad. I wanted to join the circus."

Two other ponytail princesses who went on to the Buddy Deane hall of fame were Evanne Robinson, the Committee member on the show the longest, and Kathy Schmink. Today they seem opposites.

Over lunch at the Thunderball Lounge, in East Baltimore, Kathy remembers, "I could never get used to signing autographs. Why?' I'd wonder." She wasn't even a fan of the show. "It was a fluke. My mother wanted me to go; she took me down to the tryouts. At first I was so shy I hid behind the Coke machines."

But Evanne "used to come right home and head for the TV. I had always studied dance, and I wanted to go on (the show]. I'm the biggest ham." Although she denies being conscious of the cam-era, she admits, "I did try to dance up front. I wasn't going to go on and not be seen." But even Evanne turned bashful on one show, when Buddy made a surprise announcement. "I was voted prettiest girl by this whole army base. I was so embarrassed. Buddy called me up before the cameras, and I wasn't dressed my best. The whole day on the show was devoted to me."

BEING A TEENAGE STAR in Baltimore had its drawbacks. "It was difficult with your peers," recalls Peanuts. "You weren't one of them anymore." Outsiders envied the fame, especially if they lost their steadies to Deaners, and many were put off by boys who loved to dance. "Everybody wanted to kick a Buddy Deaner's ass," says Gene, recalling thugs waiting to jump Deaners outside the studio.

"It was so painful. It was horrible," says Joe. "I used to get death threats on the show. I'd get letters saying, If you show up at this particular hop, you're gonna get your face pushed in?" And Evanne still shudders as she recalls, "Once I was in the cafeteria.

One girl yelled 'Buddy Deaner' and then threw her plate at me. My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me."

The adoring fans could also be a hassle. "I must have had ten different phone numbers," says Helen, "and somehow it would get out. There were a lot of obscene phone calls."

And the rumors, God, the rumors. "They all thought all the girls were pregnant by Buddy Deane," remember several. "Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nun-nery," says Helen, laughing. "It was even in the papers. It was hilarious."

Some of the rumors were fanned on purpose. Because "Buddy Deane's" competition was soap operas, the budding teenage romances were sometimes played up for the camera. "One time I was going with this guy, and he was dancing with this guest I didn't like," says Evanne. "Buddy noticed my eyes staring and said, 'Do the same eyes.' And the camera got it." Kathy went even further. "I was with this guy named Jeff. We faked a feud. I took off my steady ring and threw it down. We got more mail: 'Oh, please don't break up!' Somebody even sent us a miniature pair of boxing gloves. Then we made up on camera."

Romance was one thing; sex was another. Most Deaner girls wouldn't even "tongue-kiss," claims Arlene, remembering the ruckus caused by a Catholic priest when the Committee modeled strapless Etta gowns on TV. From then on, all bare shoulders were covered with a piece of net.

Other vices were likewise eschewed. If a guy had one beer, it was a big deal. Some do remember a handful of kids getting high on cough medicine. "Yeah, it was Cosenel," says Joe. "They would drive me nuts when they'd come in the door, and I'd say, 'Man, you're gone. You are out of here. You are history.' "

Although many parents and WJZ insisted that Committee members had to keep up their grades to stay on the show, the reality could be quite different. With the show beginning at 2:30 in some years, cutting out of school early was common.

"I'd hook and have to dance in the back so the teachers couldn't see me," says Helen. "I had to get up there on time. My heart would have broken in two if I couldn't have gone on." Finally Helen quit Mergenthaler (Mervo) trade school, at the height of her fame. "The school tried to throw me out before. I couldn't be bothered with education. I wanted to dance."

"We had a saying: "The show either makes you or breaks you,'" says Kathy. "Some kids on the show went a little nuts, with stars in their eyes; they thought they were going to go to Hollywood and be movie stars."

Yet Joe was a dropout when he went on the show and then, once famous, went back to finish. And according to Arlene, Buddy encouraged one popular Committee member (Buzzy Bennet) to teach himself to read so he could realize his dream of being a disc jockey. He eventually became one of the most respected programmers in the country and was even written up in Time magazine.

WITH THE 1960s came a whole new set of stars, some with names that seemed like gimmicks, but weren't: Concetta Comi, the popular sister team of Yetta and Gretta Kotik. And then there was teased hair, replacing the fifties drape with a Buddy Deane look that so pervaded Baltimore culture (especially in East and South Baltimore) that its effect is still seen in certain neighborhoods.

Some of the old Committee kept up with the times and made the transition with ease. Kathy switched to a great beehive that resembled a trash can sitting on top of her head ("I looked like I was taking off"). And Helen, Linda and Joanie all got out the rat-tail teasing combs.

Fran Nedeloff (debuting at fourteen in 1961, Mervo High School cha-cha) remembers the look: "Straight skirt to the knee, cardigan sweater buttoned up the back, cha-cha heels, lots of heavy black eyeliner, definitely Clearasil on the lips, white nail polish. We used to go stand in front of Read's Drugstore, and people would ask for our autograph."

Perhaps the highest bouffants of all belonged to the Committee member who was my personal favorite: Pixie (who died several years later from a drug overdose). "You could throw her down on the ground, and her hair would crack," recalls Gene. Pixie was barely five feet tall, but her hair sometimes added a good six to eight inches to her height.

But by far the most popular hairdo queen on "Buddy Deane" was a fourteen-year-old Pimlico Junior High School student named Mary Lou Raines. Mary Lou, the Annette Funicello of the show, was the talk of teenage Baltimore. Every week she had a different "do" —the Double Bubble, the Artichoke, the Airlift -each topped off by her special trademark, suggested by her mother, the bow.

"We really sprayed it," remembers Mary Lou today from her home in Pennsylvania. "The more hair spray, the better. After you sprayed it, you'd get toilet paper and blot it. Sometimes you'd wrap your hair at night. If you leaned on one side, the next day you'd just pick it out" into shape.

Mary Lou was the last of the Buddy Deane superstars, true hair-hopper royalty, the ultimate Committee member. "We have a tele-gram," Buddy would shout almost daily, "for Mary Lou to lead a dance," and the cameraman seemed to love her. "When that little red light came on, so did my smile," she says, laughing. At her appearances at the record hops, "kids would actually scream when you'd get out of the car: 'There's Mary Lou! Oh, my God, it's Evanne!' Autograph books, cameras, this is what they lived for. They sent cakes on my birthday. They'd stand outside my home. They just wanted to know if you were real. I was honored, touched by it all."

Mary Lou was aware that in some neighborhoods it was not cool to be a Buddy Deaner. "Oh sure, if you were Joe College (pre-preppie), you just didn't do 'The Deane Show.'" "Did you ever turn into a Joe College?" I ask innocently. "No!" she answers, with a conviction that gives me the chills.

But as more and more kids (even "Deane" fans) did turn Joe College, many of the Committee made the mistake of not keeping up with the times. Marie Fischer was the first "Joe" to become a Committee member-chosen simply because she was such a good dancer. As with the drapes and squares of the previous decade, she explains, "there were two classes of people then-Deaners and Joe College. The main thing was your hair was flat, the antithesis of Buddy Deane," she says, chuckling. "I was a misfit. Every day I'd come to the studio in knee-highs, and I'd have to take them off. You had to wear nylons. Before long I started getting lots of fan mail: I think you're neat. I'm Joe, too.' There was a change in the works."

Part of that change was the racial integration movement. "I had a lot of black friends at the time, so for me this was an awkward thing," says Marie. "To this day, I'm reluctant to tell some of my black friends I was on 'Buddy Deane' because they look at it as a terrible time."

Integration ended "The Buddy Deane Show." When the subject comes up today, most loyalists want to go off the record. But it went something like this: "Buddy Deane" was an exclusively white show. Once a month the show was all black; there was no black Committee. So the NAACP targeted the show for protests. Ironi-cally, "The Buddy Deane Show" introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio. Buddy offered to have three or even four days a week all black, but that wasn't it. The protesters wanted the races to mix.

At frantic meetings of the Committee, many said, "My parents simply won't let me come if it's integrated," and WIZ realized it just couldn't be done. "It was the times," most remember. "This town just wasn't ready for that." There were threats and bomb scares; integrationists smuggled whites into the all-black shows to dance cheek to cheek on camera with blacks, and that was it. "The Buddy Deane Show" was over. Buddy wanted it to end happily, but WJZ angered Deaners when it tried to blame the ratings.

On the last day of the show, January 4, 1964, all the most popular Committee members through the years came back for one last appearance. "I remember it well," recalls Evanne. "Buddy said to me, 'Well, here's my little girl who's been with me the longest.' I hardly ever cried, but I just broke down on camera. I didn't mean to, because I never would have messed up the makeup."

IN 1985 THE COMMITTEE MEMBERs are for the most part happy and healthy, living in Baltimore, and still recognized on the street. "They kept their figures, look nice and are very kind people," says Marie from her lovely country home before taking off for the University of Maryland, where she attends law school.

Most are happily married with kids and maintain the same images they had on the show. "We are kind of like Ozzie and Harriet," says Gene Snyder as Linda nods in agreement. "I'm a typical middle-class housewife," says Peanuts, "Girl Scout leader, very active in my kid's school." Mary Lou is still a star. That she has an affluent life-style surprises no one on the Committee. In her home, near Allentown, Pennsylvania, she serves me a beautiful brunch, models her fur coats and poses with her Mercedes. "When I get depressed, I don't go to the psychiatrist; I go to the jeweler," she says.

Oddly enough, few of the Deaners I've talked to went on to show biz. Joe Cash has Jonas Cash Promotions ("my own promotional firm—we represent Warner Brothers, Columbia, Motown-eighty-five percent of the music you hear in this market")-and Active Industry Research (a "research firm-I'm chairman of the board"). Evanne and her brother run the John Brock Benson Dance Studios and have a line of dancers who appear at clubs all over the state. But most have settled down to a very straight life.

And none are bitter. Although the Committee was a valuable promotional tool for WJZ at the time, and belonging was a full-time job, no one (except teen assistants) was paid a penny. Even doing commercials was expected. Mary Lou laughs at the memory of doing a pimple medicine spot on camera. And who can forget those great ads for the plastic furniture slipcovers that opened with the kids jumping up and down on the sofa and a local announcer screaming, "Hey, kids! Get off that furniture!"? Or the Bob-a-Loop? Or Hartford Motor Coach Company? Or Snuggle Dolls? The Deaners didn't mind. As Marie puts it, "The rewards were so great emotionally that you didn't have to ask for a monetary award."

Many had difficulties dealing with the void when the show went off the air. Gene calls it "a big loss." "It was living in a fantasy world," says Helen, "and later on, growing up, it was a definite blow: reality." "I still have a whole box of fan mail," says Evanne. "If I'm ever depressed, sometimes I think, 'Well, this will make me feel better,' and I go down and dig in the box."

Holding onto the memories more than anyone is Arlene Kozak, who is by far the most loved by all the Committee members. (They gave her a diamond watch at the last reunion.) "Do you miss show biz?" I ask her. "Not show biz," Arlene answers, hesitating, "but the record biz, the people. Yes, I miss it very much. I don't think I'll ever get over missing it, if you want to know the truth."

Many of the Committee members' spouses faced an even bigger adjustment. In "mixed marriages" (with non-Deaners), many of the outsiders resented their spouses' pasts. "At twenty-one I married a professional football player," Helen remembers, "and he made me burn all the fan mail. I had trunks of it. He was mad because I was as popular as he was. He just didn't understand."

But some have dealt with the problems in good humor. When Mary Lou's husband gave me the long and complicated directions to their home on the phone, he ended with, "And there you will find, yes, Mary Lou Raines." He later confided that when he first started dating her, he had no idea of her early career. "Everywhere we went, people would say 'There's Mary Lou.' I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary."

THE BUDDY DEANE phenomenon is hardly dead. Each reunion (and a new one is in the works) seems bigger than the last. Deaners seem to come out of the woodwork, drawn by the memory of their stardom. Buddy returns on a pilgrimage from St. Charles, Arkansas, where he owns a hunting and fishing lodge and sometimes appears on TV, to spin the hits and announce multiplication dances, ladies® choice, or even, after a few drinks, the Limbo. Some of the really dedicated Committee members get tears in their eyes. Was it really twenty years ago? Could it be?

Why not do "The Deane Show" on Baltimore TV again? Just once. A special. The ultimate reunion. From all over the country, the Deaners could rise again, congregate at the bottom of Television Hill, and start Madison-ing their way ("You're looking good. A big strong line!") up the hill to that famous dance party set, the one that now houses a talk show. The "big garage-type door" they remember would open, and they'd all pile in, past George and "Mom," the Pinkerton guards who used to keep attendance, and crowd into Arlene's office to comb their hair, confide their problems and touch up their makeup. Buddy could take his seat beneath his famous Top 20 Board, and the tension would build. "Ten seconds to airtime. . . . three, two, one. Ladies and gentlemen. . . the nicest kids in town!"

John Waters (Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters, 1986)

[suchananewsblog]

Watch Out Casey Jones: We Drive a Locomotive

From the September 1990 problem of Car and Driver. We’ve been giddy from velocity in Cor­vette ZR-1s and dizzy from the value of Cadillac Allantés, however we have by no means pushed a General Motors product that affected us like this earlier than. GM’s new SD-60 is a brutal-looking three-seater outfitted with all the things an fanatic might hope for: all-wheel drive, all-wheel steering, a large…

[girlyliondragon]

I’ll never ever forgive the Netflix Watership Down series for bringing back and modernizing the misconception that rabbits are digitigrade when not in motion and are just like that in general.

I can forgive EVERYTHING ELSE about their designs, them and their not-rabbit-but-rather-hare designs. But the fucking digitigrade legs? When rabbits are if you know how lagomorphs are built are fucking plantigrade???

NO.

[lottalucamotion]

Alright peeps it's time for more train related info dumping! This time it's relivent to the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles as it's my most recent hyperfixation. As a train fanatic I of course hard core apprected the scene for when our heroes, Ryunosuke Naruhodo and Susato Mikotoba arrive in London by train and stop to admire the steam locomotives in the station.

So let's talk about those engines

So for context, this game takes place in the year 1900. Since this is well before the establishment of British Rail we are looking at a smaller privatized railway company. For this time period with service to London we would be looking at the North Eastern Railway which still exists today as the London North Eastern Railway (LNER). I can already tell upon looking at the livery of rollingstock that the livery shown in the games is consistent with the real deal. Who could ever forget the LNER green livery of the world famous Flying Scotsman?

As you can see the engines shown in the game are consistent with the green livery, gold accents, and red buffer board. So while we are looking at these engines, let's put a name to these locomotive faces. Starting with the two tank engines on the right.

Both of these engines most closely resemble Aerolite which would make sense chronologically except for only one of these engines was built and it wasn't a member of a class until around 1910 when it was considered a member of the X1 class (which was mass produced beginning in 1909)

That is unless the Great Ace Attorney and Thomas and Friends take place in the same universe and we are looking at Aerolite and Whiff (who is based on Aerolite) side by side

Sure you could argue that they are class Es or Js, but the shapes are not right at all for that.

Anyways Aerolite was NER 66 built in 1869 and served until 1933.

So how about the engine on the left? Oh good another one that makes me want to pull my hair out because it's a Raven class 4-6-0 which weren't built until 1910

I'm not having fun anymore.

And before you ask, Queen Victoria died in 1901 and Soseki Natsume was the correct age for the game to take place in 1900 so "maybe the setting of the game was in the 1910s" is not a viable option here.

Anyways the Raven class was a "high speed" mixed traffic engine and for some reason the one they showed doesn't have a cab.

Ok can I have a nice refreshing period accurate engine now please?

Ok engine on the far far left appears to be an NER 901 class engine oh thank fuck an accurate engine at last.

This baby was built between 1873 and 1882 and served until 1925.

I guess at the end of the day I can't complain too much over the accuracy because A. It was a few seconds of footage, B. They were mostly in the ballpark of correct timing, it's not like they were WAAYYY off, and C. Most people aren't fucking weirdos like myself who will obsess over details as trivial and stupid as the accuracy of steam engines in a lawyer game that takes plenty of obvious creative liberties anyways.

[joezworld]

Conspiracy theory for this world - since powered vehicles always come to life, whereas sentient rolling stock is rare in most of the world, Walt Disney invented the peoplemover so he could have public transit without having to account for the needs and rights of sapient vehicles in his proposed EPCOT city?

Oh that's not even a conspiracy. (Except for Disney)

How to make vehicles non-sentient has long been the wet dream of a lot of governments and big organizations. The ability to not have to pay wages for a massive battleship/oil tanker/locomotive are very appealing, and many, many attempts have been made to build craft in a way that are "non-sentient".

It very rarely works, but still, they try.

It's actually why a lot of naval vessels are named after geographic places as opposed to human names - for a very long time, it was believed that giving them non-human names would make them less likely to be built alive.

This is of course utter horseshit, and actually has contributed to a lot of the human-machine divide in a lot of country's navies, as the official stance of US Navy until the 80's was that they never built a vessel intending for it to be alive, which meant that a lot of ships either had serious underlying issues about being "wanted", or were generally not treated that well.

(Of course, at the end of the day, the most navies did deal with the issue and commission the vessels anyways, albeit not always without faults - USS Iowa was notably a raging bitch for most of her life, in no small part because she was immediately given the rank of Rear Admiral straight out of the shipyard.)

This attitude even pervaded some non-naval institutions, as while the USAF treated most of their jets like normal people, NASA had a notable divide between its air- and space-craft fleet and the human employee population after the start of the Space Shuttle program. (The Apollo program didn't involve many sentient craft for obvious reasons) This divide worsened after the events of STS-51L and STS-27R, and the Shuttle fleet basically kept to themselves out in Florida, ignoring most of NASA unless they needed to publish a paper or something. Some catastrophically bad KSC administrators in the early 90s cemented this opinion, and a lot of the more 'interesting' things that happened in the shuttle program in the 90s and 2000s occurred without NASA's higher-ups knowing.

Of course, that's a very America-centric viewpoint, and a lot of other countries don't do that - Japan being one notable country, instead treating their new Naval Self Defense Force ships like any other human. The Norwegians are also very good at this, as the largest ship of their postwar navy - The (former) German Battleship Tirpitz - is a major believer in the "nurture" side of the "nature vs nurture" argument, and considering that she's been in the Norwegian Navy since the 40's, she kinda gets to make those decisions. (Without going into a lot of detail/another long tangent, her older brother Bismarck was violent and fanatical and Tirpitz... wasn't. She personally puts a lot of stock into how the different Kreigsmarine fleet yards treated the two when they were being built.)

-

-

-

Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about Disney, wasn't it?

Walt Disney actually had no qualms about including sentient vehicles in his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. He was a noted railfan for most of his life, and employed many vehicles in all capacities across the Disney Company - in fact, EPCOT, and all other Disney parks are specially designed with wide paths specifically to allow vehicles to enter the park.

That being said, the Peoplemover ride itself was designed for its vehicles to be non-sentient, however it wasn't for any nefarious or conspiratorial reasons. While Disney's Monorail fleet at least has over 100 miles of tracks to run on, the Peoplemover is basically a captive loop, with one station and no track to the outside world. Putting a sentient vehicle in the system would be cruel at best. Thus, the WEDway system was used.

The WEDway system is basically a floor-mounted motor drive system for public transit applications, and as such, doesn't have sentient (unpowered) rolling stock. This solves a lot of the moral issues that come with building captive systems like peoplemovers and subways, as it allows for the loop to be built as a cheap self-contained system instead of one requiring more expensive outside connections.

[myhauntedsalem]

32 INCREDIBLY WEIRD DEATHS

1. Brazilian Joao Maria de Souza was killed in 2013 when a cow fell through his roof onto him as he slept.

2. Clement Vallandigham, a 19th century US lawyer, accidentally shot himself dead while defending a murder suspect – because he was trying to demonstrate that a supposed victim could have accidentally shot himself dead. (It worked, because his client was acquitted.)

3. Canadian lawyer Garry Hoy died while trying to prove that the glass in the windows of a 24th floor office was unbreakable, by throwing himself against it. It didn’t break – but it did pop out of its frame and he plunged to his death.

4. In 2007 the deputy mayor of Delhi, Surinder Singh Bajwa, died falling off a balcony while trying to fend off a troupe of attacking monkeys.

5. Monica Meyer, the mayor of Betterton, Maryland, died while checking her town’s sewage tanks – she fell in and drowned in 15 feet of human waste.

6. Sigurd the Mighty, a ninth-century Norse earl of Orkney, was killed by an enemy he had beheaded several hours earlier. He’d tied the man’s head to his horse’s saddle, but while riding home one of its protruding teeth grazed his leg. He died from the infection.

7. The owner of the company that makes Segways died in 2010 after accidentally driving his Segway off a cliff.

8. Robert Williams, a Ford assembly line worker, is the first human in history to have been killed by a robot. He was hit by a robot arm in 1979.

9. In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race at Belmont Park in New York despite being dead — he suffered a heart attack mid-race, but his body stayed in the saddle until his horse crossed the line for a 20–1 outsider victory.

10. US congressman Michael F. Farley died in 1921 as a result of shaving – because his shaving brush was infected with anthrax.

11. Several people danced themselves to death during the month-long Dance Fever of 1518 in Strasbourg, during which hundreds of people danced for about a month for no clear reason.

12. Paul G. Thomas, the owner of a wool mill, fell into one of his machines in 1987 and died after being wrapped in 800 yards of wool.

13. Edward Harrison was playing golf in Washington state in 1951 when his driver snapped, and the shaft lodged in his groin. He staggered about 100 yards before bleeding to death.

14. In 1900, American physician Jesse William Lazear tried to prove that Yellow Fever was transmitted by mosquitoes by letting infected mosquitoes bite him. He then died of the disease. Proving himself right.

15. Russian physician Alexander Bogdanov performed pioneering blood transfusions on himself, believing they would give him long life. They actually killed him after he suffered an adverse reaction.

16. Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt thought he’d invented a device that could make men fly. He tested this by jumping off the Eiffel Tower wearing it. It didn’t work. He died.

17. In 1567, the man said to have the longest beard in the world died after he tripped over his beardrunning away from a fire.

18. The Greek philosopher Chrysippus of Soli is said to have died of laughter after watching a donkey trying to eat his figs.

19. British actor Gareth Jones died of a heart attack while performing in a live televised play in 1958 – in which his character was scripted to have a heart attack. The rest of the cast improvised around his death and finished the play.

20. Mary Ward was a pioneering Irish female scientist who is sadly better known as the first person in history to ever be killed in a car accident – while driving with her family in their experimental “road locomotive steam engine”.

21. And the first pedestrian ever killed by a car was Bridget Driscoll of Croydon, London, in 1896.

22. Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a brilliant Swedish chemist who had an unwise habit of tasting all the chemicals he discovered. He died in 1786 as a result of his exposure to lead, hydrofluoric acid, arsenic and various other poisons.

23. Engineer Horace Lawson Hunley pioneered submarine design in the American Civil War – although most of them sank. He died when his final model, named after himself, sank while he was in command of it.

24. General John Sedgwick was killed by a sniper in the American Civil War shortly after uttering the words “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” (Contrary to popular belief, though, they weren’t his last words. They were his second-last. His last words were agreeing that dodging was in fact a good idea.)

25. Health fanatic Basil Brown managed to kill himself by drinking a gallon of carrot juice a day, in the belief it would make him healthy.

26. In 1992, Greg Austin Gingrich died in the Grand Canyon after jokingly pretending to fall to his death, then losing his footing and actually falling to his death.

27. Queen Sunanda Kumariratana of Siam (now Thailand) drowned in 1880 in full view of many of her subjects – because they were forbidden to touch her, so couldn’t rescue her.

28. The first people ever killed in an air accident were hot air balloon pioneers Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain, in 1785.

29. And the first person ever killed in a powered aeroplane crash was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge in 1908, in a plane piloted by Orville Wright.

30. An Irish woman died in 2008 after voluntarily having sex with a dog. The exact cause of death is unclear, although it was speculated that an allergic reaction to dogs might have been the cause.

31. Twenty-one people died in the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, when a massive tank of molasses burst on a warm day, sending a 25ft high wave of sweetener through the city at 35mph.

32. And eight people died in the London Beer Flood of 1814, when a giant vat at a brewery burst, sending over 3,500 barrels of beer pouring though the nearby streets.

[meanscarletdeceiver]

L.N.E.R. #954 -> B.R. #68392

This engine, photographed here in the yards at 1960 (the same year it was withdrawn and scrapped), had a working life of 86 years, which is the longest I’ve come across “in the wild”—without special efforts at preservation or restoration and without major breaks in service. 

It was built in 1873 as an N.E.R. 0-4-4T “Bogie Tank Passenger” and ran branch line passenger services for 46 years... what is already an above-average working life, judging by my L.N.E.R. Encyclopedia browsing. 

But at that point a bunch of the “BTP”s were apparently like, “Oh, you’re giving away my current work? Fine. I mean, lame, but, whatever. So, what’s next? And don’t fucking say ‘scrap.’” 

“... well, your frames are a goddamn miracle of sturdiness, so. We could rebuild you into our new J77 0-6-0 shunting class?”

“Cool. Let’s do it.” 

No. 954 here may have logged the most years, but was not unique. Significant numbers of former-BTP J77s were in service over 70 years and maintained their turf in certain coalyards even against new diesel shunters for as long as their boilers could last. 

(pic * history)

The BTPs (and, specifically, their wildly successful original frames) started life as “Fletcher engines.” Edward Fletcher became locomotive superintendent of the N.E.R. in 1854 and definitely seems like one of the least bastard-like of the various designers featured on the L.N.E.R. Encyclopedia, because he was forward-looking but not exactly a fanatic about standardization, and also because he (gasp) actually listened to feedback from crewmen and accommodated their requests. 

(I gotta tell you, right now a slew of latter-day chief mechanical engineers are just staring in bafflement as they try to process this notion. Nigel Gresley not least of all tbh. Gresley would sometimes haul one of his new creations back in to re-do their cabs, but mostly because Scottish crews would just not. fucking. use. a new engine, no matter how desperately needed, if their cabs offered insufficient shelter from the weather. "Scottish crewmen still salty about re-grouping give their new L.N.E.R./B.R. overlords HELL" could have been another whole square on my L.N.E.R. Encyclopedia bingo card.) 

“Fletcher engines” tend to crop up again and again on the Encyclopedia as being long-lasting and incredibly popular with their drivers—though, again, No. 68392 was almost certainly the last Fletcher engine at full service. (Two other J77s seem to have survived into 1961, one as a reserve/spare engine and on in stationary service.) 

[skyfarer-pyrrhus]

Excerpt from Capt. S. Fitzroy’s Journal

20th January 1904: Departed from Port Prosper with four tons of refined hours and a crate of souls destined for New Winchester. We also took on a passenger, my old friend Dr. Adelia Langhorne. For a respectable sum we will be taking Langhorne and her cargo to the Eleutheria Transit Relay. The crew are mildly annoyed, but I will make it up to them in New Winchester after this detour is finished.

21st January 1904: My suspicions were correct and the contraband books Adelia brought on board aren’t the half of it. The worst case scenario is true. If Adelia is right, and I believe she is, the Empress never used the unclear bomb on the King of Hours. The Judgement was dead when the gate was opened, which means that the bomb the Revolutionaries made is still in the hands of the Her Renewed Majesty and that there is something else capable of killing suns. I shouldn’t have left the cause.

28th January 1904: I woke up in the infirmary at the Eleutheria Transit Relay Station today. From what I understand, Adelia was followed by one of the Glorious on board our ship. I don’t remember it, but I apparently confronted the assassin before he could strike and saved her life. I got stabbed in the gut for my troubles, damn New Sequence fanatics.

Keeping the crew in the dark was evidently a mistake. Selmer damn near killed Adelia who was too terrified and suspicious to come clean at first. Westlie and Marion found the contraband in the cargo hold, which didn’t help. It was Owen that found the assassin, though. He saw a stranger appear and disappear to the sound of a music box lullaby and went hunting for a stowaway. A second stowaway, I should clarify. Apparently, Selmer and Westlie found an urchin hiding in engineering that boarded in Port Prosper independent of this Glorious assassin. "Lizzie" has been adopted as the locomotive’s mascot.

After the stranger sabotaged the engine and navigation, the crew hunted him down. Westlie, Elijah, and Selmer cornered him after he attacked Adelia again, wounding her. During the interrogation, the truth of the matter came out and Westlie executed the Glorious agent by throwing him into the sky unprotected. The assassin was armed with a music box where the tines were made of purified hours. Using it wrapped the user in time and allowed them to instantaneously move around while the box was playing. I shudder to think of what else the Glorious has at their disposal.

To make matters worse, a Scrive-Spinster attacked the Pyrrhus and we only escaped because Marion rigged the music box up to the engine in a makeshift mobile transit relay. It destroyed the box and nearly destroyed the locomotive, but we made it to the ETRS. Elijah lost an eye.

I don’t think Selmer and Elijah will ever forgive me. I should have told them.

- Captain S. Fitzroy, the Pyrrhus

[thevividgreenmoss]

Vandals . – The haste, nervousness, restlessness observed since the rise of the big cities is now spreading in the manner of an epidemic, as did once the plague and cholera. In the process forces are being unleashed that were undreamed of by the scurrying passer-by of the nineteenth century. Everybody must have projects all the time. The maximum must be extracted from leisure. This is planned, used for undertakings, crammed with visits to every conceivable site or spectacle, or just with the fastest possible locomotion. The shadow of all this falls on intellectual work. It is done with a bad conscience, as if it had been poached from some urgent, even if only imaginary occupation. To justify itself in its own eyes it puts on a show of hectic activity performed under great pressure and shortage of time, which excludes all reflection, and therefore itself. It often seems as if intellectuals reserved for their actual production only those hours left over from obligations, excursions, appointments and unavoidable amusements. There is something repulsive, yet to a certain degree rational, about the prestige gained by those who can present themselves as such important people that they have to be on the spot everywhere. They stylize their lives with intentionally ham-acted discontent as a single acte de présence . The pleasure with which they turn down an invitation by reference to another previously accepted, signals a triumph between competitors. As here, so generally, the forms of the production process are repeated in private life, or in those areas of work exempted from these forms themselves. The whole of life must look like a job, and by this resemblance conceal what is not yet directly devoted to pecuniary gain. But the fear thus expressed only reflects a much deeper one. The unconscious innervations which, beyond thought processes, attune individual existence to historical rhythms, sense the approach ing collectivization of the world. Yet since integral society does not so much take up individuals positively within itself as crush them to an amorphous and malleable mass, each individual dreads the process of absorption, which is felt as inevitable. Doing things and going places is an attempt by the sensorium to set up a kind of counter-irritant against a threatening collectivization, to get in training for it by using the hours apparently left to freedom to coach oneself as a member of the mass. The technique is to try to outdo the danger. One lives in a sense even worse, that is, with even less self, than one expects to have to live. At the same time one learns through this playful excess of self-loss that to live in earnest without a self could be easier, not more difficult. All this is done in great haste, for no warning bells will announce the earthquake. If one does not take part, and that means, if one does not swim bodily in the human stream, one fears, as when delaying too long to join a totalitarian party, missing the bus and bringing on oneself the vengeance of the collective. Pseudo-activity is an insurance, the expression of a readiness for self-surrender, in which one senses the only guarantee of self-preservation. Security is glimpsed in adaptation to the utmost insecurity. It is seen as a licence for flight that will take one somewhere else with the utmost speed. In the fanatical love of cars the feeling of physical homelessness plays a part. It is at the bottom of what the bourgeois were wont to call, mistakenly, the flight from oneself, from the inner void. Anyone who wants to move with the times is not allowed to be different. Psychological emptiness is itself only the result of the wrong kind of social absorption. The boredom that people are running away from merely mirrors the process of running away, that started long before. For this reason alone the monstrous machinery of amusement keeps alive and constantly grows bigger without a single person being amused by it. It channels the urge to be in on the act, which otherwise, indiscriminately, anarchically, as promiscuity or wild aggression, would throw itself on the collective, itself con sisting of none other than those on the move. Most closely related to them are addicts. Their impulse reacts exactly to the dislocation of mankind that has led from the murky blurring of the difference between town and country, the abolition of the house, via the processions of millions of unemployed, to the deportations and uprooting of peoples on the devastated European continent. The nullity and lack of content of all collective rituals since the Youth Movement emerges retrospectively as a groping anticipation of stunning historical blows. The countless people who suddenly succumb to their own quantity and mobility, to the swarming getaway as to a drug, are recruits to the migration of nations, in whose desolated territories bourgeois history is preparing to meet its end.

Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia

[brawltalk]

Brawl Aboard! Boros Vehicles Deck Tech

Welcome to the brawl, friends! So we’ve got about three months left with Kaladesh and Aether Revolt legal. Let’s put that pile of vehicles to good use before it’s too late. Meet your captain:

Depala is the only option for our vehicles and she gives them a boost--not to mention boosting Dwarfs. There are definitely builds that focus on the Dwarf side as much or more than vehicles, but we want to drive. We’ll count on Dwarfs to crew when we can, but our focus will be first and foremost on those beautiful machines of locomotion. On that note, what are we riding into battle?

Using the 6x6 method which constructs the deck of six packages of six cards that work toward a specific thing, I’m devoting two of those packages to vehicles. We’re running twelve vehicles. We’re gonna see plenty of them. Note that as much as possible I went with stuff that Depala could crew on her own. She’s always available to us so we can feel safer running lighter on creatures to crew our vehicles in this format. Here’s my full list of vehicles: Aethersphere Harvester, Bomat Bazaar Barge, Conqueror’s Galleon, Cultivator’s Caravan, Daredevil Dragster, Fell Flagship, Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, Heart of Kiran, Peacewalker Colossus, Weatherlight, Fleetwheel Cruiser, Ballista Charger.

Next we want a support package. Stuff that will benefit out vehicles. We’ve got pilots like Veteran Motorist, Gearshift Ace, Speedway Fanatic, and Aeronaut Admiral. Then we’ve got the autopilot spell, Start Your Engines. Lastly, we round out this package with Sram, Senior Edificer. Also notice that a number of these creatures are Dwarfs who will benefit from Depala. I stayed away from Siege Modification and Aerial Modification because we really can’t afford two be two-for-oned like that. We have ways to turn our vehicles on and don’t need the enchantments for that.

We’ve got a dozen vehicles and a host of tools to make the most use of them. Now we gotta stay alive and keep the roads cleared for them. The remainder of this deck, a full three packages, works at just that. I’ve divided them into the groups of red removal, white removal, and general support.

For red removal we’re running Abrade, Soul-Scar Mage (because it can help with larger and indestructible creatures we might otherwise have trouble with), Magma Spray, Lightning Strike, Goblin Chainwhirler, and Shock.

Pretty straightforward stuff for white removal: Cast Out, Settle the Wreckage, Seal Away, Fumigate, Forsake the Worldly, and Isolate.

For more general support we’ve got the powerhouse Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Angel of Invention, Karn, Scion of Urza, Refurbish, Board the Weatherlight, and Built to Last.

We fill out the deck with 23 lands but Depala brings in a special exception. Our mana curve is incredibly low, essentially topping out at 4 CMC. There are a few spells above that but we honestly hope the game doesn’t go long enough to make use of them. An opening hand with a Mountain and a Plains is all I could ever want and I’m going to recommend cutting three lands and filling it out with a few more spells. My choices are Trusty Packbeast, Welding Sparks, and Servo Exhibition.

[trainghouls]

((So I already have to revise a thing--

Originally, I was going to say that the Blaze Brothers were pistons, but when I asked my brother about it, since he knew more about steam trains than I, he said that they were just made up things, so I did some research on what pistons were.

In doing this, I couldn’t find any definitive answer as to whether or not steam trains use pistons, so I decided to scrap the piston idea, and make the brothers experimental upgrades to help with the steam control.

Now I used to be a paranormal fanatic a while back. So I’d been watching paranormal stories and stuff on YouTube, but two nights in a row I went to bed and either had a nightmare, or was super paranoid about a ghost demon sitting on my bed and watching me sleep. So this time, I decided to watch videos about old steam trains, and wouldn’t you know it, the earliest steam trains used steam to push pistons back and forth to make the locomotive move! And this was the diagram 

Look familiar? 

So, because I hate scrapping head canons, the Blaze Brothers actually did in fact, have parents-- which were the original pistons. They were eventually replaced with the twins, which were experimental electronically enhanced steam-powered pistons. The electricity was to help immediately slowdown and speed up Thomas without having to hit the breaks, or toss more coal into the boiler. The Blaze Brothers essentially helped Thomas have a little more control over his speed, because like any train, once he gets up to speed, it’s hard for him to stop. 

Before the new Blaze pistons, Thomas would have to be pretty much completely dependent on the fireman shoveling in coal.

~ Double Z)) 

[naturecoaster]

Central Pasco & Gulf RR brings Joy to All Ages in Crews Lake Wilderness Park

Jeremy Carpenter takes his job as president of the Central Pasco & Gulf Railroad very seriously. Well...sort of. “We're just a bunch of old guys who love playing choo-choo,” Carpenter dead-panned. “My job is to keep the cranky ones in line.” Carpenter joked that he was voted in at a meeting because he had the misfortune of not being there to decline. He said his goal is to develop the non-profit attraction into a place where his two daughters and other local children can experience the vanishing institution of train travel. Jerry, along with some of the long-tenured members, harbors a true passion for what they do. What is the Central Pasco & Gulf RR? Established in 2006, the Central Pasco & Gulf RR winds its way through Crews Lake Wilderness Park, located at 16739 Crews Lake Drive in Spring Hill, Florida. This extensive railroad system is an authentic reproduction of a historic, full-sized system.  It has been built to miniature scale with locomotives that pull freight cars on track only 7.5 inches wide. Most of the engines are powered by a gasoline-hydraulic design, but a few privately-owned steam engines reside in the Oakland Engine House. These burn coal that is stored on the site. The passenger cars are stout enough to hold several people, including an authentically attired engineer who mans the locomotive. Established in 2006, the Central Pasco & Gulf RR winds its way through Crews Lake Wilderness Park, located at 16739 Crews Lake Drive in Spring Hill, Florida. This extensive railroad system is an authentic reproduction of a historic, full-sized system. Image by Kent Smith. This Ain't your average Toy Train Set The system is something only a fanatic could create: The track, yards, sidings, and 155 switches wind through the pine-and-oak forest 5.5 miles from the main switching station, called Sanford Yard, to the Carolwood East Barn, a train museum filled with rare collectibles. Stanford Yard includes a maze of dozens of tracks coming and going in almost every direction like a pile of unruly spaghetti. All the tracks are controlled by an electronic two-story switching tower. Sanford Yard has train tracks coming and going throughout, with a two-story switching tower. Image by Diane Bedard. This area also boasts functioning water towers, a large storage building housing an extensive workshop, and 10 steaming bays where trains can enter the system via a large hydraulic lift. A spacious administrative building and clubhouse are used to conduct group business and meetings, along with periodic classes on railroad safety for children that teach “Stop, look and listen” at rail stops and crossings. The group’s impressive workshop covers about 1,000 square feet, including a lathe, metal press, and machining equipment, where craftsmen can fabricate tracks, engines, and cars - essentially everything the system requires. “We just buy the steel and wood and turn it into what we need,” one member said. Front row L to R: Disney Historian Michael Broggie, Margaret Kerry "The Original Tinkerbell ", Disney Imagineer and Legend Bob GurrBack row L to R: 2018 CP&GRR director Mike Venezia, President Jerry Smithson, Director Les Smout. Image courtesy of CPGRR's Facebook page. The Central Pasco & Gulf Railroad's connection to Walt Disney The Carolwood East Barn museum is a similar replica of “Walt's Barn”, a wooden building where entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney would go to get away from business matters. A lover of railways, Disney had a scale rail system on the property, according to CPGRR member Les Smout. Smout is a member of Carolwood Pacific Society, an association of train aficionados that Disney founded. “The barn was his getaway to escape his business for a while,” Smout said. “Disney had a great fascination for railroads.” Les noted that Disney indulged his passion by having a full-sized railway system at Disneyland. The Disney connection is strong here. Many of the items in the museum are rare souvenirs from the glory days of Walt's enterprises. The Central Pasco & Gulf RR system is exactly like the scale designs used for Disney’s railroad.   Walt's Barn, located in California, was a place for Walt Disney to get away from business matters. The CPGRR has constructed the Carolwood East Barn Museum , where passengers cue to ride, and can visit exhibits of trains and Disney memorabilia. Image by Epcot82 via Wikimedia Commons. The Historic Orange Belt Railway The CPGRR is also modeled after the historic Orange Belt Railway that crossed this region in the late 1800s. This scale setup includes stops named Trilby, Lacoochee, Macon, and Lenard just like the 19th Century full-sized version. The actual Orange Belt line ran from Sanford southwest through eastern Hernando County, passing roughly three miles west of Dade City on to modern-day Land O' Lakes before continuing on to Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg. According to Wikipedia, the railway was established by Russian exile Peter Demens starting in 1885. When completed in 1888 at 152 miles, it was one of the longest narrow-gauge (3 feet) rail lines in the U.S. The project was plagued by building cost overruns and loss of business after a citrus freeze cut off one of the line's main freight customers. Demens lost control of the railroad to financier Edward Stotesbury, who renamed the line the Sanford and St. Petersburg Railroad in 1893. The Central Pasco & Gulf Railroad has over 12,000 feet of track in Crews Lake Wilderness Park. Their system is modeled after the Orange Belt Railroad, built in the 1880s and running through the area. It includes stops named Trilby, Lacoochee, Macon, and Lenard. Image courtesy of CPGRR. An even worse catastrophe, the great freeze of 1894-95, forced Stotesbury to sell the system to legendary tycoon Henry B. Plant in 1895. Two years later, Plant built the opulent Belleview-Biltmore Hotel near the Clearwater stop, attracting affluent guests to the area. Plant widened the track to standard gauge and dove-tailed it with his statewide network, which joined the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. In the 1900s, the Orange Belt Railroad fueled development in Pinellas County and the region when it began carrying more settlers south chasing the burgeoning citrus and livestock industries. Under the ACL ownership, the line from Trilby east to Sylvan Lake became the Trilby Branch and the segment from Trilby southwest to St. Petersburg became the Trilby-St. Petersburg Line. It carried the famed West Coast Champion, a streamlined, luxury train from New York 1939-1979. The ACL merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad in 1967. Passenger service north of Clearwater was taken over by Amtrak in 1971, but the system's days were numbered. Freight service was stopped on most of the line by 1972, and passenger service to Pinellas County ended in 1984. Jerry Smithson, seen here, is a Founding Member of the CPGRR. He is an avid historian with a passion for railroads. Image by Kent Smith. The Driving Force behind Central Pasco & Gulf RR is People Carpenter identified founding member Jerry Smithson as part of a core group that is the driving force behind the attraction. Smithson said, in addition to entertaining children, the facility educates adults about the rich history of the area's original rail system. An avid historian, he said he owns roughly 80 percent of the items in the museum. “In 2006, five of us wanted to purchase a large tract of land for this, but we met with the county and (County Commissioner) Anne Hildebrand loved our plan,” he recalled. “We got a long-term lease for $1 to use the park as a non-profit volunteer group.” The CPGRR now has 70 members. The official CPGRR website states “Railways are a distinct cultural heritage. At CPGRR we preserve railroad heritage for its strong European significance. We also do it to promote cultural tourism in Pasco, Florida.” The second Saturday of each month until November, CPGRR offers train rides to the public. It is a blast for all ages! Image by Diane Bedard. Ride the Central Pasco & Gulf RR the Second Saturday of the Month On the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., the group offers free public train rides as part of its agreement with the Pasco County Parks and Recreation Department. A donation of $1 is greatly appreciated to help with maintenance and upkeep. Masks are encouraged. The Central Pasco & Gulf RR puts on holiday-themed rides at Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. The Easter ride stops at points along the way for kids to search the woods for bunny eggs. This popular two-day event had up to 3,000 participants in the past. You can rent the trains for a party or come out for one of the holiday events. Easter's train ride included a stop-off to hunt for bunny eggs. Image courtesy of Les Smout. Birthday parties and events are available for groups up to 30 people; call 727-645-2508 for details. There are annual memberships that cover the whole family for $35 per year and offer access to all the facilities. The group hosts meetings of similar organizations twice a year on the property, like the Florida Live Steamers. “They come from all over the country, lots of people who love trains,” Smithson added. The railroad's yard includes buildings that house steel and wood, tools and machinery to create trains. The two-story switching station helps to ensure safety as multiple trains run the tracks. It is a labor of love and the public is welcome to enjoy rides monthly. Image by Kent Smith. In the heart of every “cranky old guy” who loves trains resides a person who loves history. The two are inextricably intertwined. Smithson insists more modern trains will continue to fill a need in American industry and transportation that trucks and planes can't meet financially. Still, the future of railroad worship may depend on fellows like 18-year-old Brandon Chinigo of Land O' Lakes, who was browsing through the museum with his mother, Angel when NatureCoaster visited. “I came to take pictures for my Senior photos at my school,” Brandon said. “Trains are sooooo powerful. Everybody loves to ride them.” Read the full article

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Me (a train fanatic who is emotionally invested in sentient train media) to the locomotives at the junction: