Amshacks

[ALC Rail Writer]

Been there, done that, continue to--

 

[Ispolkom]

Yeah this is pretty bad!What happens when its 130 in the desert or raining,Beaumont might have a contender!

You're kidding, right? <_< Neither station has anything on ALC, sitting in a valley in the heart of the Lake Erie snow belt...

The record cold in Elko, Nevada is -43 F. Now, where would you prefer to wait for a 3 a.m. train on a brisk January morning? Deep snow, that's a matter of good boots and gaiters. Seventy-five degrees of frost, on the other hand, is a wee bit harder to bear, especially if there's a stiff breeze, which there usually is out there.. Heck, it's too cold to snow! Then look at the summer highs. Pretty warm. I've never been to Elko (though I know they have a cowboy poetry festival), but it might be a contender for worst place to wait for an Amtrak train.

I'll grant you that Minot, No. Dak. gets about that cold, but there's a nice, warm, old 1905-era station to wait in.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Yeah this is pretty bad!What happens when its 130 in the desert or raining,Beaumont might have a contender!

You're kidding, right? <_< Neither station has anything on ALC, sitting in a valley in the heart of the Lake Erie snow belt...

The record cold in Elko, Nevada is -43 F. Now, where would you prefer to wait for a 3 a.m. train on a brisk January morning? Deep snow, that's a matter of good boots and gaiters. Seventy-five degrees of frost, on the other hand, is a wee bit harder to bear. Heck, it's too cold to snow! Especially if there's a stiff breeze, which there usually is out there. Then look at the summer highs. Pretty warm. I've never been to Elko (though I know they have a cowboy poetry festival), but it might be a contender for worst place to wait for an Amtrak train.

I'll grant you that Minot, No. Dak. gets about that cold, but there's a nice old 1905-era station to wait in.

Right. Boots... I'll just buy boots.

Let's try and compare apples to apples shall we? I'd like to see wind chill, humidity, precipitation and hours of daylight. A lot more goes into bad weather than just one record taken on one day one year.

Let's also not forget when Elko is serviced... If you wanna wait for the CL next to big freights on an unlighted platform with a bar across the street...

 

[DET63]

Is the photo already somewhere on the Internet? If so, you right-click on the pic, when the menu shows left-click "Copy picture address" or "Copy picture URL," then come over here, click on the "Insert Image" box in the text editor, right-click in the box, left-click on "Paste," then click on "OK." I know this sounds complicated, but after you've done it once or twice it becomes pretty intuitive. (If you're using Internet Explorer, you have to do an additional step and click on "Properties" to find the image's address. Yet another reason to hate IE, IMHO.)
If the photo isn't online yet, you'll have to find a photo hosting service and then get them to put the picture up for you. It's another step, but shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Reposting images from other Web sites without permission is called hotlinking and is often a no-no (although I'm not entirely sure what this board's policy is). It uses up a lot of the original site's bandwidth and people get cranky about that (unless you have permission).

I think it's preferred that posters use either their own Web space or a photo sharing service (like Photobucket or Picasa or something like that). Many of these sites are free and willingly provide you the image address (or URL) for reposting elsewhere.

Good luck.

Usually not a problem if the image is small (<100 k). I usually try to avoid hotlinking to anything >50 k.

 

[Ispolkom]

Right. Boots... I'll just buy boots.
Let's try and compare apples to apples shall we? I'd like to see wind chill, humidity, precipitation and hours of daylight. A lot more goes into bad weather than just one record taken on one day one year.

Let's also not forget when Elko is serviced... If you wanna wait for the CL next to big freights on an unlighted platform with a bar across the street...

Having spent winters in cold, snowy locations from Minot to Moscow, I've learned there's nothing more important than good boots.

Looking at Wikipedia, I'm a bit surprised at your claims for Alliance's winters. I see that Canton averages 47.4 inches of snow a year, about the same as St. Paul, and I'd never consider St. Paul to be a particularly snowy place. Plus, I see that every month of the year the average high temperature is above freezing, so it's hardly an ice box. In fact, if you compare average high and low temperatures between Elko and Canton, they are broadly similar, though Elko has higher highs and lower lows, as one would expect in a more continental climate.

Personally, I find the near-constant cloudy weather the principal negative feature of winters near the Great Lakes. Snow and cold? Not really.

As for time of service, Elko has a 3 a.m. station stop, just like Alliance.

So I'm still not seeing why Alliance has any special claims to being any more unpleasant than a number of other Amtrak stations.

Oh, and the bar across the street? Out west we call that an amenity.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Right. Boots... I'll just buy boots.
Let's try and compare apples to apples shall we? I'd like to see wind chill, humidity, precipitation and hours of daylight. A lot more goes into bad weather than just one record taken on one day one year.

Let's also not forget when Elko is serviced... If you wanna wait for the CL next to big freights on an unlighted platform with a bar across the street...

Having spent winters in cold, snowy locations from Minot to Moscow, I've learned there's nothing more important than good boots.

Looking at Wikipedia, I'm a bit surprised at your claims for Alliance's winters. I see that Canton averages 47.4 inches of snow a year, about the same as St. Paul, and I'd never consider St. Paul to be a particularly snowy place. Plus, I see that every month of the year the average high temperature is above freezing, so it's hardly an ice box. In fact, if you compare average high and low temperatures between Elko and Canton, they are broadly similar, though Elko has higher highs and lower lows, as one would expect in a more continental climate.

Personally, I find the near-constant cloudy weather the principal negative feature of winters near the Great Lakes. Snow and cold? Not really.

As for time of service, Elko has a 3 a.m. station stop, just like Alliance.

So I'm still not seeing why Alliance has any special claims to being any more unpleasant than a number of other Amtrak stations.

Oh, and the bar across the street? Out west we call that an amenity.

Firstly, Elko's second calling time is 9:44 PM. ALC's first is at 1:30AM and second at 3:30AM. BOTH calling times are in the dead of night. In fact back when OTP was awful, it was not uncommon to see the Westbound 29 pick up her pax while you were waiting on the Eastbound 30. Once around 3:45AM while waiting on 30 I sit alone on the platform to see an Amtrak train pull up. Realizing it is facing the wrong way I ask the Conductor if he's 29. He says "Yeah, I'm running behind, you for 30?" I said yes and asked him where it was. He pointed East and said "Over there, waiting on me. Give him ten minutes."

I am glad to see you're so in turned with Ohio weather. I'm also glad to see you've read the book on topographical conditions and know more about where I've lived for the last ten years than I do...

Canton, though the nearest city, is totally different than Alliance. Alliance is located in a valley whereas most of Canton was built in a hilly region of the county. It is in fact the center of Stark county due to this topographical oddity. It became a central hub of commerce between the southern Amish and northern Mennonite populations. With industrialization came Beldon Brick, which was dug out of the hills in North Canton.

Alliance runs deeper and colder than Canton as it is situated in a deeper valley. This is why the major rail lines between Akron, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh run through Alliance and not Canton. Coming from PGH the NS main lowers in elevation gradually until it reaches the shore line. Many people make the mistake thinking all of the tracks around the ALC station form a switching yard, this is not true at all. There is a small freight depot and a number of switches so you can turn an East/Westbound train to the North/Southbound tracks or to any of the local branch lines. It's a spiderweb that was dug out by the railroads because of its excellent location as a midpoint between the steel mines of Pennsylvania and the port of Cleveland.

Now as for snow patterns it is no myth around here that Canton is ideally situated. Aside from being on a hill it isn't actually in the snow belt proper. Alliance, being about ten miles North of Canton is the border of the snow belt, along with Hartville which is North of North Canton. The neighboring towns and cities (Massillon, Jackson, Perry, East Canton, Alliance, North Canton, Hartville, Suffield, Wooster, on North to Akron) get much heavier snowfall than does Canton proper. As for the snow belt itself, the snow comes from lake effect snow which starts in November and ends in March. It is not uncommon to see snowmen on Thanksgiving and a St. Patty's day ice/sleet storm.

So let's have some fun, shall we--

You average trip to meet the CL from Canton involves getting up at the crack of night and waiting on Julie to tell you the train has left either CLE or PGH and is inbound. Only recently has the CL's OTP for ALC been good enough to not actually have to wait until it's left CLE. After driving North for about fifteen miles you make your way through State St. which serves as the main drag for Alliance. You proceed East about two miles then turn left and go downhill another half mile or so. This downhill is on a pretty steep grade, somewhere around 12% to 20%. You cross two un-gated tracks and park in the depot and wait for the train in your car. Except, the platform is actually a quarter-mile away so you can't board the train from your car. You have to get up and walk your luggage through the snow while the 70mph double-stacks rush past you through the wind chill that has come up out of the valley and through the trench that the tracks lie in... If you're lucky you'll only be standing in the cold for ten minutes, however **** happens. In addition to getting thrown in a hole by NS the CL has to switch tracks twice to pull up to the platform.

So really, I am happy that you know all about my home town, and have made the journey to and from ALC and Canton more than the 72 times I have...

For icing on the cake, remember, Elko has two platforms and two tracks. ALC has one platform and one track (though the CL can approach the station on any of the three main lines Eastbound, or the two Westbound.

As for your bar, get sloshed. Hope you can still walk the quarter mile to the platform without throwing up.

 

[Ispolkom]

My, my. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

I don't pretend to be an expert on anything, least of all Ohio. I certainly don't understand why you are so upset that I pointed out the relatively temperate climate of a city not 17 miles from your own. After all, it isn't as though you had explained why Alliance was particularly unfortunate in its weather.

Now you have. I especially like the image of Canton as a city gleaming on the hill, rising above the storms assailing its less-fortunate neighbors. I'm not saying that I wouldn't like actual snowfall figures, but the Thanksgiving snowmen and St. Patrick's Day sleet are nice.

Also, I like your description of a trip to the Alliance station. Do double stacks really barrel along at 70 mph? Out west I'd guess that they do more like 55-60, but, like I said, I don't pretend to be an expert.

I can't help but notice, though, that Alliance has moved from "the heart of the Lake Erie snow belt" to "the border of the snow belt."

Here's the problem. You make a flat claim: "You're kidding, right? Neither station has anything on ALC, sitting in a valley in the heart of the Lake Erie snow belt..."

I suggest that there is another point of view, adding evidence to support my point of view.

Your reply adds no evidence to contradict my point of view.

Since you won't tell me what's so special about Alliance's weather, I grab statistics for a near-by town, which seem to bolster my case.

You respond with a level of vituperation that seems both excessive in itself and unusual for this forum, ending with a bizarre personal attack.

It's just strikes me as odd.

Oh well, thank goodness this program has a kill file. Plonk.

 

[Upstate]

Having spent winters in cold, snowy locations from Minot to Moscow, I've learned there's nothing more important than good boots.

I have more faith in my puffy Michelin man style down jacket.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Having spent winters in cold, snowy locations from Minot to Moscow, I've learned there's nothing more important than good boots.

I have more faith in my puffy Michelin man style down jacket.

I use a rabbit fur.

 

[JeffConn]

I have only traveled out of Picayune, MS in the months after Katrina so I don't know what the place is like now. They used to have what looked like a very nice shelter. Katrina picked it up and put it down way down the tracks so I only saw it from a distance. On this website you can see the pictures of what it was back before the hurricane.

Picayune opened a new REAL station in October, 2008. The old picnic shelter is gone now.

Here's a YouTube video of the new station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wfdU91jmrs

P.S. RailroadRod has some nice videos of Mississippi-area trains and stations on YouTube

 

[Bob Dylan]

I have only traveled out of Picayune, MS in the months after Katrina so I don't know what the place is like now. They used to have what looked like a very nice shelter. Katrina picked it up and put it down way down the tracks so I only saw it from a distance. On this website you can see the pictures of what it was back before the hurricane.

Picayune opened a new REAL station in October, 2008. The old picnic shelter is gone now.

Here's a YouTube video of the new station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wfdU91jmrs

P.S. RailroadRod has some nice videos of Mississippi-area trains and stations on YouTube

Pretty nice,could serve as a model for all cities(and burgs! :lol: )considering building a new station instead of sheds and bus stations and banks!I dont believe there are many trains through here but they did a first rate job!!!

 

[had8ley]

Very nice job! Beautiful station...it's a shame they don't have big numbers of pax but maybe they'll catch up to Slidell's and Hattiesburg's numbers one day.