It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:20 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 26 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 1:52 pm 

Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:15 pm
Posts: 1477
That does ask the question.... does the special event add to or detract from the main draw of the attraction?


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 2:56 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm
Posts: 2367
Dave wrote:
Crescent-Zephyr wrote:
- politically correct hasn’t quite reached that part of North Carolina yet ;)


Check out Madison Cawthorne to see the kind of madness we're dealing with here. I fondly remember when NC was actually a pretty friendly and welcoming place......


Gratuitous irrelevant posts. Where's the indignant outrage about "politics"?

But since you went there :when there's a "squad" on the other "side" with a member (conveniently that is a double entendre) who asserted (while claiming to have an econ degree) that the unemployment rate is unnaturally suppressed by people holding multiple part time jobs-and if you need that error explained, I'll be happy to oblige, since I have an econ degree and consider educating the ignorant to be corporal work of mercy- and another who likely committed immigration fraud to enter the country by marrying her brother. ..

And there's Hank Johnson, who expressed a fear that excessive occupancy might cause Guam to capsize...

I think my late grandmother's advice not to throw stones from glass houses applies.

While I subscribe to the late P.J. O'Roarke's ideas expressed the Parliament of Whores and Angelo Codevilla's The Ruling Class that politics is a little like the NFL-the players go to war and take tickets in the dementia lottery on Sunday while the owners go the bank on Monday, there is a difference between the electorates.

Cawthorne is out and deserves to be. In the primary. You know how infrequently incumbents lose in the primary?

AOC is gearing up for a Senate run. Poor girl, Chuck is only 72 and Gillibrand is 55. That's a long wait when there's a long history of Senators staying in office so long that they remind us the Latin root of Senator and Senile are the same word. Chuck could easily be in office another twenty years and her fresh face routine is already wearing thin.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 8:05 pm 
User avatar

Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:05 pm
Posts: 1053
Location: MA
Watch the video of one operation where they said they had to do a train robbery because the steam engine needed time to build enough steam to make it up the grade.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 10:13 pm 

Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:54 pm
Posts: 199
The "train robbery" schtick going away has nothing to do with any "political correctness," perceived or real. Take it from someone under 30: the general public mostly has forgotten the American myth of the cowboy.
When they ride an excursion train, they're not doing it because it conjurers up images of cowboys and Indians. In many cases the images conjured up in their heads are of the 1910s, 20s, 30s, and 40s (aka, the golden years of railroading).


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 12:45 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11482
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
mcgrath618 wrote:
The "train robbery" schtick going away has nothing to do with any "political correctness," perceived or real. Take it from someone under 30: the general public mostly has forgotten the American myth of the cowboy.


The "American myth of the cowboy" was popularized in everything from "penny dreadful" and dime-store novels to among the first "moving picture shows" (The Great Train Robbery, 1903), an entire genre of movies/serials/TV shows, comic books, you name it, from the late 1800s through the 1960s. The European "Spaghetti Western" genre both continued the tradition and served to partially "de-mythologize" the earlier "Wild West" conventions.

It is true that the traditional "Western" shtick is now a trite cliche and a shadow of its former self. Other "action genres" have served to replace its role in cultural storytelling, among them the "Star Wars/Star Trek" family of space stories, action dramas such as James Bond and Indiana Jones, etc. And a great deal of the old "cowboy mythology" is bereft with its own problems, and deserves to be discarded or reinterpreted in a more modern way of thinking--which is much of what Sergio Leone and his brand of "Spaghetti Westerns" was credited/accused of doing.
But I'm also old enough, and enough of a student of pop culture, to have read about campaigns against everything from "penny dreadfuls" to dime-store novels to 1950s comic books and violent TV shows and video games. It may not have been called "political correctness" back then, and it wasn't part of the present campaign to eradicate anything that could potentially offend the way modern sanctimony is operating, but most of the same forces were at play.

I'm trying to envision the changes that would have to be made to "Wild West re-enactments" even in the true American West today, to make them acceptable to modern audiences, and I keep flashing back to the disastrous changes made by Hanna-Barbera to the "Tom & Jerry" franchise in the mid-1970s, making them adventure-traveling best friends instead of violent enemies. (This would be lampooned years later in The Simpsons, with the producers of The Itchy and Scratchy Show--itself a satire of Tom and Jerry in the first place--kowtowing to a non-violence campaign initiated by Marge; the kids in the audience abandoned the reformed lovey-dovey show and the TVs and went outside to play instead, to the strains of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.....)


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 6:56 pm 

Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:55 pm
Posts: 91
RCD wrote:
Watch the video of one operation where they said they had to do a train robbery because the steam engine needed time to build enough steam to make it up the grade.


I know the exact operation you are speaking of... And they no longer stop to build steam, but to provide entertainment for the riding public. The engine that started out there needed the opportunity to build steam, but is no longer in operation (and has not been for many years). The replacements have more than enough steam (and power) to run the circuit without needing to build steam, and they have competent engineers and mechanics.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2022 5:33 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:12 am
Posts: 569
Location: Somewhere off the coast of New England
Since we are discussing interactive events, there are two stories which come to mind.

The first involves a colleague of mine who, many many years ago was working in law enforcement and was on a date at a dinner theater - a murder mystery dinner theater. The young lady he was accompanying had procured the tickets and had neglected to inform him that part of the performance was interactive. In all fairness she may not have realized the potential significance. The opening scene involved the miscreant running through the table area brandishing a weapon. Fortunately my colleague chose to take him down with the simple expedient of sticking out his foot as the fellow ran by their table rather than drawing on him. Improv theater at its finest.

The second is a real train robbery. Even longer ago at a university which was not yet coed (and where I may or may not have once been a student about a decade before), the young gentlemen were forced by circumstance to import dates for football games, house party weekends, and the like from other schools. The normal mode of transportation to the campus for the 'Imports' was by train and involve a 2 mile or so ride on a shuttle.

One otherwise uneventful Friday Evening, when the shuttle was about half way between the Main Line and the campus a party unknown gave the requisite number of tugs on the communication cord and the engineer, in compliance with the operating rules brought the train to a stop. Several horsemen appeared in western garb, complete with bandanas over their faces, boarded the train and escorted a similar number of young ladies (including one for the fellow left holding the horses) off and rode away.

Now this is the stuff which legends are made of. Everybody had a wonderful time at the parties et cetera ad boredom. Unfortunately there was one minor planning glitch. This particular run was one of several which still carried bundles of newspapers stacked in the vestibule and was therefor designated as 'Handling Mail and Express'. A law enforcement agency got wind of the 'robbery of an express train'. Of course it got straightened out without any formal disciplinary action and the story gets better with the retelling.

GME
Who wonders, "Now why didn't I ever think of that?"

_________________
No case so weak nor cause so harebrained that it cannot be handled for an adequate retainer up front.


Last edited by Trainlawyer on Wed May 25, 2022 7:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2022 6:49 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:28 am
Posts: 2726
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Trainlawyer wrote:
Now this is the stuff which legends are made of. Everybody had a wonderful time at the parties et cetera ad boredom. Unfortunately there was one minor planning glitch. this particular run was one of several which still carried bundles of newspapers stacked in the vestibule and was therefor designated as 'Handling Mail and Express'. A law enforcement agency got wind of the 'robbery of an express train'. Of course it got straightened out without any formal disciplinary action and the story gets better with the retelling.

GME
Who wonders, "Now why didn't I ever think of that?"


I'm surprised nobody got at least Double-Secret Probation for the stunt.

_________________
David M. Wilkins

"They love him, gentlemen, and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will, but they love him most of all for the enemies he has made."


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2022 7:18 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:12 am
Posts: 569
Location: Somewhere off the coast of New England
I think there my have been some fairly generous donations and one or two of the young gentlemen may have taken some time off from their studies for what is now referred to as 'personal growth'. For one of them that appears to have included a vacation on some place called Perris Island and a career path that he had never previously contemplated.

GME

_________________
No case so weak nor cause so harebrained that it cannot be handled for an adequate retainer up front.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2022 9:28 am 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:01 pm
Posts: 1730
Location: SouthEast Pennsylvania
Trainlawyer wrote:
One otherwise uneventful Friday Evening, when the shuttle was about half way between the Main Line and the campus a party unknown gave the requisite number of tugs on the communication cord and the engineer, in compliance with the operating rules brought the train to a stop.GMEWho wonders, "Now why didn't I ever think of that?"
Which signal was given? Was Penn's Neck a Flag Stop for that particular trip?


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Don't stick with me, this is a mess up!
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2022 4:15 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:28 am
Posts: 2726
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Trainlawyer wrote:
I think there my have been some fairly generous donations and one or two of the young gentlemen may have taken some time off from their studies for what is now referred to as 'personal growth'. For one of them that appears to have included a vacation on some place called Perris Island and a career path that he had never previously contemplated.

GME


My late Father called such experiences "character-building experiences."

_________________
David M. Wilkins

"They love him, gentlemen, and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will, but they love him most of all for the enemies he has made."


Offline
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 26 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


 Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 124 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: