So today a series of CTA rail cars are being retired

The Boeing-Vertol made 2400 series are being retired today. Often cars such as these were what made our some of my trips to downtown Chicago with my mother when I was younger. If you got to the front car you could literally hear them whistle down the tracks.

The pic above I had found on instagram and posted to the account for The Sixth Ward. And what's exciting is that these cars have been repainted in the livery probably what was used back in the 1970s and way before CTA decided to just go bare metal on their cars.

Well unfortunately I missed out on the retirement of these cars and it seems they're not letting passengers ride on them for one last time. While I've only seen a pic of them online I did see a train of these cars rolling by on my way home tonight.

The last time they did a public retirement was for the Budd made 2200 series cars. These cars were available for the public to ride before retirement. These cars have what are called blinker doors.

If I may explain the blinker doors are what I would call bus-style doors. The doors would close inward like they would on most city buses. These were the most eyecatching features for me especially since most of the time on the L I would board a train with typically sliding doors.

Before I knew the term blinkers I only referred to this as bus-style. And on CTA these were common at least before the recently trend to make public transit handicap accessible. In fact the 2200 series were the last CTA rail vehicles with blinkers and others had been retired much earlier.

Regardless it just means the CTA is entering the 21st century especially with the new 5000-series cars that have much more advanced amenities. And yet again CTA does plan on ordering a new series of cars.

ALSO you know what this means the next old cars to be retired are CTA's Budd made 2600 series. Before CTA got rid of conductors on all trains these cars had nifty controls where insted of some time of level to pull to open/close doors was a matter of pushing a button. For the most part conductors stood near the rear of the car away from where-ever the motorman cab was.

Since CTA did away with conductors basically trains are OPTO - one person train operation. One person drives the train and that same person insures that the doors are opened for passengers. So the 2200, 2400, and 2600 series were refitted for that purpose and also for these refits that means I couldn't sit at the front of the train anymore as I had as a child.

I forgot about the 3200 series which primarily ran on the brown and orange lines of the CTA. You may have also seen them on the Skokie swift but it seems that line uses a variety of cars during its operations. Either way they were made with OPTO in mind, however, these are the last cars CTA ordered in the 20th century. Soon their time for retirement will come as well.

BTW, YES the airplane manufacturer Boeing did build trains once upon a time. They even made some light-rail equipment used in Boston & San Francisco over the years. However it's safe to say they got out of that business.

Saw "Selma" recently

On Sunday, I finally got a chance to see Selma. It's a movie based on the voting rights march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. It literally started off with a bang being inside of a church that literally blew up with four little girls inside.

It illustrated a lot of points for me in my belief in how successful the civil rights movement of the 1960s was. Mainly TV helped to advance the causes especially since many southern politicians and law enforcement proved to be very aggressive in combating the civil rights activism. Many people risked their lives and bodies for what was right for all Americans.

It's wrong to make it onerous for American citizens to be able to vote and have a voice in their own communities. It's onerous make a certain segment of the population to sit in the back of the bus. It's certainly onerous to have separate classrooms for Americans of different ethnicitis and even more to insure one group had a better education than the other.

I could go on & on, but the point I wanted to make is that in attempting to keep the system as it was the American people of the 1960s saw how brutal and violent it was. There were forces in Selma, Alabama who fought to keep the system that existed then. We could also theorize something else was going on in the lives of these law enforcement personnel that caused them to brutalize unarmed citizens.

Off of the front-line, the southern politicians knew this would become a political or PR nightmare. And we need not worry about only then Governor George Wallace, then President Lyndon Johnson who was clearly engaged with the civil rights movement wanted to move forward with other political objectives. In the end he had been forced to move voting rights forward instead of finding himself on the wrong side.

Perhaps in the end regardless of how many heads police cracked open and regardless of how the KKK terrorized the Black populations of the south the end was near for the south as they knew it. No aggression would change the tide and if the world was watching on TV - with only three major channels and no 24/7 news networks - perhaps all they did was make themselves villains.

Having seen this film at Ford City - which is my first visit there since the 1990s - it was a great time to pay a visit in a theater that had been recently refurbished. A great movie based on history and of course a reminder of where we have gone and what it takes to make changes in America.

#Smackdown is now on Thursday nights

[VIDEO] This is where the show originally started anyway back on this ancient network known only as UPN - the home of Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, Moesha, Girlfriends, and seemingly other forms of ethnic/racial themed programming.

Regardless, I'm suffering through some form of withdrawals as I'm missing this tradition although well I saw the show last night. So how is it there is an urge on my part to change to its current home SyFy? And also moving to Friday nights was a relatively recent event not sure when it started but as stated it was often aired on Thursday nights for most of its history.

Either way, going through withdrawals I've just now find this video which you're able to find at WWE's YouTube channel which showed the many superstars who wrestled before they became famous. This includes Mick Foley, the Hardy Boys, and even Dean Ambrose.

A cool look back and makes up for not having Smackdown on Friday nights.

This guy is crazy...

[VIDEO] What does one say about a man sprays enough water for two coats of ice onto his trampoline and then purposely jumps onto it? Well I call him crazy, but hey different strokes...

All the same it looks like he didn't hurt himself and merely hurt the ice more as it appeared to have just shattered on impact. Perhaps I should see if there are more videos after that made by this man.

Hat-tip WGN!

Have you ever been to Chicago and took the L?

[VIDEO] I've been an L rider all my life. Spent many a Saturday in my youth riding to downtown with my mother when she used to work at a bank downtown. Now I spend a lot of time on the CTA getting to school or work or just getting out of the house for a few hours.

Today I have a tourist piece for you. Strangely enough I'm starting with the yellow line aka Skokie Swift. Skokie is an adjacent suburb of Chicago and the CTA does have L service which travels to nearby suburbs such as Skokie, Evanston, Cicero, Oak Park & Forest Park.

Either way I realised that I've traveled on almost everyline of the CTA L system. Only recently - that is within the last 10 or so years my travels have taken me to all of the CTA's colored lines.

When I attended community college in downtown Chicago I traveled the blue line to O'Hare, Forest Park and 54/Cermak. Now the 54/Cermak branch is part of the pink line as a result of service changes. I also took the train from Ashland/63 and Cottage Grove to get downtown via the green line. Also I traveled the red line from 95th all the way to Howard and changed to the purple from Howard to get to Linden. Finally I took the orange from downtown to Midway and back.

Since then I've taken the pink line with some video that needs to be digitized in the future. Also for the first time I took the brown line all the way to Kimball and took the green line to it's west side terminal at Harlem Avenue. Since I've started working I've taken the yellow line on two occasions mainly to get up to Old Orchard mall and that means I'd have to take the bus from the Skokie stop.

I forgot to note the quirk of the purple line. While the purple is a local service within Evanston when it stops at Howard it becomes an express during rush hour with no stops until Belmont. When I worked briefly in Evanston to make up some time I took the express train to get to work there.

Needless to say there have been many interesting adventures on CTA as you can sometimes tell if you follow me on twitter. If only I had such a tool during the pre-twitter/social media days.

There's more videos of other CTA routes via their YouTube page.

Advice on riding Amtrak - first class!

Via Chris May/flickr

It's been a few years since I had a vacation. The last time I had ever been out of town since working was going to SpelHouse Homecoming in 2011. Which was the first time I had visited Atlanta, Georgia since graduating from Morehouse College in 2009.

This past weekend I took Amtrak for the first time since 2009 - which incidentally I took the train after visiting Mound Bayou, Mississippi in fall 2009. This past weekend I went to Memphis, Tennessee for a funeral. It felt great to get out of town to the point where no matter where I work it'll just have to be important to take a quick trip every now and again.

A few years ago I had some advice as far as making reservations for the train. Coach-class train travel is OK for the most part but sometimes it's better to travel first-class in a sleeper. The problem is that first-class will cost more depending on where you're going. On top of a coach-class ticket you will pay an up-charge for a sleeper car accommodation and that charge will depend on what size room you want. Cheapest likely would be a roomette. If you want more information on sleeper accommodations visit amtrak.com.

In any case we took coach-class to Memphis and then when making the reservations somehow we (well actually my mother) were able to get a sleeper for only $25 more although the ticket round-trip was still in the neighborhood of $600! While we made reservations at the last minute Amtrak was able to get in touch with a deal on a sleeper berth but only on the return trip. This happened when we returned from Dallas, Texas via Amtrak somehow we also got offered a sleeper at a discount.

Needless to say the sooner you make a reservation the better. You can always go ahead and make a reservation for a coach seat in the hopes that Amtrak may call you again offering first-class accommodations at a discount. As for making reservations for a sleeper you can check out this USA Today link one of those options for reserving first-class accommodations is to ask for an upgrade on the train. Although the likelihood of such a possibility is slim.

I would like to do LA via train again and when I did that in 2005 it was in a coach seat. I'm not planning on doing that again, but hopefully I can afford a roomette on the train round trip for the two night ride to the Golden State.

Wishing I can get into real estate

Photo via Curbed Chicago

If only I had enough money to get into real estate. I would like to do rehab a house the way this greystone on the north side of Chicago had been. It's either that or build a house exactly the way this greystone was rehabbed.

As the "blogmaster" for The Sixth Ward I've followed real estate in the often beleaguered south side neighborhood of Englewood. Recently there were information on a vacant lot program which allowed Englewood neighbors in a pilot program to purchase and close on vacant lots there. The cost wasn't entirely cost prohibitive.

It's certainly cost prohibitive to build on those lots if that's what you chose to do with them. At the same time it's not necessary to build on those lots although if I was able to purchase a lot that's exactly what I would like to do. If nothing else until one gets the capital to build anything it's OK to turn these lots into oases instead of lots where weeds would grow and trash would collect.

Of course Englewood isn't the only neighborhood in Chicago where such a program is necessary. And who knows perhaps I'll have the luxury of buying a lot in the future and hopefully build the house I want to build. Or more likely have some property when a neighborhood turns around.

I mention Englewood because I'm starting to believe it's on the cusp. With a major CTA rail line and then a Whole Foods Market coming to such an impoverished neighborhood it seems very likely.

Now to start getting ready to get into real estate.