2010- Year of the Iron Horse

Well, here we are barely 4 months into 2010 and already we're only a few weeks away from some heavy-duty iron horses getting out and stretching their legs.

(CP Swami/Railpictures.net)

On the weekend of May 1st and 2nd, the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society will be operating their 1927-built Baldwin 4-8-4 on a special train between Los Angeles Union Station and San Diego's Santa Fe Depot. More information about tickets and departure times can be viewed here. The #3751 will also be on hand for San Bernardino's bicentennial the weekend of May 8th, although no excursions are planned.

(railpictures.net/Drew Jacksich)

Coinciding with National Train Day, the Grand Canyon Railway will be operating series of short excursions out of Williams, AZ on May 8th using former Chicago Burlington & Quincy Baldwin 2-8- #4960. As reported earlier here, the #4960 has been converted to burn vegetable oil. According to the Grand Canyon Railway's website,the #4960 will be used to power the Cataract Creek Rambler an 8-mile roundtrip excursion out of Williams, AZ. They also announced plans for additional Ramblers on Memorial Day weekend, Independence Day and Labor Day as well as a special all the way to the South Rim on September 18th, 2010.

(Kevin Madore/railpictures.net)

Western Maryland Scenic's 1916-built Baldwin 2-8-0 #734 will be making its way to West Virginia's Potomac Eagle excursion to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the completion of the former Baltimore & Ohio railroad line into Petersburg, WV this June. The excursion operates over South Branch Valley's former B&O Green Spring-Petersburg WV line. The 3 day celebration is scheduled to take place june 25-27. The #734 will also be joined by New Hope Valley Railway 0-4-0T #17 and Flagg Coal Co. 0-4-0T #75 for the event.

(Sam Botts/railpictures.net)

Another event in June will be the National Railroad Historical Society's Endless Mountain Rails in Scranton, PA between June 21 through 27. Holding an NRHS event in the home of Steamtown seemed like a no-brainer for the organization, but also keep in mind there's only so many times they could do that. Besides Steamtown's resident Canadian National 2-8-2 Mikado #3254 and Canadian Pacific's 4-6-2 Pacific #2317, Reading & Northern's 1928-buit Baldwin 4-6-2 Pacific #425 is expected to operate a Dureya to Port Clinton, PA excursion on June 26th.

Union Pacific has also announced a series of excursions for 2010 in Iowa, Oregon, Missouri and Texas featuring their 4-6-6-4 'Challenger' #3985 and 4-8-4 Northern #844- this is in addition to their regularly scheduled Frontier Days steam specials between Denver, CO and Cheyenne, WY between July 22 and 26th.

Keep in mind this is only a partial list- the Owosso, MI-based Steam Railroading Institute hasn't announced anything regarding their Pere Marquette Lima Berkshire 2-8-4 #1225, nor has anything been finalized regarding Southern Pacific Daylight #4449 or SP&S #700- both based out of Portland, OR.

Sports Chowdah Championship & Playoff Update Edition; B's Make History Shorthanded; C's Buck Losing Streak; Captain's Comeback; BC Badgers Wisconsin

They can't all be gems, which is all the more reason to enjoy days like today.

NHL: OK- this has to be seen to be believed...and since yours truly just figured out the magic of video embedding, have a look for yourselves [UPDATE! It's so awesome, I had to tweak this blog's format to accommodate the video- NANESB!].

The Bruins headed into today's game poised to clinch one of the final three playoff spots on the Eastern Conference. This afternoon, they hosted the Carolina Hurricanes at the Garden, and late in a scoreless 1st period, Matt Hunwick was sent to the sin bin for a hooking minor with 18 seconds remaining. Hunwick's penalty carried over into the second to give Carolina a 1:42 man advantage- in theory.

The Bruins would start the 2nd period getting goals from Daniel Paille, Blake Wheeler and Steve Begin in a span of 64 seconds- and all while Carolina was still on the power play! This would be the first time that an NHL team would score three shorthanded goals on the same penalty kill.

However, Carolina was determined to make a game of it and got on the board when Erik Cole scored on a wraparound with five and a half minutes left in the second and Patrick Dwyer's wrister from the slot beat Rask to make it a one-goal game with just over two and a half minutes remaining in the 2nd.

(John Wilcox/Boston Herald)

Early on in the third, Patrice Bergeron showed alot of hustle and saved the Bruins proverbial bacon when he raced back to an empty net to prevent an errant Blake Wheeler feed from becoming an own-goal. Rask was pulled when a delayed penalty was called against Carolina early in the 3rd and Wheeler tossed the puck back to the point while the defense was changing. The buck bounced off the boards and trickled towards the net with Bergeron racing seemingly out of nowhere to prevent it from crossing the goal line. Milan Lucic but the game out of reach with a minute left in the 3rd with an empty-netter to give Boston the 4-2 win, good for 89 points overall.

The Bruins win coupled with the Montreal's 3-4 Overtime loss to Toronto tonight clinches the #6 spot for Boston (regardless of what happens tomorrow in the game against Washington). The loss was Montreal's final regular season game. Tied at 86 points each, the Philadelphia Flyers and NY Rangers will go head-to-head tomorrow to determine who gets the final playoff spot in the east.
Elsewhere in the NHL: Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke got knocked the fuck out. Better late than never. Somebody get Atlanta's Evander Kane an Omaha Steaks gift basket.

NCAA MEN'S HOCKEY: Eagles goaltender John Muse led Boston College to a 5-0 shutout over the Wisconsin Badgers for the NCAA Men's Hockey Championship at Detroit's Ford Field on Saturday. Muse turned aside 20 shots, giving him an 8-0 record in the tournament over the past 3 seasons. Cam Atkinson got BC on the board first and had two tallies altogether.

The win gives BC it's second men's hockey title since 2008 and avenges the 2006 Championship loss to the Badgers. A record-setting crowd of 37,592 was on hand at Ford Field in Detroit, MI to watch the final.

MLB: After dropping Friday night's game at Kauffman stadium in Kansas City, the Red Sox were lookng to snap their 3 game losing streak as Josh Beckett was matched up against 2009 AL Cy Young winner Zack Greinke. Saturday's game was noteworthy in that this was they first time we got to see Jason Varitek and Mike Lowell start, with both of them making the most of their appearances.

The Royals got on the board first with a Rick Ankiel RBI single in the bottom of the first. Jeremy Hermida and Jason Varitek managed to belt back to back solo homers off of the KC starter in the top of the 5th to take a 2-1 lead. Jacoby Ellsbury had a 1-out RBI double in the top of the 7th and Dustin Pedroia would get Ellsbury home on a sac-fly to put Boston up 4-2.

However, Kansas City would rally. Beckett would give up a leadoff double and single before KC would get a run on a double-play ball to start off the bottom of the 7th before Beckett, his teammates, Red Sox management and Red Sox Nation got a scare when a David De Jesus RBI line drive single grazed the back of Beckett's head (replay showed the ball changing direction). Beckett would escape any further damage on a Scott Podsednik groundout.

The Red Sox would go on to get some insurance on a Youkilis homerun in the top of the 8th and another solo homerun by Varitek and a 2 run homer off the bat of Dustin Pedroia.

Boston wins 8-3 and snaps their 3-game skid. Tomorrow's game will feature Clay Buccholz against Gil Meche before the Sox are slated to travel to the Twin Cities to christen Target Field on Monday (that matchhup is supposed to feature Jon Lester against Carl Pavano).

NBA: Fresh off their loss against the Washington Wizards, the Celtics bounced right back in a fairly ornery contest against Milwaukee Saturday night. Paul Pierce led the Celtics scoring with 24 points along with 6 rebounds in Boston's 105-90 win.

There's two games remaining in the C's regular season- a road game against Chicago and the final home game, which is against the Milwaukee Bucks again.

BREAKING- Aircraft Transporting President of Poland Crashes on Approach to Russian Airport

An aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and Polish dignitaries has crashed on approach to Russia's Smolensk airport Saturday. At least 87 passengers were reportedly killed in the crash, although there is no confirmation on the status of the President and First Lady yet.

Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, were on their way to a ceremony at a WWII Memorial in Smolensk. The UK's Daily Mail is reporting that the plane involved was a Tupolev TU-154.

According to reports, the plane crashed 1.5 kilometers from the runway at Smolensk in foggy conditions after the pilot accelerated to land before losing contact with air traffic control.

UPDATE: Sky News and other outlets are reporting that there are no survivors.

Today's Train of Thought, April 9th 2010- Mastering The Domain of 6th Street

Spring has sprung and with the sporting world's attention focused on Augusta, GA for the Masters, railpictures.net contributor Anthony Davis highlights the downtown area of the city featuring parks, shops, trees in bloom and the Norfolk Southern mainline running down the middle of 6th street and across the Savannah River into South Carolina.

Here, Anthony Davis has caught Train 155 traversing the middle of 6th Street led by Norfolk Southern C40-8 #8304 still in Conrail paint and a standard cab SD60 with the trees still in blossom on March 26, 2010.

Norfolk Southern and CSX transportation divided up Conrail in 1999- although Conrail never ventured further South than Virginia, both railroads inherited Conrail's fleet of blue locomotives. More than a decade later, not every Conrail unit has been repainted.

Bart Stupak Announces That He Won't Seek Re-Election

Less than a month after selling out the unborn for a worthless and largely ceremonial piece of paper signed by President Obama, Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI, 1st District) announced that he will not seek re-election this fall.

First and foremost, this begs the question of whether or not Stupak even got his executive order from Obama prohibiting federal funding of healthcare plans that covered abortions. I also have to wonder if 0bamacare is so wonderful and popular, how come Stupak is stepping down? Retiring is a whole lot easier than Stupak defending his 0bamacare vote for the next 8 months or so.

The announcement still give the Democrats time to field a candidate in the 1st district against Republican Dan Benishek.

Sports Chowdah Recap- Yankees Bounce Back in Rubber Game; B's Rattle Rested Sabres; BC Eagles Soar to NCAA Finals; C's Handle Raptors

Given the busy past 48 hours throughout New England sports-dom, it's probably best if I get down to brass tacks.

MLB: John Lackey went 6 complete innings with 2 walks, three strikeouts and no earned runs in his Wednesday debut for the Red Sox. David Ortiz, fresh off a profanity laced tirade at Tuesday night's press conference had his first hit- a 2-out RBI single that drove in Dustin Pedroia in the 3rd inning for what turned out to be the Red Sox only run of the evening to give Boston the early 1-0 lead. Nick Siwsher would tie the game with an RBI single that drove in Posada in the 7th.

The game would go to extras, where Curtis Granderson would hit a solo homer off of Jonathan Papelbon and padded their lead on a Mark Teixera RBI groundout with a 3-1 lead before Mariano Rivera would close out the game for the Yankees 3-1 win.

Boston goes on a Midwest road trip, starting tomorrow night at Kansas City. Tim Wakefield will start against Kyle Davies in Friday night.

OTHER RED SOX NEWS: Boof Bonser got knocked around in his start for AAA Pawtucket, giving up 3 runs on 76 pitches in 4 and 1/3rd innings against the Rochester Red Wings (Minnesota's AAA affiliate). Bonser, who was previously on the DL due to a groin strain, threw up to 94 MPH in hisstart.

NBA: Fresh off their embarrassing loss the the Knicks, the Celtics went north of the border where they took on the Toronto Raptors. Rajon Rondo led the scoring for Boston with 21 points followed by Paul Pierce with his 20. Tornoto's Hedo Turkoglu left after- literally- knocking heads with Tony Allen late in the first. Micheal Finley came off the bench for Boston and was good for 14 points and 6 rebounds after nearly not starting when he strained his back handling his luggage at the team's hotel.

The Celtics beat Toronto 115-104 and will take on the Washington Wizards at the Garden on Friday night

NHL: After Monday night's overtime loss to the Capitals, the Bruins headed home to host the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night. The Sabres got on the board early with a Derek Roy tally in the 1st, but Miroslav Satan would tie the game up with a little over 2 minutes remaining in the 2nd while Dennis Wideman and Mark Recchi would score in the 3rd (Recchi's goal late in the 3rd was initially credited to Zdeno Chara). It's probably worth noting that Patrick Lalime started in goal for Buffalo instead of Ryan Miller. Tukka Rask stopped 32 of 31 shots faced.

Thursday's win moved Boston up to 6th place after Montreal's loss to Carolina- both are tied with 87 points, with the Bruins getting the tie-breaker. The Bruins will host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday at the Garden.

NCAA Frozen Four: The finals are now set, with Wisconsin's 8-1 win over Cinderella Rochester Institute of Technology. Boston College handled the Miami of Ohio Redhawks in a 7-1 rout Thursday night, including 3 goals scored in just over a minute and a half in the 3rd period.

The Frozen Four set an indoor hockey record with a crowd of 35,954 present on hand for each game at Ford Field in Detroit, MI. The Saturday matchup between the BC Eagles and Wisconsin Badgers will be a rematch of the 2006 NCAA Finals.

President Obama Decides American Military Supremacy, Deterence Capabilities Overrated

The Obama Administration this week announced a revised Nuclear Posture Review [NPR for short] that would further limit the circumstances under which the United States would utilize a nuclear strike.

The new policy narrows the range of threats the Pentagon will seek to deter with nuclear weapons. Because of advances in missile defense and conventional weapons, the new policy states that the U.S. no longer will target most non-nuclear states, even those that threaten use of chemical and biological weapons.

And why exactly are we advertising this change in policy to a global audience that includes hostile nations and groups possessing the latter weapons? If this revision was meant for overseas consumption, that makes it all the more damning.

And what if some of those hostile nations happen to be Muslim? you might be asking. Don't any of you worry, the President has a plan to deal with that as well! Apparently the latest nugget from the current brain trust at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is to omit any mention of "Islamic Radicalism" from strategy and national security policy documents, because to continue mentioning that could harm President Obama's outreach to Muslim Nations- outreach that he wouldn't even let a piddling little affair like last year's murder of an American soldier in Arkansas by a Yemeni trained Islamic Radical person of ambiguous religious leanings interfere with.

Curiously, the Administration and its supporters in the media have decided not to take the same approach with the Hutaree 'Christian' militia group that was arrested in Michigan last week; probably because it doesn't quite enable the democrats to continue 'OMG! TeH RiGHt WInG IZ DaNGeroUS!' narrative that they've been trying to sell ever since 0bmacare passed, despite the objections of much of their constituents.

Here's something to ponder- if this current Administration in the White House thought that the free market system and American Military and Economic supremacy were bad things that had to be undermined at all costs, what would they do differently?

Sports Chowdah Not Quite Opening Day Edition- Yankees Get One Back; Can B's Capitalize? C's Get Knicked in Embarrasing Effort; UConn Women Perfect

OK, I think I've got making fun of President Obama's embarrassing ceremonial first pitch out of my system. To those in the punditocracy who chortled at his throwing like a girl, allow me to say that saying the President threw like a girl is hardly fair to women like Team USA Softball Gold Medalist Jennie Finch.

After an off day Monday, game two of the season opening series between the Sox and Yanks got underway at Fenway on Tuesday night. From the bottom of the 5th the contest was deadlocked at 4-4 until the top of the 8th when Hideki Okajima took to the mound. Jorge Posada led off the innng for New York with a ground-rule double into the right field stands. After getting Swisher to ground out, Bret Gardner singled and Curtis Granderson flew out to center before Jeter gounded to Marco Scutaro for what would've been the 3rd and final out of the inning if it weren't for Scutaro's low throw that Youkilis had to dig out of the dirt. This was followed by the bases-loaded walk to Nick Johnson to finally bring Posada home and put the Yankees up 5-4.

The Yankees would go on to get an insurance run from Robinson Cano in the top of the 9th and Mariano Rivera would come on to close out the game and gave up a 1-out double to Marco Suctaro before retiring Jacoby Elsbury and Dustin Pedroia to close out the game an the 6-4 win for New York.

OTHER RED SOX NEWS: The Red Sox and Josh Beckett have agreed to a four year contract extension yesterday. The terms of the deal weren't immediately disclosed.

NHL: Well.....I didn't hold out much in the way of high hopes for Boston's trip to Washington D.C. on Monday night- I mean an 8th place team struggling to hold on to their final playoff spot going up against the team with the best record in the league with less than a week left in the season.

But the Bruins surprised me (in the good way) with their effort against the Capitals on Monday, Even leading for 2-1 for much of the 2nd period on a Patrice Bergeron tally before the Caps got the equalizer from Mike Knuble with less than 30 seconds remaining in the 2nd. After a scoreless 3rd period, the Bruins held off a late charge by the Caps to send the game into overtime, giving the B's a very hard earned point. However, less than 20 seconds into the OT, the Caps got the game-winning tally from Brooks Liach for their 3-2 win over Boston.

Alex Ovechin was actually relatively quiet, with two assists (still leaving him tied w/Sidney Crosby at 46 goals) and from what I caught of the game, the Caps weren't simply resting their top players prior to the postseason; they seemed to be treating this like a regular-season game in November or December. Tukka Rask had 27 saves in he loss while Washington's Jose Theodore stopped 28 of 30 shots faced.

The Bruins will host the Buffalo Sabres Thursday night at the Garden. Meanwhile, Philadelphia shut out Toronto 2-0 and the Canadiens got a point from their shootout loss to the NY Islanders on Tuesday, Leaving Boston in 8th place with 85 points.

NBA: After hanging on to (barely) beat the Cavs on Sunday, the Celtics wet the proverbial bed against the New York Knickerbockers for some reason, losing 101-104....Ray Allen led the scoring for Boston with a whopping 17 points. Danillo Galliarni had 31 points, 5 rebounds and was 10 of 11 from the free throw line for the Knicks. The C's will travel to Toronto to take on the Raptors tomorrow night.

Good god...losing to the freakin' New York Knicks? That's just embarrassing....I'll have to hang my head in shame or something.

NCAA HOOPS: As some of you could probably tell during my March Madness coverage, my give-a-damn was irreparably busted. The final game featured Cinderella Butler against heavily favored Duke. Butler made it interesting, but in a championship as gratifying as watching the Yankees win the World Series or the Lakers win the NBA Finals, Duke held on to win 61-59, but only after a desperation half-court shot by Butler's Gordon Hayward rimmed out as time expired.

The UConn Huskies Women's hoops team capped another perfect season, beating Stanford 53-47 in the Women's championship game in San Antonio. That was actually a pretty close game by UConn standards, as they managed to beat most opponents in the 2009-2010 season by a margin of 8 or more points. I'm not a huge hoops fan, let alone women's hoops, but a monumental achievement like that deserves at least some comment from even the most ambivalent and dispassionate spectator.

President Obama Attempts to Throw Out First Pitch at Nationals Game, Comes Up Short

Well now- not to seem like I'm dogpiling or anything, but I couldn't let this pass without comment (plus it gives me a chance to see if the video embedding works). If the man wasn't pursuing a job-killing legislative agenda and telegraphing weakness to America's enemies while kicking our allies in the teeth, I'd almost feel sorry for President Obama after this ceremonial 1st pitch:


How appropraite- Soaring wildly to the left with rapid speed before coming crashing back down to earth well off-target- even though the media assured us that we would likely see a blazing fastball right down the middle.

I should expect nothing less from a graduate of the William Ayers and Jerimiah Wright Baseball Academy, where they sing 'God Damn America' during the 7th inning stretch.

The last time I saw a pitch that bad, Kevin Youkilis came sprinting in from 3rd base on Sunday night.

Obama Offers Up Telling 17-Minute Non-Answer to Question At Town Hall

While either touting his latest economy-killing policy proposal or still doing his 0bamacare victory lap, President Obama hosted a town-hall meeting while visiting the North Carolina facilities of battery-manufacturer Celgard last week and gave an earful.

“We are overtaxed as it is,” Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. “Well, let’s talk about that, because this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation [emphasis mine- NANESB!], and I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have,” the president said.

OK, I'm sure there's all sorts of video and audio of Obama rambling on and on, but come on now. Seventeen minutes of Obama speaking is seventeen precious minutes of my life that I'm never getting back.

But the most telling statement was the preamble to his prolonged ramble, mercifully towards the beginning. He is basically telling this Doris, who like 99% of everybody else in this country is concerned about the economy, her job security and personal finances, that the very idea that she and others are overtaxed is 'just a whole lot of misinformation'.

This seems to be the proverbial pachyderm in the room that alot of pundits have overlooked- the President of the United States basically just told Americans concerned about the economy and more taxes 'tough shit'. Their fears are unfounded, if not outright fabrications is how he started out his prolonged non-answer.....Lord knows what else he went off about for the remaining 16 minutes and thirty seconds.

Additionally, the visit to Celgard might've been an attempt to either try and sugarcoat the mismanaged and ill-gotten Stimulus money- Celgard was a recipient of $49 Million in Stimulus funds- or resume his push for the ruinous Cap & Trade legislation that's already passed the House last year. The President described Celgard as an example of providing 'green jobs' to the local economy.