AN ARCH DELUXE BOXED LUNCH IS STILL A BOXED LUNCH.

There's nothing quite like the spin a business engages in to sugar coat a price increase or a degradation of its service as an attempt to enhance the consumer experience, or something.  Consider Amtrak's current Lake Shore and Capitol Limited dining services, now a standard box of flakes, fruits, and nuts at breakfast, and four options, including (after rider push-back) one hot item and one vegetarian item offered either at midday (eastbound) or in the evening (westbound.)  Here's how a correspondent at Travel and Trains describes the non-breakfast offering.  "Frankly, the quality was as good or better that some of the meals we’ve had on international business class flights."  I'm reminded of my dad's question when one of his kids tried to get away with something.  "Why compare yourself with the worst?"  Arguably, we could also be grateful that Mrs Obama's school lunch task force didn't participate in coming up with the food combinations.  Perhaps, though, it's because Our Political Masters want Amtrak to spend less money on food.

MARKING OFF.

There's probably a disquisition somewhere on the relative merits of having streetcars stop on the near side of the street corner, and loading from the front, or stopping on the far side of the street corner, and loading from the rear.  Perhaps another day.

Find yourself a preservation railroad and support its efforts.  Generally, they'll scale back operations after Labor Day.

MORE TRAINS, MORE COVERAGE, MORE THINGS TO SEE.

Florida's Brightline service has added more frequency, now that there are additional tracks to keep the freight trains out of the way, and they're thinking about where to terminate in Tampa.

Following the completion of switch and signal cutovers that permit more fluid freight and passenger operation, weekday schedules have been expanded from 11 to 16 round trips. After an existing 5:30 a.m. West Palm Beach departure, trains now leave every hour on the hour from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., except 1 p.m. Going north, trains now leave Miami at 13 minutes past every hour from 7:13 a.m. to  11:13 p.m., missing only the 3:13 p.m. trip.

Weekend schedules remain unchanged at eight round trips Saturday and seven Sunday with every-other-hour service, but timings have been adjusted to conform with the weekday “memory” schedules at all three stations.

The most significant addition is the 6 a.m. West Palm Beach departure, which expands options for commuters headed for downtown Miami.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Times reports that Brightline is evaluating three possible sites for a station in downtown Tampa, Fla., should the company win a competitive bid to extend its proposed Orlando International Airport “Phase 2” terminus. Three locations where local officials have detected interest are the site of a former jail near an existing bus transit center, land adjacent to Tampa Union Station (where Amtrak’s Silver Star stops), and an older 370-unit apartment complex whose owners could be persuaded to sell, according to observers.
Ben Porritt, Brightline corporate affairs vice president, told the Times in a statement “We’re analyzing a set of options that will work with the alignment of the proposed route and offer unique development opportunities, which will help establish this as a destination.”

Put another way, the development-oriented transport model they follow will not be abandoned in a rush to serve the rest of the state.  There are now four companies submitting proposals for the Orlando to Tampa leg of the service. As far as those commuter-friendly schedules, we'll see how long until those fixed formation train sets become incompatible with peak-load pricing or building ridership.

HELPING ELECTRICITY KEEP ITS OWN BOOKS?

Marginal Revolution reported on a new development in pumped storage of electricity.

In April, the Bureau of Land Management approved an ARES—that's Advanced Rail Energy Storage—project, conceived by a Santa Barbara-based energy startup called, well, ARES. By 2019, ARES operations head Francesca Cava says, the facility will occupy 106 acres in the excellently-named town of Pahrump, Nevada. By running a train up and down a hill, ARES can help utilities add to and subtract from the grid as needed.

It's an interesting concept, I hope Warren Buffett or somebody at Union Pacific or the Canadian roads or the eastern trunk lines is paying attention.

When the local utility's got surplus electricity, it powers up the electric motors that drag 9,600 tons of rock- and concrete-filled railcars up a 2,000-foot hill. When it's got a deficit, 9,600 tons of railcar rumble down, and those motors generate electricity via regenerative braking — the same way your Prius does. Effectively, all the energy used to move the train up the hill is stored, and recouped when it comes back down.

ARES may not like the term pilot project—it's already built a demonstration track in California—but Pahrump's new $55 million energy storage system has a lot to prove. This first official outing will start small, providing only ancillary services—that is, helping utility companies make relatively minor adjustments in their electricity output and input.

Sometimes, the contemporary generation of techies ignorance of history is amusing. What your Prius does is the same thing your gearless bipolar passenger motor was doing, a century ago.

Olympian Hiawathas meet at Francis, Montana, September 1957
John Karlson photograph.

Look, kids, this isn't rocket science.

[W]hile the science behind ARES—rocks and gravity, mostly—is low-tech, that doesn't make for a cheap project. The company needs to pour money into the on-the-ground electronics and telecommunications equipment, and into bringing railcars up to their specifications. Andy Lubershane, a senior analyst with IHS Emerging Energy Research, says the setup is more expensive per kilowatt-hour "than almost anything else on the market today."

Ravi Manghani, a senior energy storage analyst at GTM Research, urges a "wait and watch approach." "Any new technology has to go through some big hurdles," he says.

And yet, the simplicity of this setup is appealing. Train goes up, train comes down. If only you could catch a ride, too—which ARES says is a very bad idea. "This is a different scenario in terms of safety and weight," Cava says, meaning you can’t just run these trains through DC Metro's infrastructure. They're way too heavy. Sorry to say the future of energy storage won't look like Magic Mountain at all.

Have they considered working with real railroads hauling real freight cars (which are heavy, and they're doing real work)?  Here's the situation:  the most reliable winds blow across the Empty Quarter, along and west of the hundredth meridian and east of the Rockies.  That's also where the Powder River coal originates, and the grain and cattle to feed the world (well, once Our President's tariff follies settle out) is either harvested or packed.

The way to export electricity to the thickly settled parts of the country might be to move it by rail.  "[O]ne possible solution to the problem of transmitting electricity from the wind belt of the Empty Quarter to the power grids of the populated areas is to electrify the coal lines, thus reducing the railroads' use of diesel fuel to move the coal."

As the coal and grain are dependable shipments for the railroads, but not the most time-sensitive stuff on rails, why not path the cross-country trains in such a way that they go up the mountains when the wind-augmented grid is in surplus, recess in sidings or the old helper yards to clear passenger trains and the more time-sensitive cargo, then descend in regeneration during peak times?  "With all those financial engineers looking for something to do, now that credit default swaps are in bad odor, why not structure a deal among the railroads, the legacy electric utilities, and the renewable power producers by which the excess supply payments finance the construction of the catenary with the bonds subsequently repaid out of the railroads' power purchases?" Perhaps yet in my lifetime?

RECOVERING.

The Fox River Trolley Museum could still use your help repairing the damage to several of its cars.

It was a gorgeous, if humid, Saturday, for riding the electric cars.  Pictures below the jump.

DON'T BRING A FISHER-PRICE HAMMER TO THE ERECTING SHOP.

It must have been a lazy summer.  I didn't hear about a deflector shield to fend off asteroids, or a successful carbon-sequestration technology to limit accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide, or even about an end to the designated hitter rule.  But I did hear about new frontiers in micro-aggressions.

Two Canadian researchers recently asked almost 1000 cisgender folks if they would date a trans person in a new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. This is the first study to ever attempt to quantify the extent of trans discrimination when it comes to romantic and sexual relationships.

958 participants (all but seven cisgender, ranging in age from 18 to 81, with an average age of 26) were asked to indicate which genders they would consider dating. The options included cisgender man, cisgender woman, trans man, trans woman, or genderqueer, and participants could select as many genders as they wanted.

The essay is therefore going to base a lot of its conclusions on a small sample, that's always trouble.

DON'T CALIFORNICATE NEW ZEALAND.

At the start of this century, I went to New Zealand to watch some America's Cup racing, and also to be in a not-bad place to hang out should the worst Y2K fears materialize.  (They didn't, and the Kiwis kept the Cup: the U.S. challengers didn't even get to the finals.)

At the time, I noticed all the scenic ridges above towns like Christchurch and Queenstown and to an extent Wellington were sprouting trophy houses: the Californication of which I speak.

No more, at least for outlanders.

New Zealand’s parliament has banned non-residents from purchasing most types of homes, aside from new apartments in large developments. (Australians and Singaporeans are exempt because of free-trade deals.)

The bill, passed narrowly yesterday, was reportedly heralded by New Zealand’s Trade and Economic Development Minister David Parker as a “significant milestone.”

Said Parker, “This government believes that New Zealanders should not be outbid by wealthier foreign buyers . . . Whether it’s a beautiful lakeside or ocean-front estate, or a modest suburban house, this law ensures that the market for our homes is set in New Zealand, not on the international market.”

Perhaps some of that buying years ago was based on Y2K being the apocalyptic scenario, rather than whatever the current apocalyptic vision is.

BARB CITY PACKERS.

You have to run to win, but first you have to make the team.

Joel Bouagnon got hurt during a tryout with the Chicago Bears last season, now he has an opportunity in Green Bay.  "The former Northern Illinois star capped off a 14-play, 90-yard Green Bay Packers touchdown drive to start the second half of last Thursday night's preseason game against the Tennessee Titans and took the Lambeau Leap in the stands to soak in the moment."

Right now, all the teams are evaluating potential running backs, and the Packers brought in a few more.

[LeShun] Daniels, a 5-foot-11, 222-pound second-year player, originally signed with the New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa on May 5, 2017. After being waived by the Patriots on Sept. 2, 2017, he spent some time on the practice squads of the Los Angeles Chargers and Washington Redskins before Washington promoted him to the active roster on Nov. 21, 2017. Daniels played in four games for the Redskins before placed on injured reserve on Dec. 23, 2017 with a hand injury. He was released by Washington on March 30.

Iowa recruited him out of DeKalb High School.

BETTER PAY AND BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS?

The new school year is already under way, and a local television station notices teacher shortages.

Many schools across the county are going back to school with teacher shortages. Some local school districts are searching for certified teachers and some think there are fewer people going into the education field because of the salary.

Ya think?

The Rockford Public Schools District has more than 50 open certified staff positions while the Harlem district has more than 20. Some districts say it used to get more than 100 applicants for one job opening but that just doesn’t happen anymore.

There's probably a research project looking at the effects of "disproportionate suspension" policies on teacher turnover and job openings, particularly in tough districts like Rockford.

Some say it can be tough filling specific teaching positions in business, science and secondary math. The Harlem School District says it's also seeing a shortage in social workers and substitute teachers. Officials say although there is a shortage students do not need to worry about going to class without a teacher. Some believe the teacher's salary could be turning people off to the career path.

“I think that it has to do with pay, you know college kids coming out of college want to make more money and I think money's an issue. We still have candidates out there I just think the pool is getting smaller and hopefully that trend will turn around,” said Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources for the Harlem School District Scott Rollinson.

Is the assistant superintendent betting on another recession?  Heckling aside, people with specific business, science, and math skills might have employment opportunities that people without the technical background don't.  Rigid contracts and good intentions aren't going to be enough to staff the classrooms.

Rollinson says the district can't offer incentives to new teachers because of bargaining agreements with the teachers union; however they do up the pay when it comes to hiring substitute teachers.

Some districts say although they are getting less and less candidates they encourage people to get into the education career path because the benefits of helping a child grow makes it all worthwhile.

That presupposes the child wants to grow.

THE SENSE OF URGENCY COMES TOO LATE.

The Milwaukee Brewers' regression to the mean continues, and now, only now, does sports scribe Tom Haudricourt note what has been evident for some time.  "The Brewers will not get to the postseason playing like this."  When the Cardinals got off to a slow start this season, I doubt that any sports scribes in St. Louis excused it as "rebuilding" or "injuries" or "the weather" or any of the other ills to which a baseball team is heir.  Come September, though, it had better be the Cardinals running down the Brewers and the Cubs, and excusing the Pirates and the Reds.

The 5-2 loss to the Cardinals on Friday night at Busch Stadium gave the Brewers a 5-9 record in the month of August. Going back to the all-star break, they are 13-13. Going back even further to July 8, when they were a season-high 18 games over .500 (54-36), the Brewers have gone 14-20.

Simply put, this cannot continue. Not if the Brewers want to end their seven-year playoff drought, even if it's merely the second wild-card berth and winner-take-all game on the road.

Read the column for the analysis, the second-guessing, what have you, if you wish.

That's not what matters.  On Thursday, the Green Bay Packers won the Shrine Charity Game in Green Bay.  Opponent doesn't matter.  Score doesn't matter.  What matters is that sports scribes covering the Packers for the same news organization were fretting about things like signing another outside linebacker and finding reinforcements at reserve left tackle.  (That matters a lot when your offense depends on a right-handed quarterback with a fragile clavicle.)

At the end of last football season, I noted, "Will that shakeup [in the front office and among the coordinators] lead to a more resilient team, continuing to contend and make deep playoff runs, or are we entering another quarter-century of frustration?"

In Packer Nation, any season that doesn't run late into January is a failed season.  The sports punditry get that, and reinforce that.  Their baseball counterparts are still content with "close enough" until it's too late.

TRAVELLING AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS.

Our Political Masters seem bound and determined to let Amtrak wither, or be devolved to the states, and there isn't enough money to keep the road network in a state of good repair, and the Essential Air Service apparently isn't essential enough to be fully funded, either.

In the Lower 48, if the per-passenger subsidy exceeds $200, the law says USDOT must put the towns on notice that service could go out to bid again or end entirely. There are reasonable arguments to be made on either side about the merits of EAS; service to towns that are within the catchment areas of larger airports is always particularly vulnerable. But what about the train as an alternative? Only one of the 21 targeted towns (Altoona, PA) currently has Amtrak service. The rest will be left at the gate.

As public policy, it’s shameful that we continue to plan and operate these systems in isolated silos, with select federal favoritism towards funding dominant modes (especially Interstate Highways) in the form of free money to states. The dangerous direction that Amtrak is taking— insisting that states must pony up for any new service on their own—is completely contrary to the federal Constitutional responsibility to regulate interstate commerce, to which nothing is more foundational than transportation.

We must continue to advocate for a more holistic approach focused on local mobility outcomes. If that sometimes justifies subsidizing planes, so be it. But we must stand up to policies that force Americans into any single mode of travel.

Regulate means "to make regular." That neither implies nor is implied by public subsidies. Perhaps the most constitutional thing the federal government might do with respect to transportation is go away.

MAKING ILLINOIS, YES, ILLINOIS, GREAT AGAIN?

The housing crash and the population exodus from Illinois have not been good for DeKalb, or for the local businesses, or the local university.

Just before the crash, the operators of Devonaire Farms were selling three or four variants of the same Executive Box and the thinking in those days, before one of the periodic cycles of high gas price, was that a long commute from Rochelle or DeKalb was manageable as long as the Executive Box was cheap enough.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters got planted here when the housing market got soft enough that a builder was willing to indulge my ideas for a train room concealed under a ranch house.  Flags mark the location of tree seedlings in the summer of 2009.  The pin oak lasted.  I bought some other trees for the other spots.

The years after the crash were not so good for Devonaire, and the vacant houses with decorative plywood ornamental elements didn't handle the sun and the temperature variations too well.  But somebody was willing to buy up the distressed properties, and perhaps that investment will pay off.  "The housing starts in DeKalb are the big development for homebuilding in the county, while communities such as Sycamore and Genoa have continued to see homebuilding in line with current – and gradual – trends." For some reason, there has been a lot of construction in Hampshire, which is just across the county line (and in the Metra commuter rail tax district, if not currently on a commuter train line?)

There's enough in the practitioners' discussion of possible reasons for the building in DeKalb to keep all sorts of researchers and pundits and policy advocates busy.

Ten years later, it seems local developer John Pappas is convinced the tide is turning. He and Park Ridge businessman Peter Iatredes walked away as dozens of undeveloped lots in foreclosure they owned in the Bridges of Rivermist subdivision went to auction in December 2014.

“There’s zero growth in DeKalb,” Pappas said at the time, “and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Pappas said he sold the 20 lots in Devonaire Farms to D.R. Horton at cost – about $13,000 a lot.

“This is only the beginning for the growth,” said Pappas, who’s lived in DeKalb 47 years. “There are a lot more things to come.”

Quite the 180-degree turn. So, what gives?

“I’m a very positive person in general, and I think [Northern Illinois University] is going to turn around soon,” he said. “We’ve got great new management, and this is a great college town. This is a great time to invest in DeKalb.”

A decision made in July 2017 by the DeKalb City Council to eliminate impact fees for new building permits in several of the city’s subdivisions helped, as well.

Community Development Director Jo Ellen Charlton said getting all three entities – the city, DeKalb School District 428 and the Kishwaukee Water Reclamation District – to commit to waiving the fees was a long time in the making.

The point of those fees is to finance at least the initial tranche of water and sewer mains and streets and lighting and such, and waiving those fees lays those burdens off on all taxpayers, and the anticipation of future in-migration or a return of twenty-five-thousand students to Northern Illinois University might be suburban growth Ponzi scheme thinking.

It's been a good ten years, though, for the trees people planted.

The view as of 24 June, 2018.  The maple tree is about the same spot as the left-most red flag in the upper picture.  The sunburst locust is in the spot marked by the red flag in the center of the picture, and it has recovered pretty well from last summer's windstorm.  Yes, there's still a vacant lot to the north of the beige house at right, which now sports a deck.

MORE MONUMENTS DESTROYED.

Apparently, the Boy Scouts are soon to be Scouting, U.S.A., and the geniuses in charge of Amtrak want to divide the Southwest Chief east of Albuquerque and west of La Junta or perhaps Dodge City, with a bus bridge for anyone wanting to go cross-country.

For the time being, as Trains stringer S. Sweeney notes, there is still rail access to Philmont.

Anyone who has spent enough time in Scouting in the U.S. hears about certain "must-do" events before you age out of the program. A national jamboree is one (that I also didn't do) and visiting Philmont is another. In short, Philmont is ten of thousands of acres of open land and campsites near Cimarron, N.M., dedicated to being a safe place were youth and their adult leaders can enjoy nature and challenge their own physical and mental endurance.

One highlight that was advertised years ago was the week-long backpack trek to and from the summit of Mt. Baldy — no refrigerators, no electronics — just you and your troop of fellow scouts.

There's another part of that, of course, the train ride to get to Philmont. Scouts in California and the Pacific Northwest probably don't do this, but for the easterners, the cheapest, most dependable way to move 20 to 40 boys at a time was to get coach seats on Amtrak and go west. I knew a few of the guys who went the last year I was eligible to participate as a youth. What they must have experienced on the train getting to know one another — and strangers — better, boggles the mind.

If I recall correctly, Philmont eligibility required the rank of First Class Scout, or perhaps Star Scout. But yes, that roughing it in the wilderness used to be a thing about Scouting, and young people with knowledge about how to do so might be better served in the event of a failure of the grid, from means foul or accidental.

This year, the Philmont season was cut short account forest fires, but those Scouters who got there by train understand its value.

“This is the easiest, safest, and most cost-effective way to get to Philmont,” says [troop committee chairman Dusty] Sterling, whose Canton-bound crew detrains at Alliance, Ohio. He notes that airline flight costs to Colorado Springs, Denver, and Albuquerque airports have been increasing and all involve long ground connections compared to Amtrak at Raton.

The Scouts weren't able to go on walkabout in Philmont, but a secular campground was willing to take their money. But what's up with "troop committee chairman?" "Scoutmaster" the latest addition to the Banned Words List?

THEY LEFT "IN WISCONSIN" OFF THE STAR.

When I go to a state or county fair, it is to look at the animals and to partake of too much finger food.  The political parties, of course, have their displays, and in Illinois, with the fairgrounds in Springfield, just about all the constitutional officers of the state have a presence.

Thus, I limited myself to taking a picture of the Democrats' stand.

I've documented the expansion of Wisconsin's middle class at Illinois's expense previously.  You can't pen taxpayers in and shear them, the way you can shear sheep.

The fairgrounds contain an impressive complex of livestock barns, although these were mostly empty.  There's less in the way of raising livestock on a retail scale in farming these days, and a goodly number of Illinois farms are crops only, frequently hired out for artificial fuels.

The political economy of Illinois is interesting, though.  Here is a member of the Waterloo, Illinois (it's St. Louis-side of Springfield) German Band on the Alphorn.

That "Buy American" flag flutters high in the wind above the Labor Hall maintained by the AFL-CIO.  These days, it's a notionally Republican president pushing that message.  Go figure.

BUILD IT BY INCREMENTS.

The Cold Spring Shops formula for introducing faster Passenger Rail service does not begin with hero projects and 300 km/h fifth-generation Electroliners.  "First get the trains running, then give them free rein to 110 or 124, then tweak the schedules for connectivity, then work on interline ticketing."  Ohio strikes me as a logical place to begin, introducing a semblance of the old Pennsylvania Railroad service between Columbus and Chicago and the old New York Central between Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Perhaps, in Ohio, if they think in terms of Inter City 125 diesel trains or their contemporary Siemens Brightline counterparts,  rather than electric bullet trains or hyperloops, they'll get somewhere.

Most successful high-speed rail systems around the world are built using the Phased Network Approach, integrating new high-speed tracks with the existing rail network, according to [the Midwest High Speed Rail Association]. High-speed rail is a system that serves many destinations, both large and small, by adding new segments of high-speed track to existing railroad network in Midwestern states.

Much of the trackage across Ohio was good for 100 mph running back in the steam era, perhaps restoring a state of good repair there is your first step.  Dependable connections at Columbus or Cleveland or Toledo are your second step.

[Midwest spokesman Rick] Harnish said the region can look to new projects in Europe as an example of effective travel systems, including Germany’s Deutsche Bahn.

“The key to their system is that they have a comprehensive, country-wide network that runs on either hourly or twice-hourly service,” he said. “All of the trains show up in the station at the same time, and so you can easily get from anywhere in the country to anywhere else… it’s all very interconnected, the system works in a very cohesive way. Sometimes the trains are only going 80 miles per hour, sometimes they’re on 150-mile-per-hour tracks, and sometimes they’re on 200-mile-per-hour tracks. But because they’ve got a very reliable hourly service… it makes the service very convenient,” he said.

Yes, and the Germans didn't start their Neubaustrecke as disconnected projects between High Desert and Nearly Nowhere, the way California has been doing it.  I wonder if the first revenue train to turn a wheel on the California high-speed tracks will be a San Joaquin given free rein to 125.

DIALING BACK THE CONDESCENSION WILL HELP.

In presidential elections, the Democrats' electoral strategy relies heavily on emerging ethnic majorities plus just enough blue-collar voters.  That didn't work too well two years ago, between Hillary Clinton being a lousy candidate and enough disaffected blue-collar and suburban more conventional ethnics participating in a Great Revolt.

Democrat strategists would like to win back some of those voters: that Our President is alienating conventional ethnics by flouting bourgeois convention helps, but they're still engaging in soul-searching.  Perhaps not enough soul-searching, notes Mahablog.

Part of the problem with Democrats is that they believe they campaign on issues when they really don’t.  This was my gripe with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She did not campaign on issues. Clinton supporters disagree with that and complain up and down that she did too; she had a whole website full of policy proposals. Yeah, and the only way to find out about them was to go to her website. By watching her television ads and seeing her on the teevee news, you wouldn’t have had a clue what she was running on other than her resume.

No, she thought she was running on issues. "Civil rights are womens' rights are Elgeebeetee rights are human rights" at full screech, just before the "Thank You!" But I digress.

HAVE A COKE AND A TAX.

More summer-time catching up on reading, this time a Veronique de Rugy Reason column from the end of 2009.  The key insight ought to be evident to anyone who understands optimal taxation.  "If the tax is effective at discouraging soda consumption, it won’t raise much money because people won’t be buying soda." That's a little too adult a concept for assorted nudges and nannies, despite there being pretty good economics departments in or near Seattle or Chicago or Berkeley.

With the new academic year approaching, the political economy of corrective taxation is relevant.

HIDDEN DEVOLUTION?

Craig Sanders expresses reservations about Amtrak's revised timetabling providing additional regional connections in Chicago.  It's a good news, bad news sort of thing.

Yes, some travelers connect in Chicago to other Amtrak trains, including the long-distance trains, but how many people think about getting on in Milwaukee and going to Detroit or St. Louis?

Well they might think about it and some do it every day, but Amtrak hasn’t always made such connections convenient. Some layovers last for hours.

The schedule changes made this summer are designed to address that, at least on paper, or in Amtrak’s case on pixels given that paper timetables are a thing of the past.

Amtrak touted its “new” schedules, noting that you can travel between Milwaukee and Detroit twice daily, and Milwaukee and St. Louis three times daily. Of course that means changing trains in Chicago.

A long time ago, there were through trains between Milwaukee and St. Louis (explicitly) and after that, implicitly there were through trains between Milwaukee and Detroit. The problem that arose was the mid-day westbound train from Michigan was supposed to continue as the 4.30 commuter-heavy departure for Milwaukee, and delays on Penn Central or Conrail meant a lot of disgruntled commuters. Thus began the era of two train sets ping-ponging between Chicago and Milwaukee.

To be sure, Amtrak gave a nod to the long-distance trains, noting that in making the departure of northbound Hiawatha train No. 333 from Chicago to Milwaukee later, it enabled connections from long-distance trains from the East Coast.

As for the student discount, it is 15 percent and designed for Midwest travel. Amtrak also plans to soon allow bicycles aboard the Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier State.

When the new Siemens Charger locomotives went into service on Midwest corridor trains, they came with the tagline “Amtrak Midwest.”

Those locomotives were purchased by the states underwriting Amtrak’s Midwest corridor routes. Those same states are also underwriting development of new passenger cars to be assigned to the Midwest corridor routes.

It is getting to the point where Amtrak is becoming a middleman of Midwest corridor routes, offering a station and maintenance facility in Chicago; operating, service and marketing support; and a brand.

The brand is becoming a questionable one, but the institutional structure for collecting public moneys is already in place.  Moreover, you have to be living right to connect off the Lake Shore or Capitol to 333, new timings or not.  But if your train's on time, you can hit one of the bakeries upstairs at Union Station to get some food, what with the etiolated food service on the eastern trains and the snack cart withdrawn from the Hiawatha Service.

Perhaps, though, Amtrak management are trying an updated version of the Brosnan Trap.

For now, the state-funded corridors combined with the long-distance trains provide intercity rail passenger service to many regions of the Midwest, including to such states as Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio that do not currently fund Amtrak service.

That might well change if Amtrak follows through on its proposals to chop up the long-distance routes into state-funded corridors. Would Ohio step up to help pay for, say, a Chicago-Toledo, Chicago-Cleveland or Chicago-Pittsburgh route in lieu of the Capitol Limited?

Would Iowa agree to fund a Chicago-Omaha train in lieu of the California Zephyr?

Would Minnesota agree to fund a Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul train in lieu of the Empire Builder? What about Chicago-Fargo, North Dakota, with funding from Minnesota and North Dakota?

The original Brosnan Trap was a discovery by the Southern Railway's legal department that a train crossing a state line could be discontinued at a state border if its only stop across the state line is its initial and terminal station.  Thus, for instance, Southern trains making only one Florida stop, at Jacksonville (to interchange cars onward to Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard, or Florida East Coast) could be cut back to Swampy (well, Council), Georgia without the rigamarole of a hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission.  Those Detroit or Cincinnati snowbirds who wanted to ride to Sarasota or West Palm?  Sorry.  It's then relatively easy to show that the Atlanta to Council stub loses lots of money, and that might be a decision for the state's railroad commission alone.

The variant these days is that under the current Amtrak funding procedures, the state departments of transportation are on the hook for any run shorter than 750 miles, Chicago to Pittsburgh is something like 480 miles and Chicago to Buffalo about 540 miles: the good news is that Dodge City is 782 rail miles on the Atchison Topeka and-a Santa Fe.

The past record of state departments of transportation in supporting the regional rail services is not encouraging.  Moreover, if the states that are paying for service put the "Amtrak Midwest" up for bid, and Brightline or one of those other aspirants to build from Orlando to Tampa win it, something tells me that the airline gang running Amtrak might be happy to be rid of it.

BETTER TO BE LUCKY THAN TO BE GOOD?

The Milwaukee Brewers' summer torpor continues, with seven runs, nineteen hits, and thirteen runners left on base Sunday.

Particularly brutal was the Brewers' seventh, when they had second-and-third with no outs, and the bases loaded with one out, and didn't score. The previously red-hot Christian Yelich, who did not have a good series, struck out against lefty Jonny Venters, and after an intentional walk to Jesus Aguilar, Ryan Braun grounded into an inning-ending double play.

That's right, the Team Formerly Known as the Milwaukee Braves walked a current All-Star to pitch to a past Most Valuable Player, and it paid off.

Meanwhile, the Cubs were being no-hit by the Washington Nationals into the seventh inning on Friday, picked up one run on a bases-loaded walk, and somehow managed to win, and on Sunday, the Cubs were being shut out into the last of the ninth by the Nationals and picked up an improbable win.

Don't look now, but the St. Louis Cardinals have edged past the Pirates and into the wild-card picture.  What's it going to be, Old Style, Budweiser, or Miller?

SERIOUS RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

Trains editor Jim Wrinn reflects on a recent visit to the Illinois Railway Museum, which is by Chicago driving standards almost in Cold Spring Shops' back yard.  "Illinois Railway Museum is revered for its massive rolling stock collection and its capability of providing a triple threat: It’s one of the few places in the U.S. that can field at once steam, diesel, and electric trains."

His column focuses on the museum's steam efforts: a century old Russian Decapod serving as "Uncle Boris" on Thomas the Tank Engine weekends; a three-truck Shay Patent Locomotive due to return to service, for years its star turn was hauling the caboose train; and a Union Pacific medium Consolidation expected to be next in steam service.

This past weekend, though, the big stage belonged to the diesels.

The Milwaukee Road's 760 is the first Fairbanks-Morse diesel switcher; it runs.  The bankrupt blue Rock Island Geep is fresh out of the repair shop and the paint shop, and fresh off assisting Thomas during July's events.  The Southern Pacific and Wisconsin Central road power are also operable, and handed Saturday's caboose train.

That's the rear of Silver Pilot hiding behind the Southern Pacific diesel.  What's the point of doing railway preservation if you can't re-enact a "what if?"

Burlington sold both Nebraska Zephyr sets a few years before Santa Fe (and The Milwaukee Road and Great Northern) bought cowl units for passenger trains, thus this is Just For Fun.

Meanwhile, the heavyweight coach train was seriously over-powered.

There are additional pictures at Hicks Car Works.  Later in the day, these diesels came off, turned on the wye, and added Silver Pilot for a three locomotive formation.  The Wisconsin and Southern unit was in the museum's collection as a Union Pacific unit, sold to Wisconsin and Southern for their excursion train, later returned to the museum.

Also running: a short Chicago and North Western Commuter Streamliner.  When I first hired out at Northern Illinois, a two- or three-car Saturday or Sunday train was common.  They don't shorten formations at the outer coach yards any more; on the other hand the expensive parking and clogged roads put a lot of weekend passengers onto the trains.

There's always room for another illustration of the Nebraska Zephyr,  demonstrating what a de luxe higher-speed diesel train looked like long before Florida East Coast's Brightline got into the act.

Unfortunately, current attitudes at Amtrak probably preclude a return of Silver Pilot and the Zephyr to mainline metals any time soon.

Amid all the work going on, recently restored Milwaukee Electric refrigerated container trailer M-37, just the thing when you had to rush a shipment of bratwurst from Usingers to Waukesha Beach, is spotted outside in full daylight with nothing on the intervening lead tracks.

The Steam Department also spotted the three-truck Shay in a good place for photography.

Watch the museum web site and social media postings for announcements of this kettle's return to active duty.

SUMMER RELIEF.

Addison Del Mastro.  "Call it the 'ice cream truck test': you shouldn’t worry about the death of Western civilization so long as the average suburban American neighborhood still has ice cream trucks. And maybe you should get ice cream too."  Yes, if there isn't a custard stand nearby.  Custard doesn't take as well to freezing or to travelling.  Dreamsicles and drumsticks are another matter.

Apparently the music boxes on the ice cream trucks are distinctive.

More than the mediocre ice cream, it’s probably the music that helped imprint these trucks in the broad American culture. My dad once said that one thing you’ll never forget in old age is the handful of top radio hits when you were a teenager. The same is true of ice cream truck tunes, along with childhood advertising jingles. If you want to take a deep dive or find a tune from your own childhood, there’s even a YouTube playlist of 43 ice cream truck jingles.

I'm not going to comment on the "mediocre" ice cream, the offerings around here tending to run to the frozen products, such as the bomb pops and Dreamsicles.

One of the vendors in the neighborhood does the music differently, with a collection of Christmas tunes, both sacred and secular.  Well, when the truck hits Knolls Street, it is "joy to the world" for children of all ages.

A WINNING TRADITION BEGINS.

Earl Lambeau asked Frank Peck, president of the Indian Packing Company, for money to buy jerseys for a football team.  The first team meeting took place on 11 August 1919.  Indian Packing sold the company to Acme Packing two years later, beginning a tradition of anvils dropped on the heads of assorted Lions and Bears.

AMTRAK: UNDONE BY MALICE OR BY INCOMPETENCE?

I vote for incompetence.  "Perhaps one ought not suspect malice when the simpler explanation is incompetence, but there is a lot of incompetence at America's Railroad these days."

Trains columnist Malcom Kenton works his sources, raising three possibilities.

The first scenario that could account for what we’re seeing is that the decision makers at Amtrak — be it President & CEO Richard Anderson, members of the Board of Directors, others in senior management, or a combination thereof — are acting out of ignorance rather than malice. Many of the long-time senior-level personnel in the marketing, finance, corporate communications, planning and business development departments have retired or moved on, and their successors appear to be lacking in knowledge of and/or passion for Amtrak’s product. There may simply be a bureaucratic, bean-counting culture that considers the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Managers may be so blinded by balance sheets that they fail to see the company’s product from the customer’s perspective.

Downsizing, and turfing out the institutional memory, tends not to turn out well. But People In Charge seem never to learn.  The bean-counters' next target appears to be the food service on the Texas Eagle, the experiment with putting the Lake Shore and Capitol Limited on quarter rations having turned out so well.  What next, are we going to have an extended stop at Ft. Worth to go for beans?

The second possibility, which is a corollary to the first, is that Anderson and those behind him have good intentions and want to make Amtrak successful, but are led by misconceived notions of what the company’s mandate is and what needs to be done in order to close the remaining 7% gap between passenger revenues and operating expenses. Reports that Anderson has told the rail directors of the state departments of transportation that Amtrak intends to make the states cover long-distance routes’ operating deficits by breaking them into segments of 750 miles or fewer each (thus coming within the 2008 statutory threshold for state-supported routes) would tend to corroborate this explanation.

Put another way, the ghost of Stuart Saunders hosts Amtrak's boardrooms. Those emerging corridors might work in the Official Region, and there are possibilities in the Southeast, but tying the national network together with thousand-mile bus rides fails to inspire.

The third and most sinister possibility is that all of the relatively minor individual actions we are seeing — starting with the discontinuance of most charter trains and the numerous restrictions on private railcar moves and continuing with the downgrading of food service and slashing of amenities, the de-staffing of stations and the hamstringing of tour operators — are in fact part of a plot to eventually terminate or siphon off the long-distance trains. Amtrak management could be borrowing from the playbook of the 1960s Southern Pacific, New York Central and other carriers that sought to justify discontinuing trains by making service as bad as it could be to drive away potential riders. This could be spearheaded by individuals within Amtrak management who may have long wished to divest the company of the national network routes and now have the CEO’s ear. Alternatively, the White House or the upper echelons of the U.S. Department of Transportation may be pulling the strings.

Yes, there are politically influential people who see any public spending on passenger trains as socialism, never mind that it is the public roads that are running out of other peoples' money.  On the other hand, most of those thinly settled, three-electoral vote states (apart from South Dakota and Wyoming) have an Amtrak route in their one Congressional district, and constituents don't take kindly to having their train taken off.  Thus, the co-dependency Mr Kenton worries about here is already present.

Some may believe that Amtrak would be better off if it only operated short-distance corridor trains. But the long-distance network really is the glue that holds the entire enterprise together, both physically (the existence of the network as a whole enhances the bottom line of each individual route that is connected to it, and allows for more efficient use of equipment and labor) and politically (Amtrak’s support in Congress would collapse if the majority of states and Congressional districts lost service). Let’s hope we don’t come to a point where the co-dependency of the Northeast Corridor and the national network is truly put to the test.

Each time I ride a train, or talk with potential train riders, I note the importance of getting involved politically. Letters to your senators and your Member of Congress are relatively cheap requests for client services: you're not asking for a service academy appointment or a Russian dossier, are you?

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

British Railways celebrate the withdrawal of mainline steam locomotives with the Fifteen Guineas Special.

(In those pre-metric days, a guinea was 21 shillings or one pound one shilling, that was not a cheap trip.)

Great Central Railway in Loughborough, Leicestershire, is holding an End of Steam gala featuring one of the engines that hauled the final service on August 11 1968.

The 70013 Oliver Cromwell was used during the charter return trip from Liverpool to Carlisle via Manchester 50 years ago.

It was known as the Fifteen Guinea Special because that was the cost of a ticket.

A ban on all mainline steam traffic was implemented the following day as more efficient and cheaper diesel and electric locomotives were introduced across the country.

Following the end of steam, many locomotives were scrapped but a number were preserved by private individuals and public bodies such as the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York.

A total of four steam locomotives will appear at Grand Central Railway this weekend, taking passengers on 16-mile trips through the Leicestershire countryside.

The Special operated over the Settle and Carlisle "Long Drag" and a steam excursion titled Cumbrian Mountain Express recalls that part of the farewell trip.  Booked kettles include Black Fives and a Britannia.

THE COLUMN ARRIVES A MONTH TOO LATE.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel baseball pundit Tom Haudricort notices the Milwaukee Brewers appear to be tapped out.

Since July 8, when the Brewers were a season-high 18 games over .500 (54-36), they have gone 12-17, a woeful .414 “winning” percentage.

That’s a month of sub-par play, and it has eroded too much of the good work the Brewers did over the first three months of the season. The lopsided loss to the Braves dropped the Brewers three games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs, who have the talent to put their collective feet on the gas at any time.

The warning signs were present going into the All-Star break, with the Crew losing two of three (both in extra innings) in Miami and five straight at Pittsburgh, to be overhauled by the Chicago Cubs.  Brewer fans and pundits, though, aren't in the habit of expecting victory.  The spin, as stirred up by the commentators, was, "Had anyone told us at the beginning of the season that the team would be two games behind the Cubs and holding the first wild card, we'd have taken it."

No, we have to talk about how the team went from three games ahead of the Cubs with the best record in the National League to holding the second wild card today.

A year ago, at the All-Star break, the Brewers were leading the division, with the Cubs a few wins shy of .500, and the Brewers regressed to the mean, as did the Cubs, and the conversation this time of year was, you guessed it, "Had anyone told us at the beginning of the season that the team would be playing .500 baseball, and in the middle of the wild card mix, we'd have taken it."

Yes, the Brewers were in the first or second year of a rebuild, and they might have overachieved at the beginning of the season, but, again, we have to talk about how the team went from leading the division at the All-Star break to out of the playoff at the end of the season. Instead, Mr Haudricort frets about woulda, shoulda.

The Brewers already had played one bad game in [a three game visit by the fire-sale Padres], turning leads of 4-0 and 5-2 into an 11-5 loss in the opener against the Padres. Had the Brewers swept that series, as they should have, this dud against the Braves would have been a mere blip on the radar screen of a long season.

But, in combination with those poorly played games at home, and the long, slow trickle of losing that began the week before the all-star break, the time has come for the Brewers to make a statement to show they’re going to remain a force until the very end.

Perhaps it starts with the sports pundits no longer being content with mediocrity.  I sometimes complain about Packer Nation fans and pundits holding unrealistically high expectations, although if you start each season with the understanding that any season that doesn't conclude with another Lombardi Trophy in Titletown is a failed season, you don't get the "close enough" happy talk characteristic of Brewer fans.

I doubt there's much "close enough" happy talk in St. Louis, a small-market baseball team with a pretty good record once October rolls around.

HENRY CORDELL COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT.

The latest delivery of subway cars to Washington's Metro were not put together properly.

According to a review conducted by Metro’s Quality Assurance, Internal Compliance & Oversight office, the wire crimping on the cars was not correctly completed. The flawed wiring has and has been a factor in issues with the rail cars and can lead to major delays.

As a result, all of the 548 new rail cars currently in service must undergo repairs that are likely to take a full year to complete. The review determined that Metro did not demand Kawasaki, who was manufacturing the rail cars, to conduct relevant quality checks.

Why is it that there's never enough time to get it right in the first place, but plenty of time to do it over?

Metro vowed to ask Kawasaki for information each week until the rail cars manufacturing is finished in 2019 and will modify future contracts to reflect the concerns outlined in the recent report.

Yes, I understand the logic of free trade, and the difficulties domestic electric rail car producers face.  And yet, the knowledge of the people who set up Niles and Hicks and Jewett and Kuhlman and Laconia and Cincinnati and Standard and St. Louis Car cannot have died with them.

WHY FARMERS CALL THE MID-DAY MEAL DINNER.

It might be a regional thing, "suppah" being the New England pronunciation.  There is, however, an historic quantitative connotation in the word origins.

Historically, the word dinner was associated with the largest meal of the day, regardless of whether it was served in the morning, afternoon, or evening. The term comes from the non-Classical Latin word disjējūnāre, which is defined as breaking a fast.

No, we're not going to clutter the conversation with your Traditional English Breakfast, or the all-you-can-eat pancakes at the air show.

Supper, on the other hand, is more time-specific. It stems from the Old French word souper, meaning an evening meal, and it's generally lighter than other meals served throughout the day. In other words, supper and dinner have more to do with the quantity of food that’s served than the time of day that you feast on them.

In the 1800s and perhaps even earlier, Americans in some rural regions started calling their midday meal dinner, while supper was reserved for the evening meal. This had more to do with occupation than location, though. In parts of the South and Midwest where farmers needed ample fuel to get them through the day, the midday meal was larger (hence the use of the term dinner). In the evening, supper typically involved a light soup, and the act of eating it was referred to as supping. Indeed, the word supper is related to suppe, the German word for soup.

There has to be yet another disquisition, somewhere, on the evolution of luncheon, a namby-pamby term for the rubber chicken circuit at noon, as opposed to lunch, as in "out to lunch" or "no such thing as a free lunch."

The use of "dinner" at midday is a regional thing.

This is still the norm in some parts of the U.S. As Wide Open Eats discovered through Google Trends, a search for “supper” is most common in Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.


This is also the case in some parts of the South. “If you grew up in the South post-colonial era, however, chances are your association with the words have more to do with colloquial etymology, rather than the time of day you sat down to eat,” Southern Living notes. “For example, you probably heard, 'supper’s ready,' just before Mama or Grandma placed a table-full of delicious dishes before you.”

However, supper is seldom used anymore—especially among younger generations—and dinner is by far the more popular term nationwide.

This post was a long time in coming, account a slow internet, and your Superintendent grilling bratwursts for supper. Hope you had a good supper, too, dear reader.

AT LEAST THE DUMMIES WERE OPEN.

Green Bay Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers wants his supporting cast to earn their positions.

“It was one of the worst card sessions we’ve had,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know how you can make it any simpler. You literally have what the play would be in our terminology on the card, and the effort level was very low. Especially with what I’m accustomed to. I’ve been running that period for a number of years.

“So it’s not a good start for us on the card period for the young guys.”

Rodgers then drew a line in the sand. He made clear which young receivers have earned his favor: Geronimo Allison, DeAngelo Yancey and Jake Kumerow.

“Everybody else,” Rodgers said, “was kind of piss poor.”

As the General Notice reads, "To obtain promotion, ability must be shown for greater responsibility."

The ability to get open against the first team defense now is what the quarterback is looking for.

The promotion is to be running patterns in practice with Aaron Rodgers in September.

Rodgers didn’t offer any excuses for his young receivers, but he did provide a reason. This deep into camp, he knows, players get tired. “I’m tired too,” he said. Perhaps that’s why practice ended not with a meaningful rep, but Rodgers discarding the football toward tackle dummies.

That fatigue can lead to a short fuse, Rodgers admitted. It shouldn’t open the door to missed assignments. As the practice portion of the Packers' preseason winds down — the team has just five more full practices left this month, and none until Sunday — Rodgers made it clear he expects more.

“When you’re a little gassed,” Rodgers said, “the mental part of it starts to go. The focus goes away, and there wasn’t the same energy at practice. Obviously, I’ve got to do a better job of bringing that when I feel it, but we’ve got to pick each other up and be a little sharper.”

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE.

Will Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel take advantage of the most recent weekend carnage to rediscover bourgeois habits?  He's at least giving lip service.  "If you say enough is enough, you must come forward as a neighborhood where a moral center of gravity holds. . . . [There are] too many people with criminal records on the street, and there is a shortage of values about what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable, what is condoned and what is condemned." At least he's talking about what happens when the village combines the redeeming features of a hippie commune and the projects.

To address the shortage, though, would be to go against decades of benign neglect, or is it outright enabling of the yobs?  John Kass writes, "Cook County’s one-party political class seems incapable of addressing [the carnage]; from the prosecutors who don’t prosecute, to judges, to the police brass trying to keep their jobs, to Chicago aldermen." He continues, "What’s needed is clear policy, which isn’t about emotion, but rather clear thinking.

We're unlikely to see that from The Combine.  We'd be unlikely to get policies that work in cities with Democrat politicians dependent on dependent voters.  Jack Dunphy gets it.

As Rahm Emanuel knows, to take a stand against hit-and-run fatherhood is to cast blame on a significant portion of the Chicago electorate. What’s more, to do so would also cast blame on the leftist policies that gave rise to the welfare state and to which he owes his political career. The vast government apparatus that over the years has come to make fathers unnecessary, at least in a financial sense, lies at the very heart of Democratic politics.

It's worth recalling that Blaming the Victim documented the abuses clients of New Haven's public assistance programs, early in the days of the so-called War on Poverty, endured.  Ignore personal agency and court the consequences.  Will those include a serious attempt by the Democrats' base in the hardscrabble parts of Chicago to take agency and turf out the mayor, and much of that political class?

WHAT FIFTEEN BUCKS AN HOUR BUYS YOU.

Rental's Universal Robots.

The clip invokes "labor shortages," which may or may not be accurate, the way for a business to deal with a "labor shortage" (or the always-popular "insufficient skilled workers" version) is to offer better compensation and less burdensome work hours.

That noted, industrial robots that don't have to be purpose-built for an assembly line, and might be relatively easily reconfigured and leased out to a different assembly line, are an advance on the automated kiosks that spare diners an encounter with the sometimes uneven service at a staffed ordering counter.

It is no accident, dear reader, that the vendor is leasing these tools at $15 an hour.

REDISTRIBUTE THE PAIN.

That's what Rush Limbaugh quips is leftism, properly understood.

Chicago is a microcosm of the contemporary Democratic coalition, and the contradictions within that coalition have been festering.

The Chicago Cubs just celebrated a World Series win.  The despair, and the carnage, elsewhere in Chicago continues.  The elite live east of Wrigleyville or along the lake or near the Magnificent Mile or the Loop, including, for whatever it's worth, in Chicago's Trump Tower.  Go south from Wrigleyville to Printers Row in the South Loop, and east to the lake, you have what, fifteen square miles of privilege surrounded by the Third World.  How long can the Democratic part of that bicoastal, bipartisan elite sustain that coalition?

We still transfer power with ballots and ceremonies.  The militias await.  Or the pitchforks, torches, tar, feathers, pikes, tumbrels, and the odd diseased yak lobbed over the city walls.

We're not yet to the pitchforks, tumbrels, or diseased yaks, and yet Chicago's Democratic base is breaking bad on Chicago's Democratic mayor, and his police commissioner.  "In a march that shut down a portion of Lake Shore Drive during rush hour and ended with prayers and speeches outside of Wrigley Field, hundreds of anti-violence protesters marched in Chicago on Thursday evening to demand that the city invest in its impoverished neighborhoods and to call for the resignations of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson."

The reporting doesn't describe the Third World coming to Wrigleyville, but the sentiments are there.

"It's a tale of two cities," Rev. Gregory Livingston, another lead organizer, explained to USA Today. "One of the hardest things to do is inspire the uninspired. Sometimes you have to stick your neck out, have some skin in the game and get people to recognize that there are some people here are that trying to do something."

As the Tribune noted, the demonstration on Thursday followed a July 7 march organized by Rev. Michael Pfleger, which "shut down the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway for an hour on a Saturday morning." While Emanuel endorsed Pfleger's event, the organizers of Thursday's march made it clear they did not want the mayor's support, even carrying a banner which read, "#ResignRahm: End the Tale of Two Cities. Justice for ALL Chicagoans!"

The Cub game, and Lollapalooza, which is in progress this weekend, went on as scheduled. I sense disappointment from the Common Dreams writer at that development.

SECOND SECTION.  Thirty people shot, three dead, within three hours; dozens shot, five dead since Friday; queues for information at Stroger Hospital (things sometimes get hectic at "Chicago Med," reality would not be believed on television.)  "The shootings, concentrated on the West and South sides, took place between 10 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday."

Perhaps last week's marchers had a point, asking the mayor and police commissioner to step out of line.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was downtown Sunday to announce plans for improvements to the Riverwalk, was not at the news conference. Police Supt. Eddie Johnson also was not in attendance.

The aftermath of many of the shootings played out inside and outside the emergency room at Stroger Hospital where extended [family] members and friends were prevented from entering as the staff dealt with the influx of trauma patients.

Visitation was limited to immediate family members, leaving dozens of people to mill about the parking lot outside the emergency room, where the sounds of crying, wailing and yelling could be heard every few minutes. Tempers occasionally flared. Nearly two dozen police officers huddled near the entrance to the hospital.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said one law enforcement officer stationed outside the hospital who’s seen similar scenes play out over two decades.

“It’s hot right now. There’s a lot of tension,” said the officer, who asked not to be named. “And it might get worse because you can hear people talking about revenge, saying on their cellphones ‘I know know who did it. You get him.’ ”

The hot and humid weather will continue for a few more days.

THE SQUIRES IN THE SHIRES.

I made that reference with respect to recent objections by the landed gentry to a new Rail Way visible from the Manor House.  Herewith, the Rest of the Story.  "Runaway railway expansion helped inspire Britain’s preservationist movement." It's more subtle than that: there is at least one Aesthetic Tunnel in the south of England in order that Somebody Important would not see the exhaust, or the commoners riding in an open third.

Some people saw this as progress: In 1839 one railway chairman told Parliament that the companies had every right to level anything that stood in the way of their expansion. (He conceded that Westminster Abbey could probably stay standing.) But as that expansion and other development projects accelerated, some people began to worry about what was being lost. If they couldn’t preserve the slower pace of life they were accustomed to, they reasoned, at least they could save the monuments that evoked those earlier times.

That's referring to stone circles, ruined castles and abbeys, and the like. Toad Hall was exempt.

Wealth also helped drive this movement, since rich people didn’t like when the trains cut through their land. To modern-day developers, this is a predictable problem, but in the early 19th century this particular brand of backlash was still new. When, in the early 1830s, a railway company proposed building a new line from London to Birmingham, local landowners, including at least a couple of earls, gathered at public meetings to protest the proposal, and the danger it posed to the ruins of Berkhamsted Castle in Hertfordshire.

Thus, by 1882 Britain had an Ancient Monuments Protection Act, which, these days, might be invoked to protect George Hudson era viaducts and bridges.

THE WEAKEST BOARD IN THE MID-AMERICAN'S FRONT PORCH?

College football season approaches, and Eastern Michigan will still be attempting to be competitive in the Mid-American, although the maneuvering to shore up football isn't doing anything for morale, either in the athletic department, or in the academic bits of the university.

Eastern Michigan has cut four sports from their athletic program, and they have been sued by former athletes, including two women that are claiming discrimination as a result of the aforementioned cuts, per David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press.

The lawsuit, filed in June 2018 by former softball player Ariana Chretien and former tennis player and Czech national Marie Mayerova, comes about after the school cut four programs in a cost-saving effort to offput a substantial budget deficit. The move saved the school about $2.4 million and is paired with several other cuts affecting the academic side.

As part of the move, EMU cut 58 male athletes and 24 female athletes, which is where the brunt of the problem starts to reveal itself.

Sometimes the way to demonstrate the folly of a rule is to comply with it.  Eastern Michigan is not the first Mid-American team, or Division I football participant more generally, to deal with a deficit in athletics by cutting "nonrevenue" teams (the notion of "nonrevenue" being a particular joke in the student-fee-dependent Mid-American) and tossing male rather than female athletes owing to counsel's understanding of Title IX.

When a Hustle Belt columnist, which is to say, a sports enthusiast, notes that even a shored up front porch on a rickety house isn't working, you have a problem.

EMU, it has to be said, has its own set of problems which has led them to this situation. The atmosphere around the program has been fairly hostile from within, with students and faculty often clashing with administrative officials over the athletic budget, especially the football program, which up until recently, was regarded as a cursed “sacred cow” by some.

The fact that the athletic budget woes were paired with academic cuts didn’t help the cause, as the school estimated it was set to lose $6.5 million in fiscal year 2018, due in part to a decrease in student enrollment, which fell by 11.6 percent from fiscal year 2014.

It's all a bit much, even for a self-confessed Eagles football enthusiast.

I would try do a better job of promoting women’s athletics. MAC football is king for most of you, and an important enough part of my life that I take time out of my busy day to write about it. Great, now use the fact that “we” are willing to play on weeknights. Instead of asking for more money from ESPN for sacrificing our student’s Saturday football experience, maybe the ADs could say, “Instead of Weeknight #MACtion just being about football, we want that to be a theme with ESPN for basketball, too. Specifically women’s basketball. Of course the other colleges play on the weeknights, and the men, too, so maybe you have Women’s Wednesday, and we get a bone thrown our way once a month.”

None of which will have any effect on student enrollment, or on the activity fees the students pay for the privilege of choosing between a televised game on a school night or, oh, studying.