Street closing of a North Little Rock street for water repairs by Central Arkansas Water reported for this weekend:
http://pulaskinews.net/articles/2011/01/14/the_times/local_news/news0001.txt
From a UP conductor, working on a short-line route:
Dear sir:
My name is Zach Pumphery. I am a Through Freight Conductor for Union Pacific Railroad in Kansas City, Missouri. I am a lifelong resident of this area, born and raised in Poplar Bluff, MO, I lived and worked for the railroad in Southern Illinois, Northern Arkansas, and all over Missouri. I grew up loving trains, and began working for the railroad at the age of 18. I have also been actively involved with the preservation of American Railroading through various railroad museums and historical societies.
I am writing you on the behalf of area railroad enthusiasts in support of the Union Pacific Great Excursion Adventure. This is a contest being conducted by Union Pacific Railroad where the general public gets to route a Union Pacific steam locomotive somewhere on their diverse 22-state system. UP received over 60,000 nominations for towns to visit in November of 2010.
UP operates two steam locomotives in special service, they are #844, the only steam locomotive that has never been retired from active service in the United States, and #3985, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive, and one of only two surviving examples of its type.
UP 844: http://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/steam/locomotives/844.shtml
UP 3985: http://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/steam/locomotives/3985.shtml
From those towns they have selected 4 different routes based on the number of nominations and feasibility of running a 1940’s era steam locomotive. Now, here’s the cool part: one of those 4 routes plotted out passes through Kansas City, MO, Boonville, Jefferson City, Kirkwood, St. Louis, East St. Louis, IL, Cahokia, Dupo, Valmeyer, Chester, Thebes, Scott City, MO, Delta, Bell City, Dexter, Poplar Bluff, Neelyville, Corning, AR, Walnut Ridge/Hoxie, Tuckerman, Newport, Bald Knob, Searcy/Kensett, Beebe, Jacksonville, North Little Rock, and Little Rock.
http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/attachments/media_kit/steam/excursion_adventure/little_rock_express_map.pdf
This effort is somewhat of a personal endeavor for me, as I have worked over or ridden over literally every stretch of railroad this train will touch between Kansas City and North Little Rock.
Now, to accomplish this, we need the support of the community around the tracks. While these steam engines run every year, it has been over a decade since many people along the route have even had the chance to see an operating steam locomotive. Kansas City saw both of UP’s steam engines this past year (2010). Little Rock and St. Louis each saw one in 2010. Most towns between St. Louis and Little Rock haven’t seen a steam locomotive since 2004, and in some places, 1996!
America’s youth will never get the chance to see these monsters in regular service, but you can help give them a chance to see a part of living history thundering by, and possibly spend the night in your community, since the train will make overnight stops in at least 3 intermediate locations between Kansas City and Little Rock (these places will probably be Jefferson City, St. Louis, Dexter or Poplar Bluff.) The fact that UP has never done anything like this offers you a rare chance to route a piece of history. If you have never seen an operating steam locomotive, it is a sight that just about anybody can enjoy and appreciate, and their visits are usually remembered fondly, and for a very long time.
The reason I’m appealing to you is our area is a primarily rural, but historical region, that owes much of its development to the railroads dating back to the turn of the century, and our route is up against the other 3, as of January 6th we are 2,000 votes behind a route that takes the train to the Chicago area, but we’re ahead the other two. With your support, we can bring this piece of history to OUR area, but mind you, we’re up against a lot of other people.
I encourage your area residents, readers, and viewers to vote for the route that passes through here. It is very simple: go to www.upexcursion.com, click “Little Rock Express”, and enter a vaild e-mail address, agree to the terms of service, and verify your first vote via an automated e-mail that will be sent immediately to you. After the initial first vote, you can vote again and again for the “Little Rock Express” once per day until January 17th. The winning route will be announced on the 18th.
You can find more information by visiting:
http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/releases/heritage_and_steam/2011/0104_upexcursion.shtml
www.upexcursion.com
www.upsteam.com
www.up.com
Again, I would like to stress this is the first time UP has ever done anything like this in their 50 years of operating special steam locomotive excursions. Usually these trips are determined internally by their public affairs department.
Zach Pumphery
Conductor – Union Pacific Railroad
Harrisonville, MO
Odds are great that I shouldn’t go there, me being shaped the way I am — round in the middle and bald as an egg on the back of my head — but I have to address the sights I encountered Saturday:
I helped with our Razorbacks coverage of the Louisiana-Monroe game that day at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. My wife dropped me off on Markham and Fair Park near the stadium. Coming in from the west, we ran into the backed-up traffic just before Markham intersects with University and crept on in from there.
Lots of people were walking toward — and for some reason away from — the stadium and a bunch more were partying along the way from St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center over to the stadium, mostly at the expense of the War Memorial golf course.
Because traffic was creeping, we could see the walkers headed both ways and the partygoers they were passing.
First, apparently, the latest fashion trend for women is to wear jean cutoffs with various forms of cowboy boots. Some of the jeans were “torn” and some were hemmed. The younger the woman, the more likely it was that her jean shorts had fringe unraveling. Scores of women were wearing that combination, many with some type of Razorbacks T-shirt or sweatshirt as a top.
A handful of them were attractive in their outfit. A few more were cute, but likely lacked the proper tan to be showing off their legs in front of 55,000 people. Many more were not properly toned to be showing their legs at all. The rest should not have worn clothes that showed they lacked a workout routine.
Second, some of the guys were just as bad. They were dressed in shirts and pants that didn’t fit them — by several sizes in some cases. Some of them showed every lump in their roly-poly bellies and backsides. But I wasn’t noticing them as much as the women. My wife, Nancy, who is an equal opportunity fashion critic, confirmed that both sexes were looking pretty paunchy in their U of A duds.
Of course, these people have every right to dress how they want to for a party before a football game and, possibly, for the game itself. I’m not saying they shouldn’t dress just as they did.
I’m just saying that maybe they should consider how they appear to a casual observer who happened to go by them at a slow pace on Saturday. I don’t mind if they dress that way.
Maybe they should know, though, that if they are wearing the latest trend because they hope to be ogled in a big crowd, they are having a different effect than desired. Chances are good that they’re being noticed for their portliness and not their pulchritude.
A longer version of this post may appear in this week’s editions of The North Little Rock Times, Cabot Star-Herald, Maumelle Monitor, Carlisle Independent, Sherwood Voice and the Lonoke Democrat. You can find online editions of our newspapers at www.pulaskinews.net and www.lonokenews.net.
We are a two-alarm-clock household.
My wife gets up about 5 a.m. and gets ready to be at work between 6:30 and 7. I go in later, so I have a later wake-up time. Right now, we’re sharing a car, so I sometimes take her to the office and then return home for a quick nap.
Nancy’s clock-radio with a buzzer quit early in the week. So she trusted me to set the alarm with my battery-powered LCD travel clock until she could go buy a new one.
I performed my new job well for a couple of days, but she still reminded me often before she went to bed. (She usually makes it until the sixth or seventh inning of St. Louis Cardinals games, but I watch the entire game and then the post-game interviews before I consider going to bed.)
But Thursday morning (or Wednesday night) was different. When I got to bed, she was awake enough to remember to remind me to set the alarm. I still was awake enough to reach over and do it — or so I thought.
Nancy raised up in bed quickly and said: “Did you set the alarm?” I looked at the clock and thought I saw “1:32,” and I said, “Yeah, I think so.”
“Are you sure?”
I looked again and this time the clock said “7:32.” When I looked at the on-off alarm switch, it was neatly there on the right under “OFF.”
Nancy quickly called in to work and explained that her alarm clock had died and that she had just gotten up. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be in the office for an 8:30 a.m. training seminar over the Internet. The techie-types like to call such sessions Webinars, but it seems like a pretty hokey, too-cutesy word to me.
Still, I was due to be in the conference room in less than an hour.
Nancy took a quick shower and I took a quicker one. We dressed rapidly and jumped into the car. As we started up Kanis Road, my wife kindly offered to drop me off and keep the car. We rushed down 12th Street and waited until we reached Woodrow Street to get on Interstate 630 to head downtown. (I still prefer Wilbur Mills Freeway, which is what it was called when it was built.)
She pulled up next to the Stephens Media office at Second and Main in Little Rock about 8:10 a.m. I even had time to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen before the training started. It worked out well because several of my fellow Webinar-ists were caught in creeping traffic as they closed in toward downtown or tried to cross the Main Street Bridge from North Little Rock.
Still, the day turned out to be a struggle. We even had trouble getting a computer hookup from St. Louis to work. Eventually, it did and a second session in the afternoon went smoothly, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that when the alarm clock fails early on a given morning, you seem to be swimming against the current the rest of the day.
