Rail-worthy, eco-approved – Part 3: America’s electric trains

Introduction Electricity is as old as the world itself: 4.5 billion years. Regarding our capture of and our deriving benefit from, in relative terms and where that’s concerned, it registers as barely a blip on the geologic-timescale radar screen. In putting this invaluable – and invisible – resource to work as we’ve done, it just … Read more

LIRR service to Grand Central Madison station to begin. NY State Governor rides inaugural train

The below Jan. 25, 2023 press release* is from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Governor Kathy Hochul and MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber today rode the inaugural Long Island Rail Road train to Grand Central Madison, which arrived at the terminal platform at 11:07 a.m. The train was the first of Grand Central Direct … Read more

Travel adventure: S.F. Bay to the Silver State and back via Interstate 80

Who doesn’t remember the late ’70s oil pinch? Those, too, were difficult days. I had been driving a late ’60s gas-guzzling, oil-burning, poor-example-of-an-automobile automobile. It, figuratively speaking, was a wreck. I used it to get to work and back, shopping and what-not in California’s San Francisco Bay Area where I was living and working at … Read more

Biking Baltimore: Oh how I miss that free-wheeling feeling

There is something about biking. The activity itself typically involves roadway-space sharing, with cars, trucks, motorcycles, electric scooters, other bikes and the like. Not just this, but such is perhaps the best mobility-based way to take it all (read: “the outdoors,” “the scenery,” “the rush”) in, the bottom line being, that’s what cycling is. With … Read more

Clean-air Adventure Series encore: Provo, Utah

It was during the late spring of 1986, and I was on a mission. More precisely, I was in the latter part of post-baccalaureate studies and in the home stretch making my way toward earning a Master’s Degree in Education at California State University, Fresno the culminating requirement being a thesis project. I had chosen … Read more

Hitting 2030 GHG-mark harder with California driving-miles rising – 2

Greenhouse gas emissions in California must be at a level of 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) units. That’s the target for year 20301 as prescribed by Executive Order B-30-15 and California Senate Bill 322 and which amounts to a 181 MMTCO2e-reduction below the 431 MMTCO2e-figure, the goal established for 2020 or … Read more

Riding the rails one ‘fine’ day? Close, but no cigar

Through travels I have visited many a place. Canada and Mexico are among the vast number of North American sites and points trekked to. But it was one cross-country journey that stands out from the rest, it taking place in the mid-1980s, with primary and secondary destinations being: Baltimore, Maryland and Hanover, Pennsylvania. Has history … Read more