Tag Archives: transportation

Ferry in to Coupeville

Washington State Ferries cover a wide range of routes. Some of them are major commuter journeys and the boats are sized to handle lots of cars and passengers. Others are far more specialized runs that have lower frequencies and capacity. This can change throughout the year with the peak season demand being way higher than the off-season and larger boats get drafted in.

While I was on the shore at Coupeville, one of the ferries came in. We actually took this route on a vacation a couple of years ago and it was quite busy then. This time things were a lot quieter and the boat was clearly not one of the biggest that WSDOT has available.

Sounder’s New Cab Cars

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New locomotives are not the only new vehicles to have shown up in Seattle. Sound Transit runs the Sounder commuter rail service in the area and they have been taking delivery of new cab cars. These are built by Bombardier, as were the previous cab cars. However, this is a new design that incorporates crash energy management technology. As a result, they have done away with the passenger gangway on the front of the vehicle and provided a full width cab for the engineer. It provides a slightly more elegant front end to the vehicle than the previous design.

Some Modern Supercars

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When a museum has a wide variety of vehicles to look at, it seems a bit cheesy to spend too much time looking at the modern supercars. It feels a bit like being a kid with a picture of a Countach on the wall. However, supercars are pretty cool and worthy of a look. On the main floor of America’s Car Museum, there were a few pretty great looking cars.

Ferrari were well represented with some lovely looking modern motors as well as a Testarossa. That car took me back to the 80s. An Aston Martin was also there along with a Lamborghini Aventador which was pretty special. Porsche was also well covered. A 918 first caught my eye but I was quickly drawn away by a Carrera GT. This was only the second example I had seen. (The first was actually driving along Wacker Drive in Chicago, something that would make me very nervous in a car that expensive!)

New WSDOT Locomotives

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In the days running up to the introduction to service of the new WSDOT Siemens Charger locomotives, they were stored in the yard in Seattle awaiting the clearance to run. I was down there for another project and all of these shiny new locomotives were just asking to have their picture taken. How could I refuse? Sadly, one of these locos was involved in the accident a few weeks later.

America’s Car Museum

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The onset of shorter days and less reliable weather (or at least weather that can be relied on to be crummy) means day trips to indoor places. Nancy thought a trip to Tacoma to look at the LeMay collection in America’s Car Museum would be a good plan and she wasn’t wrong. I have seen this museum many times as I drive south on I-5 but hadn’t given much thought to it before. A couple of days before Nancy suggested it, a friend of mine back in California told me he would be going there in the spring so obviously everyone else was thinking about it but me.

The museum is a cool looking structure. An asymmetric curved roof based one a wooden interior frame, it sits on a hillside next to the Tacoma Dome overlooking the harbor. The museum is on multiple levels so, while the building doesn’t look to extensive, it provides a lot of space for the large collection of vehicles. I shall be showing a few specific examples of cars from the collection in upcoming posts but, for the time being, you can get an idea of the overall museum.

Some Small Pleasure Craft

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Two small boats came through the locks while we were there. One was just over 50m in length while the other was much smaller and just under 50m in length. Both of these boats looked like they might be quite comfortable. They were also both flagged in the Caribbean. A quick Google search on each showed that they were available for charter. Both seemed to have plenty of people on board but they looked like they might have been the crew rather than the guests as they seemed all business as they handled these tiny boats through the lock. If I decide to get a boat at some point, I might be tempted by either of these. I do prefer one over the other but I suppose I could make do with the less preferable one if the price were right.

Snoqualmie Historic Trains

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Snoqualmie has an active historic railroad. While we were at the falls, a couple of times we saw a tourist train running along the opposite side of the falls taking visitors on a trip. We never got too close to the train itself while we were there but we did walk past one of the stations. It was a nicely restored building and contained some exhibits on the old services that used to operate there.

Also, parked out of the back was an old locomotive. It wasn’t going anywhere anymore but it did provide a great example to the visitors of the sort of steam loco that used to operate. Now it was possible to get up close and look at the amazingly complex mechanisms it included. Just outside town was another exhibit. This was a snow clearing machine for the railroad. Rather than a plow, it had a cutting head mounted on the front of the vehicle and a blower that could throw the snow in either direction as required. This example had been rebuilt a number of times prior to retirement but now it sat by the road for visitors to check out. (Being a black vehicle on a high sunny day meant it was also a pain to photograph!)

Ferry After Sundown

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Growing up on an island must bring a special affinity for ferries because, whenever I see them, it brings a spark of interest as to what people are going to or from. I lived on the seafront for a portion of my teenage years and the ferries would pass our window each day as they headed to the mainland. Ferry travel at night was often a thing because it would be either the beginning or end of a longer journey. Something about the lights on a ferry at night seems very welcoming to me.

We had a terrace overlooking Puget Sound that we were able to hang out on in the evenings and the regular ferry traffic across the sound caught my attention. It is dark out on the water but the lights from the passenger decks and the lighting on the open car deck beneath shine out across the water. Seeing it from a slightly elevated position on the shore helps as well. Seeing this just makes me feel good. I guess decades away from living on an island hasn’t changed some things deep inside.

An Aging Monorail Keeps on Going

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Cast your mind back to 1962 (if you are old enough to do so). What were your preferred modes of transport then? Do you still drive the same car? Probably not. That was the year the Seattle Monorail opened to serve the World’s Fair. It is still going strong. The original cars are still in use although they have had some upgrades over the years and are planned to have some more. The styling is certainly of their time but they continue to prove to be a popular tourist attraction – the fifth most popular attraction in Washington apparently. There are two trains which operate at peak times, the red and the blue train. The journey is not a long one and it isn’t too cheap but it is part of a visit to Seattle to check it out. Plus, it was going where I wanted to go!

Sailing Ship in Oakland

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A pair of sailing ships had been in Oakland earlier in the year but I didn’t get around to seeing them while they were there. However, I had lunch with some colleagues in Jack London Square a little while later and saw that one of the ships (or another similar ship) was tied up on the dock. Unfortunately, the sun was behind the boat so it wasn’t an ideal time to photograph it but, with something that unusual, I figured I shouldn’t waste the opportunity.