1. The Seattle Bus Challenge

    It began with, as usual, a Monday lunch. Dan Haneckow, Portland blogger, avowed transit geek, and ideas guy, had a question: were transit systems in the northwest well developed enough that a person could ride from Portland to Seattle, purely by using local busses? No Greyhound, Gray Line, Amtrak, or charter systems. True, public busses.


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  2. Healthy progress for Seattle’s Sounder; some setbacks

    Several commuter rail projects underway in Seattle, but no monies coming from...

    • Topics:
      • Politics
    • Published:
      1. TRAINS Magazine, February 01, 2008
    • Metainfo:
      • 485 words
      • 16.2 inches

    Seattle’s Metropolitan bus and rail system, Sound Transit, completed a remark- able year with several long-anticipated capital projects. But future expansion is less certain, after voters defeated a proposed tax increase for new transportation projects. Seattle’s Central Link, which will be the agency’s first light rail system, was the biggest focus of construction for 2007.


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  3. The Grande Dame

    Portland Union Terminal has seen hard times, but the centurion still serves...

    • Topics:
      • Business
      • Politics
      • Travel
    • Published:
      1. TRAINS Magazine, November 01, 2005
    • Metainfo:
      • 3107 words
      • 103.6 inches

    The graceful Richardson Romanesque tower that soars overhead, with its still functioning 1890s Seth Thomas clock, and 1940s vintage “Go By Train” neon sign, is unmatched by any of the great united terminals with which the station shares its name. Others are grander, a few are older. But rare is it to find such a spectacular, photogenic survivor of the gaslight era.


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  4. The Rookie Year

    Reminiscences of a first-year brakeman

    • Topics:
      • Travel
      • Other
    • Published:
      1. TRAINS Magazine, August 01, 2005
    • Metainfo:
      • 1313 words
      • 43.8 inches

    I stood at the back door of the coach, hidden from the passengers in the vestibule, taking a moment to myself at my favorite spot. Outside, through the open door, the ties merged and became one as we traveled down the track at a fine clip. The late summer sun — a trickster tempting with warmth while the winds bit with a chill foretaste of autumn — drenched the pastoral landscape in amber and gold as we passed.


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  5. Neobohemia on the Number 12 Bus

    • Topics:
      • Politics
      • Travel
      • Other
    • Published:
      1. Mimeograph.org, June 01, 2003
    • Metainfo:
      • 1209 words
      • 40.3 inches

    It began when my brother asked for help. I had gotten one of his occasional letters from in town, filled with the amusing and sometimes frightening details of the restaurant world, when I saw the request penned into the end:


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  6. Return of the Budd

    Astoria stands at the mouth of the Columbia River, the only water level crossing of the Cascade-Sierra Divide. The destination of the 1803-1806 Lewis & Clark Expedition, the city is the oldest permanent American settlement west of the Rockies.


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  7. Backcountry Baker

    Rumble Gully is a great ride and sometimes it's the last

    • Topics:
      • Weather
      • Sports
      • Travel
    • Published:
      1. Active! Northwest, November 01, 2000
    • Metainfo:
      • 2078 words
      • 69.3 inches

    High in the North Cascades, it is truly another world. Any Oregon resident who visits here for the first time and walks through the glacial valleys and between it's unending jagged peaks will feel unnerved. These can't be the same mountains he can see from his living room window, hovering like some distorted Fuji on the dim eastern horizon. But they are; huddled together, piercing the sky, thrusting their asymmetrical selves into existence.


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