Andrew F. Laverdiere's Posts - Northwestern Pacific Railroad Network2024-03-29T15:48:41ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdierehttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1967285406?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://nwprr.net/profiles/blog/feed?user=08fd6e6iz9tb8&xn_auth=noSMART update pleasetag:nwprr.net,2021-11-21:3290209:BlogPost:2616082021-11-21T13:03:03.000ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdiere
<p>Now that I'm back in Maine for good, I'd like an update. For those of you who use SMART to commute or get anywhere, how do things look? Is passenger traffic increasing or decreasing? I can still vividly recall all of the hand wringing and end of the world angst of the anti-SMART goofballs.</p>
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<p>If I'm ever back in the area, I'd love to take a trip on it since I spent a lot of time when I lived in the area studying abandoned railroads. Did they finally connect with the ferry at…</p>
<p>Now that I'm back in Maine for good, I'd like an update. For those of you who use SMART to commute or get anywhere, how do things look? Is passenger traffic increasing or decreasing? I can still vividly recall all of the hand wringing and end of the world angst of the anti-SMART goofballs.</p>
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<p>If I'm ever back in the area, I'd love to take a trip on it since I spent a lot of time when I lived in the area studying abandoned railroads. Did they finally connect with the ferry at Larkspur?</p>Need advicetag:nwprr.net,2015-01-05:3290209:BlogPost:1395592015-01-05T17:57:07.000ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdiere
<p>Hello all.</p>
<p>One of our members recently applied for work at one of the big railroad companies and you all pitched in with practical advise about how to go about it.</p>
<p>I'm likewise soliciting advice, although my goals are somewhat more modest. My office here in LA is downsizing and I'll be cut free in a few months so its time to start looking for new work.</p>
<p>If possible here in LA, would there be the means of finding railroad work with a smaller operation, a short line…</p>
<p>Hello all.</p>
<p>One of our members recently applied for work at one of the big railroad companies and you all pitched in with practical advise about how to go about it.</p>
<p>I'm likewise soliciting advice, although my goals are somewhat more modest. My office here in LA is downsizing and I'll be cut free in a few months so its time to start looking for new work.</p>
<p>If possible here in LA, would there be the means of finding railroad work with a smaller operation, a short line perhaps, or the port which has its own railroad.</p>
<p>I'm 46, in good health, single, and without any family issues that would prevent me from putting in the hours that starting out requires. I'm used to working long hours and so forth, so I think that I have the practical outlook that would give me an advantage, despite no experience in the business.</p>My long suffering state of Maine and its dilapidated RR systemtag:nwprr.net,2014-07-01:3290209:BlogPost:1283402014-07-01T19:36:43.000ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdiere
<p>Hello all. While I don't think anyone here particularly cares about minor railroads in states on the other side of the country, I just have to express my dismay with my old home state and the sorry state of its rail infrastructure, not too dissimilar with that of the NWP not too long ago. Plus, the New England railroad forum that I used to contribute to is defunct thanks to stupid bickering, trolling, poor management and horrible design.…</p>
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<p>Hello all. While I don't think anyone here particularly cares about minor railroads in states on the other side of the country, I just have to express my dismay with my old home state and the sorry state of its rail infrastructure, not too dissimilar with that of the NWP not too long ago. Plus, the New England railroad forum that I used to contribute to is defunct thanks to stupid bickering, trolling, poor management and horrible design.</p>
<p><a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2014/02/14/business/new-owner-new-name-mma-to-become-the-central-maine-and-quebec-railway/?ref=relatedBox">http://bangordailynews.com/2014/02/14/business/new-owner-new-name-mma-to-become-the-central-maine-and-quebec-railway/?ref=relatedBox</a></p>
<p>Maine used to be dominated by the Maine Central covering the south half of the state, and the Bangor and Aroostook covering the north half. Both have long gone, killed off by the post industrial paradigm shift in the 70's. Pan Am and Guilford under the Mellon family "operates" the former MC, what wasn't abandoned, and the B&A is now gone through two different companies, and state ownership. When I visited Maine last year investigating some abandoned railroads, I got a close look at the former MC rail yard at Pittsfield, and the conditions shocked me at how bad the main lines were.</p>
<p>About the only bright spot is the development of the Amtrak line up to Brunswick in the South.</p>
<p>So, while things aren't perfect up there in northern California, you guys at least have a functional railroad that's come back from the dead. Things in my old state are in a state of general decay.</p>
<p></p>History is dangeroustag:nwprr.net,2013-06-14:3290209:BlogPost:998722013-06-14T21:18:42.000ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdiere
<p>For those of you who have paid attention to my activities since I've been a member, you'll notice that I am an active researcher when I'm investigating abandoned railroads, preferring to go out and see for myself where things used to be. Something I just ran across, just reminded me of how dangerous it is. Seems that back in 2011, a city council member up in Fort Bragg was murdered in cold blood by some pot growers. Before I moved down here, an area that I would have loved to explore for the…</p>
<p>For those of you who have paid attention to my activities since I've been a member, you'll notice that I am an active researcher when I'm investigating abandoned railroads, preferring to go out and see for myself where things used to be. Something I just ran across, just reminded me of how dangerous it is. Seems that back in 2011, a city council member up in Fort Bragg was murdered in cold blood by some pot growers. Before I moved down here, an area that I would have loved to explore for the old steam train lines was the Cazadero area and the Magnesite RR, which I was warned about as the location of pot growers.</p>
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<p>Its activity like this that brings to mind the old saying, pot smokers don't remember the brains they lost in their defence of their vice as "harmless".</p>
<h2 class="itemTitle">Legislature approves bill to protect forests and forest users from criminal activity</h2>
<div class="itemFullText"><p><em>AB 2284 goes to Gov as anniversary of shooting death of Jere Melo approaches</em></p>
<p>SACRAMENTO – The Legislature has given final approval to and sent to the governor a bill by <a href="http://assembly.ca.gov/">Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro</a> (D – North Coast) to give law enforcement tools to battle illegal drug operations, protecting environmentally sensitive forest lands and those who use them. AB 2284 goes to the governor for his signature nearly a year after the death of Ft. Bragg City Councilmember Jere Melo, who was killed when he stumbled on an illegal grow while inspecting forest lands near the city on Aug. 27, 2011.</p>
<p>“The best way to prevent illegal drug operations from damaging the environment and threatening those who use our forests is to stop these operations from being established in the first place,” Chesbro said. “This legislation gives law enforcement new tools to protect our public resource lands and private industrial timberland. AB 2284 also increases the financial penalties for conducting criminal enterprises on our forest lands to provide the funding needed to investigate these cases and clean up the environmental damage.”</p>
<p>AB 2284 allows law enforcement to stop and question drivers who are transporting in plain sight irrigation supplies – commonly used in illicit grows – over unpaved or gravel roads that run through specified resource lands. These include public lands and private Timber Preserve Zone forest lands of 50,000 acres or larger. Owners of TPZ lands of 2,500 acres or more can also opt in.</p>
<p>“I would like to thank Assemblymember Chesbro for authoring this bill and highlighting this huge environmental devastation that results from marijuana being grown in the forest,” said Madeline Melo, who started a foundation to protect forest lands in the name of her late husband. “Marijuana cultivation has caused large scale damage to wildlife and humans. While this bill is not the ultimate solution, it is a step in the process.</p>
<p>“My objective and the mission of the Jere Melo Foundation is not only to protect the environment and humans, but to ensure that nothing like what happened to my husband would happen to anyone else in the future. I hope to, once again, make the forest a safe place for people to do their jobs.”</p>
<p>Gov. Jerry Brown has until Sept. 30 to act on AB 2284.</p>
</div>Small minded peasantstag:nwprr.net,2012-08-26:3290209:BlogPost:789592012-08-26T03:39:33.000ZAndrew F. Laverdierehttp://nwprr.net/profile/AndrewFLaverdiere
Seeing the usual bitching in the letters section of the local papers about Smart seriously has me annoyed as hell. To use cynical and backwards terms like "train to nowhere" (which is retarded on the face of it) is an insult to the many thousands of people who live along the 101 corridor that's going to be effected by it, either directly or indirectly. In reflection of former days when they had to install track in virgin wilderness in which case you can call it a train to nowhere, literally,…
Seeing the usual bitching in the letters section of the local papers about Smart seriously has me annoyed as hell. To use cynical and backwards terms like "train to nowhere" (which is retarded on the face of it) is an insult to the many thousands of people who live along the 101 corridor that's going to be effected by it, either directly or indirectly. In reflection of former days when they had to install track in virgin wilderness in which case you can call it a train to nowhere, literally, the idea was to open up areas for exploitation and development.<br />
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As anyone who has wasted too much of his/her life on the highway parking lot called 101, alternative methods of transportation utilizing wasted areas of abandoned rail makes a hell of a lot of sense, despite the scary initial capital requirements to bring the line up to snuff, which seems like a tiny drop in the ocean of high finance Ponzi schemes that allow for our communities and institutions to be ripped of by jet-setting pin stripped gangsters. Meanwhile, small minded cretins bitch over a few pennies.<br />
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It may seem cynical, but where are the folks who were proud that we put a man on the moon and did things that didn't involve your pocketbook? The philisophical legacy of the ME! ME! ME! generation is disgusting. <\soapbox mode off>