California State Railroad Museum, 2017 -- August 8, 2017

Today we drove to Sacramento.  Traffic was light going up. The weather in Sacramento was pleasant, not too hot.  The California State Railroad Museum had an exhibit of autos from the California Automobile Museum, which used to be the Towe Ford Museum.  I wanted to visit that place, but it is closed on Tuesdays.  Here we see a high speed rail mockup with a 1914 Stanley Steamer. 

In the lobby there was an exhibit of images showing Southern Pacific employee sports teams, including baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball and bowling. 

We walked under the freeway to the K Street Mall to get lunch.  The K Street Mall was closed.  They are redeveloping it.  We were hungry, so it was fortunate that Macy's had a cafe on the ground floor.  We had a nice lunch there. 

We walked through Old Sacramento and back to the car.  We stopped at the Nut Tree to have sundaes at Fenton's.  Traffic going home was pretty light, except around Emeryville. 

California State Railroad Museum, 2016 -- July 31, 2016

Today we drove to Sacramento.  Traffic was good going up. We picked up tickets for a first class train ride, then visited the museum.  There was an exhibit about signals, and a high speed rail mockup by Siemens. 

After, we had a little lunch and then rode in observation car El Dorado on the Sacramento Southern.  It was a nice ride.  The stewards served cookies, pretzels or peanuts, and soft drinks. 

We drove west on 80 and traffic was slow at several points.  We stopped at the Nut Tree and had a bite at Fenton's. 

Stu Miller, RIP -- January 7, 2015

I was sad to learn that Stu Miller, who pitched for the New York and San Francisco Giants has died.  He was an excellent right-handed relief pitcher who was Sporting News National League Reliever of the year in 1961.    No one remembers that.  People remember that the wind blew him off the mound at Candlestick Park during the first 1961 All Star Game.  Actually, the wind caused him to balk. 

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Yesterday in Fresno, Governor Jerry Brown broke groups for the California High Speed Rail Project. 

Hyperloop -- August 12, 2013

Elon Musk was not happy with the details of the California high speed rail project, so he started to think about an alternative, which he said at one time would be a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table."

Today he revealed his concept, an elevated pneumatic tube line, with the cars impelled by magnetic levitation and riding on a cushion of air.  He feels the cars could go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes.  He says that the system would not be practical for distances over 1000 miles.

It might work, although I don't think Musk took the power of NIMBYs into account.  

I thought about Alfred Ely Beach's Beach Pneumatic Subway, which he tested under Broadway, New York for some time after 1870.