DWIGHT HOLMES
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On the article Saturday Mail Delivery to End, Postal Service Announces
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On the article Major Problems on Penn Line Friday Morning
DWIGHT HOLMES
11:10 am on Friday, January 25, 2013
ReplyNote that, for once, these problems are affecting a line that does not serve Riverdale Park! Camden line unaffected.
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On the article Trolley Trail Set to Begin Construction in Summer
DWIGHT HOLMES
5:28 pm on Thursday, March 29, 2012
ReplyCarol, yes, the segment that traverses the Cafritz property will be built by the Cafritz development (as the piece across the EYA property was just built by EYA (actually, I don't think it's EYA anymore, but whichever developer now owns the piece on the east side of Route 1)
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On the article Riverdale Park Council to Address MARC Train Schedule Changes
DWIGHT HOLMES
12:00 pm on Wednesday, March 28, 2012
ReplyPachacutec -
It's not the schedule has been changed that is objectionable. It's the ridiculous addition of a clause in the schedule that trains can leave Riverdale station five minutes ahead of the scheduled departure time. All this does is add unnecessary anxiety into everyone's morning, without advancing any of MARC's stated reasons for the change. The fact that it is physically impossible for the trains to leave College Park on time (and there's no "L" designation indicating they would leave early) and then leave Riverdale 5 minutes early. Even if they travel at the speed of light. So why put this on the schedule? -
On the article RP Meeting Notes: Council Opposes MARC Changes; Cafritz Letter in Works
DWIGHT HOLMES
10:29 am on Wednesday, March 28, 2012
ReplyThanks to the Patch and Rachel for your thorough coverage of this and all of the council's meetings! It is awesome to be able to follow these events via the Patch.
What I would add to the discussion of the MARC schedule changes is that Mr Johnson, the MARC spokesperson did not have an answer for my question "How could a train that leaves College Park on time (e.g., at 7:24 am) possibly leave Riverdale Park 5 minutes ahead of its scheduled time, which is 5 minutes later (7:29)? His answer was "I didn't make the schedule." Since that was precisely the topic on the council's agenda, maybe MARC sent the wrong person?
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On the article Trolley Trail Set to Begin Construction in Summer
DWIGHT HOLMES
9:59 am on Tuesday, March 27, 2012
ReplyOften the best ideas take the longest time to germinate. Congratulations, Wesley! :)
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On the article Trolley Trail Set to Begin Construction in Summer
DWIGHT HOLMES
1:38 pm on Saturday, March 24, 2012
ReplyThere is still the unresolved matter of the southern end of the trail. Above it says "[t]he trail will resume just south of the EYA district and continue on to the end of the Flatiron Building, which is home to Franklin’s Brewery," but in fact it's supposed to extend further south and connect to the Northwest Branch Trail as it crosses Route 1 and runs along the sidewalk of Ch Armentrout Rd.
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On the article Trolley Trail Set to Begin Construction in Summer
DWIGHT HOLMES
1:36 pm on Saturday, March 24, 2012
ReplyI just posted a 4-year old video (you can see it up above, below the photo of the trail). This is footage from an event on a cold winter's day where we took a brief tour of part of the trail, plus footage from the old Beltsville Trolley when it was still in operation on the tracks that ran where the trail now lies.
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On the article Riverdale Park Council to Address MARC Train Schedule Changes
DWIGHT HOLMES
7:47 am on Friday, March 23, 2012
ReplyThanks to the Patch for bringing attention to this. Allow me to add, though, that the MARC rationale that you report in the article, that "trains can leave up to five minutes earlier than the listed hours in order to remain on time at subsequent stations" makes no sense. Riverdale is the last station before Union Station. MARC already pads their schedules with an extra 10 minutes. So trains can leave Riverdale 10 minutes late (as they sometimes do) and still be "on time" at the end of the line. There are no subsequent stations other than the end of the line! All this does is add an additional measure of anxiety to everyone's morning time - for no good reason. Thanks, again.
Dwight Holmes
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On the article Letter: New MARC Train Schedule Punishes Riverdale
DWIGHT HOLMES
2:33 pm on Wednesday, March 21, 2012
ReplyJohn Mullins, in answer to your question, what MARC said in their explanation was this: "While we are glad to see more people using MARC, it requires more time at each
station to load and unload passengers. End point on time performance has been in the 90%
range for a while, but we recognize that trains are not on time at many intermediate stops. By
adjusting times to reflect both current operational conditions and ridership levels, we will be
able to provide a more reliable service to all of our passengers. Simply put, most trains,
especially afternoon northbound trains, need more time to board and detrain passengers at
stations since ridership has increased." But as you can see, that says nothing about, nor does it indicate any justification for the new "L" designation allowing trains to leave 5 minutes ahead of schedule. In fact, the whole idea makes no sense. The scedule is already padded to allow 10 extra minutes between Riverdale, the last stop, and Union Station. So leaving Riverdale 5 minutes early is never going to be the difference between being on time or being late. The only explanation is they want to have an excuse for not holding at College Park even on days when there are not dozens of students getting off the train there. But that is certainly no justification for creating such uncertainty about the time of train departures from the next station. They really must reconsider and revoke this decision.
DWIGHT HOLMES
10:46 am on Thursday, February 7, 2013
The privateers are having their way, doing everything they can to make sure the Post Office can't work, then waiting to pick up the pieces - at a profit.
My wife's business will be hit hard by the recent rate hikes that flew in under the radar. A 6 oz parcel to Canada - a big part of her business - used to ship for $3.60. Now, suddenly, it's $8.55. That's gonna hit us hard. Funny how the people in Congress who claim to be all about "small business" don't seem to care at all in the end. Ultimately the Big Shippers, like the Big Box stores, will push out the competition and probably own whatever leftover pieces of the USPS they like, leaving the small towns and rural delivery people up the proverbial creek, without a post office.