Comments by "smwca123" (@smwca123) on "DownieLive" channel.

  1. Downie, Michael Downie. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  2. I don't think Mike has time to fit in everything he wants.
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  3. Is the city as wonderful as the song says?
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  4. At several points I see along the side of the road a pair of overhead wires that look like they would power trolleybuses, certainly in Vancouver (the last of what were once 16 Canadian cities that had them). What are they for? IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  5. Canada had only 3 aircraft carriers. The last was HMCS Bonaventure, scrapped in 1970 - only 2 years after a major refit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bonaventure. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  6. 1. Awesome as ever, Mike! 2. Did you get to see any of the preserved locomotives? Especially the 2 class GG1 electric locomotives that were the backbone of the Pennsylvania Railroad's NYC-Washington mainline for almost 50 years, 1934-1983. They are 4800, the riveted 1934 prototype that ran from 1934-1979, and 4935, restored to its original appearance in 1976-77. Here's Part 1 of a 4-part 1984 movie: https://youtu.be/tC6W0XEqOLw 3. Thomas not having his characteristic peep-peep whistle, or Annie and Clarabel? 4. No washroom tour? 5. Is Surf Shark a VPN provider? 6. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  7. What an adventure, Mike! Looking forward to your wrap-up. Since you'll probably be reverting to your usual sign-off, you and Nicole should do it in the plural: "We don't know...". And of course as usual IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY2.
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  8.  @DownieLive  See my slight edit to my OP.
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  9. Gotta start somewhere.
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  10. 1. The balls in the display at 2:00 look like the ones used in the Gastown steam clock, which I love. 2. Once I saw the play "The Number 14" at Granville Island Theater. It's a stage play about social interaction on a #14 Hastings bus. For props they used seats from a 1960s GM New Look bus, with green and blue upholstery. Those are still BC Hydro's colors, the green representing BC's forests and the blue its waters. The letter H of course stands for Hydro. 3. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  11.  @DavidBennettPiano  Was the king Henry VIII? And I don't mean the bloke who married the widow next door who'd been married 7 times before, every one was an Henry...
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  12.  @DownieLive  He may capture the last days of some place that will shortly close for good. I already tipped him off to one such place; I really hope he can make it there before the end. Mike: IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  13. Actor McLean Stevenson and his most famous character, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Blake of M*A*S*H, were both "Bloomingtonians", if that's the word.
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  14.  @DownieLive  Nor the spoilers, but you found the thrust reversers and pulled them. That should trigger the spoilers if they weren't already armed, which would cause them to auto-deploy on touchdown. If you landed without a fire, there should be no need to evacuate the passengers.
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  15.  @DownieLive  I wish YT had a Sad icon.
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  16. Mike, did you get to Promontory, which is to the Union Pacific as Craigellachie is to Canadian Pacific? The last (golden) spike was driven at Promontory on May 10, 1869. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  17. Imagine 6'3" Riley at the wheel of the Transit Museum Society's Museum Bus, # 730, an old-look GM. Those have a low ceiling over the driver's head. Ottawa had over 100 of those, which drivers called "head knockers". IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  18. Mike, has your TruEarth partnership run its course?
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  19.  @DownieLive  Which stretch of the Fraser did you cover, and which bridges did you pass under? IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  20. Well worth the wait, Mike! I remember another cable ferry at Treesbank, Manitoba in 1969, which I took on a family camping trip: https://goo.gl/maps/STExPyycrX8MctjJ6. About 20 years later, a bridge replaced the ferry. I don't know where you're going next, but I know I'll be there with you.
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  21. Cable cars are San Francisco. That was an electric streetcar - the only original one in any Old Spaghetti Factory in Canada. All others are replicas.
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  22. Did the crew of the trailing speeder retrieve your phone?
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  23. 76 according to Mike's commentary.
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  24. O'Downie Live Travels By Train - Irish Edition.
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  25. It's closed now.
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  26. Another of Hitler's targets was a then top-secret room in Grand Central Terminal that housed the power generators for New York Central's NYC-area commuter lines. In WWII everyone was afraid of sabotage.
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  27. Because VIA shares most of its tracks with freight trains, whose cars need more clearance.
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  28. 1. Your route out of NYC and much of the way north could be the old New York Central Railroad's "Water Level Route". That route passed to Penn Central in 1968, then after PC's 1970 bankruptcy, to Amtrak and/or various commuter rail authorities including Metro-North. 2. The New England Central Railroad that runs through Vermont was until 1995 the Central Vermont - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canada's very own CN, with its own variation on the CN noodle logo. 3. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  29. I've seen Nicole in some of Mike's previous videos going back several years, including a cruise. Maybe one day the sign-off will be updated to both of them saying, together: "We don't know where we're going next, but we know we want you there with us".
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  30. Which never gave the U.S. a President. The closest it can claim is a First Pilot, Colonel Ralph Albertazzie, USAF (1923-2011), who flew Air Force One during the 5½ years that Richard M. Nixon was President - right up to and including his August 9, 1974 flight to California on his resignation. Albertazzie was born in Cassville, near Morgantown.
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  31.  @DownieLive Unlike Riley, at Party Time 11:33 you didn't bother with slippers but just stayed in your socks.
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  32. The waving wheat should sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.
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  33. No, in California.
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  34. The best is yet to come. IDKWHGNBIKIBTWH.
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  35. Nice shot of you in the mirror at 3:45 - and wearing flip-flops. You're not underdressed.
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  36. Did you get any souvenir "klompen", as the Dutch call wooden shoes? IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  37. This is a Corridor train.
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  38. Chiloquin, Oregon.
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  39. At 3:12, a prequel to your standard train washroom tours? IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  40. The Kingston Trio had a 1960 hit "Everglades", which is available on YT. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  41. Once more you didn't disappoint, Mike. 1. Glad you made Ottawa however briefly, I wish you could have crammed more of it into your allotted 23 minutes. 2. What were the names of your assigned sleeper car and the Park car on your Canadian? 3. The Swiss gentleman Andy could show you how his country's trains are really to die for! 4. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  42. One of my favorite videos: a woman complained to a flight attendant about a black man sitting beside her. The attendant spoke to the captain, who told her to move one of the 2 passengers to first class - and it wasn't Ms. Poison Tongue! She sat there looking totally deflated. I always love seeing people like that get their comeuppance.
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  43. The Outback can reach 121° in the shade - and there's no shade. Probably the Nullarbor Plain, whose name literally means no trees.
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  44.  @thomasbarca9297  About that, give or take a bit.
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  45. No washroom tour? Are there even any washrooms on that train? If so, they'd probably have to be specially built. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  46. Welcome home, Mike! 1. My first visit to BC was in 1983 when the theme was "Super, Natural". Mostly I was in and around the Big V, but I also did Victoria, Nanaimo (quick pass through), and Squamish, the last in connection with a Royal Hudson trip. My subsequent trips included Expo 86. 2. Glad you were able to finish the trip by train after all. You looked great in a tux! Lucky you didn't slip and fall on the icy steps (re)boarding the train in the Big E, and hope those patent-leather (if that's what they were) shoes didn't hurt! 3. All that was missing from the welcome-home party was Nicole. Then you could close by singing: "I got to British Columbia and Heaven, On your tracks I made it back to my true love". 4. I guess at the end of a trip like that you feel a certain sense of deflation, which I can understand, but also of well-deserved elation. All I can add to that is: IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY!!
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  47.  @DownieLive  I love my corduroy Wirth hat; I sent you some selfies of me wearing it. I wondered what that cord was for. IDKWYGNBIKIBTWY.
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  48. He's done several, most recently Air Canada Signature Class YVR-LHR for his canal boat series.
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  49. Trolley buses were apparently rolling even when diesel buses were not. Through the rain, through the snow, everywhere you want to go, and the trolleys go rolling along...
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  50. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz should have it as easily as you do at 4:09.
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