Sailor-Planner Writes About War… of 1812

Havre de Grace’s Bicentennial Bash

Appears in the May 2013 edition of SpinSheet magazine

Like tall ships? Battle reenactments? Outdoor orchestras? Fireworks on the water? How about the idea of a whole town letting loose in celebration of two centuries of pent-up pride in staving off the world’s most powerful navy? Then why not take an early season cruise up north this year? North to Havre de Grace, MD, that is.

Boning up on her past, historic Havre de Grace recalls a harrowing event at the hands of the British Navy 200 years ago this month during the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812.

The Concord Lighthouse, built in 1827, anchors one end of the waterfront promenade where the Susquehanna River meets the Bay in Havre de Grace.

The town is justly proud to be chosen by the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission to kick off the Maryland Chesapeake Campaign celebration in 2013. A big May 3-5 festival is
just the beginning.

Shake, rattle and roll

It seemed as if Amtrak and its host railroads forgot to do track maintenance between Washington DC and Mississippi.  The persistent turbulence wasn’t anything comparable to an aircraft, or a rough day out on the Chesapeake, but more like being inside a slow motion lateral agitiator, like shaking up a can of paint in a hardware store.  Maybe I got the Charlie Brown car with the bad suspension.  The rolling stock is old – the newest coach cars in the east coast fleet left the factory in 1983.  Passenger rail has received short shrift indeed in the transportation funding sweepstakes.  America deserves better.  It deserves a fully functional, intermodal system that, if not to be the best in the world, should at least approach what it was sometime around 1930.

Article written by Steve Allan, regional planner for the Maryland Department of Planning

Travel time

Time to go to the train station, about a mile from the State Office Building.   This time tomorrow I’ll still be aboard, in Mississippi somewhere, but nearing the end of the 27 hour trip.  I couldn’t find direct comparisons, but it takes 17 hours in 2010 to travel from DC to Chicago on the Capitol Limited.   In 1883, a New York to Chicago trip was advertised as 25 hours and 40 minutes.  By 1938 it was down to 16 hours on the 20th Century Limited.   It sure seems like rail travel times have stagnated as chronological time has progressed.

Article written by Steve Allan, regional planner with the Maryland Department of Planning

Bagging the bicycle

The original plan for taking a trip to New Orleans was to pack up a folding bike and take it aboard the train.  It could have been done, but Amtrak’s rules and policies weren’t clear, nor did they apply to all trains.  In the end, I was stymied in part by not being able to find a suitable bag or box to put the bike in, and not being comfortable enough with Amtrak’s baggage arrangements to give me the peace of mind that I wouldn’t end up in Louisiana with a damaged bike.