Librivox

I like to read, but to be honest more often than not when the opportunity to sit down with a book presents itself, I get distracted by other things. Either that or I feel completely lazy and simply want to sit in front of the TV or computer and do absolutely nothing productive. However, in the past year I discovered a wonderful invention – audio books. Yes, I know they’ve been around for quite some time, but my discovery was fairly recent mainly because my commute got a tad longer at the beginning of 2007. I can’t stand listening to the radio, but with nothing else to occupy the time, I usually ended up channel surfing, listening to nothing in particular.

Enter audio books. Ever since discovering audio books, I’ve listened to six books, both fiction and nonfiction, and am currently on my seventh. That’s seven more than I would have read by now if I had to sit down with book in hand. It’s gotten to the point where I sit in my truck for a few extra minutes just to finish the section or to find out what happens next. I’ve even spent my lunch break listening to a book. When I finish one, I hurry to the library to pick out the next one.

While searching online for audio books, I stumbled across Librivox, a website providing free audio books that are in the public domain, meaning almost anything published before 1923. With over 1,000 titles and many more in the works (all free!), the folks at Librivox are on their way toward their goal of the “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.” Among the finished works are Pilgrim’s Progress, Little Women, Around the World in 80 Days, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Bible and many others. Here’s the other interesting part (besides the whole “free” thing) – it’s all done by volunteers! Nobody is turned away from contributing, either as a reader or prooflistener. Naturally, this leads to some recordings being better done than others, but that doesn’t matter. Critiquing of someone’s reading style is highly frowned upon simply because volunteers, no matter the talent level, are always welcome. There is technical proofing though, to make sure stumbles, repeats, loud burps, etc are edited out of the finished product. Some books are done as a collaborative effort by multiple readers and some are solo projects with only one reader. The value found in this project (besides the whole “free” thing) is that books the audio publishers wouldn’t find profitable to publish find their way into the acoustical world and made available where they perhaps otherwise wouldn’t.

I’ve been very fascinated by this project and have even begun to volunteer. Let me say that this is perhaps one of the easiest, hardest things I’ve ever done. Easy because, well, how hard can it be to read a book, right? True. It’s also hard because the recording has to be free from the aforementioned stumbles, etc. It usually takes me at least twice as long to edit as it does to record, but I’m enjoying the new hobby immensely. My first project is quite large – I’ve decided to liberate Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. I’m about halfway done with the first book. If you want to do some volunteer reading, all you need is a computer, some free downloadable software, and a microphone (the one I use is a headset combo purchased for about $20). Oh, and your voice of course. And if reading aloud isn’t your thing, listeners are always needed. If this sounds like something that would interest you, follow the link and join the liberation!

Railfanning Trivia

Today I watched as a switcher pulled some empty (at least, I presume they were empty) corn syrup cars from the Coca-Cola bottling plant across the road from where I work. The cars were identified as being from the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company based in Decatur, Illinois. A.E. Staley is one of the largest corn refiners in the United States. Here’s where the trivia comes in: the guy who started the company back in 1898, Augustus Eugene Stanley, also started a company football team in 1920 called the Decatur Staleys. He later sold the rights of the team to a guy named George Halas and the team’s name was eventually changed to – the Chicago Bears. Their team mascot to this day is named Staley the Bear. So there you go, from corn syrup to football - all in day’s railfanning.

On another railfanning note, a few weeks ago I was able to go out in the evening and take some train pictures. I posted a few of them at trainboard.com, a pretty cool web forum for any and all kinds of railfans. Imagine my surprise when one of the shots (below) was chosen as one of the Railimages of the Week! :) I was pretty happy. Here's the shot, three engines in front of the Wachovia Tower in downtown Roanoke. Below it is a rather cute picture of Carlos and Jeremiah - I'm "train"ing the next generation of railfans!

The Return of the Railfan

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about my hobby of railfanning – mainly because there has been so much else going on. But warmer weather is perfect for being outside and watching trains!

When I first got interested in trains, it was geared more towards the locomotives. I would watch for the locos, writing down their road numbers, and then seeing if I saw any of them again on a later date. Once the engines passed, I moved on, not really showing an interest in the rolling stock (the cars). Yesterday on my lunch break, I got to talking with another guy watching the trains and learned quite a bit about the cars, their numbering, their loads, etc. So now, instead of leaving after I’ve seen the locos, I watch all the cars, trying to identify their loads and then later doing some research as to what the cargo might be used for. It’s really quite fascinating to see how many different industries can be represented in one consist.

I will usually try to write down the time I see the train, the direction it’s heading, the loco type & road number, and any information on the rolling stock. Let me give an example. Today, at 12:25 p.m., an eastbound train past by, headed up by #’s 9317 & 9226 (both D940CW or Dash-9 for short). Among the cargo was a grain car, a tank car for latex, treated railroad ties (the wooden beams that go under the rails) and a tank of sulfuric acid. The treated RR ties were most likely coming from Koppler, Inc in Roanoke County. Yesterday I saw a load of untreated ones going in the opposite direction, most likely to the same Koppler plant to be treated.

There was also a tanker car of sulfuric acid. According to Wikipedia, “sulfuric acid is produced in greater amounts than any other chemical besides water.” Its uses include ore processing, fertilizer manufacturing, oil refining, wastewater processing, and chemical synthesis. Here’s where another interesting bit about railfanning comes in. Each and every car has its own identification number, or reporting mark, similar to the road numbers on locomotives and are assigned by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). These numbers indicate who owns the car. If the last letter in the series of letters is an “X,” this indicates a privately owned car. For example, the ID on this tanker car of sulfuric acid was GCTX 413208. A quick Google search helped me to find out that this car is owned by the General Chemical Corporation. So any car with the letters “GCTX” is owned by the General Chemical Corporation. Wikipedia has a list of all AAR reporting marks here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_mark. A Google search on GCC reveals that they are “among the largest North American suppliers of sulfuric acid” and that they have a terminal in Covington, Virginia, which is probably where the tank (most likely an empty one) was headed.

All that info from one day’s railfanning. Fascinating stuff.