Category: default || By jt3y

You may have seen the headlines over the weekend: A maglev train in Germany crashed into a maintenance truck, killing 23 people and injuring 10.

I find it curious that none of our hard-working Pittsburgh reporters have asked the folks at Maglev Inc., located in Our Fair City, for some local perspective on this accident, or perhaps one of the local universities that are supplying brain power for some analysis.

The P-G story that ran on Saturday --- most of which came from Associated Press --- did note that Maglev Inc. is a partner with the German company that was operating the train that crashed.

I am not implying that magnetic-levitation trains are unsafe. This is the first recorded fatality in more than 20 years of testing maglev trains.

But the same AP story noted that the train that crashed was on a 20-mile demonstration loop that was built in 1985. It's not in commercial service. In fact, after about three decades of maglev train experimentation, there is only one maglev line in commercial service anywhere in the world, in China.

I still say that all of the federal, state and local tax money that has been poured into maglev in Western Pennsylvania has been a waste of money. Not one single piece of maglev equipment has ever been demonstrated in Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh agencies have been dinking around with maglev since 1987.

Hell, even Skybus got a demonstration track around the South Park fairgrounds.

I am not anti-progress. I am not anti-technology. In fact, maglev combines some of my favorite things --- things that are shiny and go fast.

But considering the complete lack of return on investment that maglev technology has provided to Western Pennsylvania, I wish all of the effort we are expending on maglev had been routed toward improving existing surface transportation in the Mon-Yough area.

. . .

Has anyone else noticed that there's a fitness club/gym in the old fire station up on Grandview Avenue? It's called (appropriately enough) "Firehouse Fitness," and the last two times I've been past, I've seen lots of people working out on those stair-climbing machines.

Now, my idea of exercise is flying off of the handle and shooting off my mouth, and I only run when someone is chasing me, but that's pretty cool. I hope they succeed.

The demographics of most of the city wouldn't lend itself necessarily to a fitness club (a bingo parlor, maybe) but that neighborhood is really close to the new development around Renzie Park and in Haler Heights. Presumably some of the younger families and couples over there, and in White Oak, might want to check out "Firehouse Fitness."

I'd link to a website, but I can't seem to find one. Time permitting, I'll dig up more information.

. . .

By the way, I made someone from out of town laugh the other day by referring to Haler Heights as "Pill Hill." It got the nickname when all of the doctors in McKeesport began moving there.

There's another, not-nice nickname that I don't intend to repeat here, but I seem to recall that John Hoerr mentions it in his book, And The Wolf Finally Came.

Are there any other city nicknames that confuse outsiders? The person I was talking to was mystified by one of them --- a number of people kept telling her about "Lowertenth." Lower 10th Ward, I said. That's the part below West Fifth Avenue and the old P&LE tracks.

I always just thought of it as "10th Ward," but people who live there call it "Lower 10th" to distinguish it from "Upper 10th" --- the part that borders Port Vue. Real, real old-timers call it "Reynoldton," because it was once a separate borough that was annexed by the city.

There's Christy Park (the part of the city along Walnut Street, south of the 15th Avenue Bridge) and the 12th Ward, which consists of the old Eden Park Borough. I don't know who Christy was, but I suppose I could look it up.

Myer Park is along Myer Avenue, and I presume it's named for prominent attorney and real estate developer Gilbert Myer. Grandview is up by the old firehouse, and I know I'm missing others.

If some enterprising fellow has a website about McKeesport, he should look up that kind of information and put it in the Internet tubes.

Oh, wait, that's me. Rats.

. . .

Finally today, Jonathan Barnes has a Barnestormin' commentary about one of my favorite pet peeves. He whacks Pittsburgh's Mayor Opie for telling David Letterman that there's no steelmaking in the region any more.

"U.S. Steel employs 4,000 people locally and 45,000 globally, and the company’s growing," Barnes writes. "The 105-year-old company produces 4 million tons of coke annually at the Clairton works, and 2.9 million tons of raw steel each year in Braddock."

Seriously. What does Opie think they make at Edgar Thomson Works --- Jell-o?

And we still make tubes in the Tube City, too. Put that in your electric-resistance-welded pipe and smoke it.

Correction, Not Perfection: Alert Reader Dennis notes that the former Eden Park Borough now comprises the 12th Ward of McKeesport, not the 11th, as this Almanac originally said. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.