Arriving at White River Junction

[west point]

All our military uses 24 hour clock as well. Many computer systems also use 24 as mine does. Now our politicians may not be able to convert ? Internal use age of the airlines is 24 as well as far as I have observed ?

[markhb]

That's why I got a Mac 7 years ago and never looked back. My Mac incidentally downloaded and played the video without anymore downloads, adjustments or fees. I just got tired of Windows BS. if you have a Mac you wont need to maintain several versions of the OS. I reboot every week or two and rebooting is way faster than with Windows. MacOS is basically Unix under the hood so it uses much less resources than Windows. And if you know Unix you can write shell scripts for it.

.MOV is the classic Apple QuickTime format, so I am unsurprised that it played so easily on a Mac. But as others have said, I have VLC installed and it opened immediately.

Is there still any sort of junction at White River Junction? I know the old Northern Line to Concord is dead. And that makes me wonder how many places there are in the US with "Junction" in their name but with no remaining junction (but formerly had one... I don't know if Yeehaw Junction in FL ever was a RR junction at all).

[CHTT1]

The U.S. was once prepared to switch to the metric system, but the Reagan administration killed that effort --- and it's never been brought up since that time. Good luck with switching the U.S. to a 24-hour clock.

[MACTRAXX]

NS: Good pictures from WRJ...and that last one from Gare Central in Montreal showing the original name of
the Montrealer southbound which was the Washingtonian...Wonder if that Amtrak 70s era sign is preserved...

CHTT: From what I remember the CTA in Chicago used the 24 hour clock internally and in publications.
Can't think of any other US rail service that went by military time...MACTRAXX

[nkloudon]

And according to VIA, Monday is the first day of the week.

[Arborwayfan]

I like 24-hour time, but I would be satisfied if we could just get people to stop writing 12pm or 12am when they mean 12 noon and 12 am or 12 pm when they mean 12 midnight. And maybe adopt the railroad practice of never having anything happen at 12 midnight anyway, because 11:59 pm and 12:01 am are unambiguous as to which end of the day you mean, whereas 12 midnight August 25 could have happened already or not happened yet. (There must be some official rule on that one, but I like the railroad solution, and use it with class deadlines when I am silly enough to make things due online at midnight.)

[Kilgore Trout]

An even simpler practice, which I observed in Stockholm, was that businesses closing at midnight would show it as 24:00. That is unambiguously the end of the day, since the next minute is always 00:01.

[superstar]

Is there still any sort of junction at White River Junction? I know the old Northern Line to Concord is dead. And that makes me wonder how many places there are in the US with "Junction" in their name but with no remaining junction (but formerly had one... I don't know if Yeehaw Junction in FL ever was a RR junction at all).

The line to Concord is still alive for a few miles towards Lebanon. I think there might be a fuel distributor that still receives occasional deliveries. It has also been used for car storage. I think NECR bought it a few years ago when they acquired the Claremont Concord.

The ex B&M line north along the Connecticut River is still active. VRS runs several trains a week each way last I knew.

[electricron]

An even simpler practice, which I observed in Stockholm, was that businesses closing at midnight would show it as 24:00. That is unambiguously the end of the day, since the next minute is always 00:01.

Which is why 12 am is noon and 12 pm is midnight.
When I was in the navy filling out logs one would have to correct an 0000 entry to 2400 before any officer of the watch would sign it.

[R36 Combine Coach]

All our military uses 24 hour clock as well. Many computer systems also use 24 as mine does. Now our politicians may not be able to convert ? Internal use age of the airlines is 24 as well as far as I have observed ?

NYCT uses 24 hour time. A train on the Flushing Line departing Main Street at 2:15 PM would be "Flushing 1415" or a departure on the 3 line from New Lots Station at 9:45 PM would be "New Lots 2145". (The 'Pelham 123' in real life would be Pelham 1323, departing at 1:23 PM)

And according to VIA, Monday is the first day of the week.

Airline timetables as well. 1 Mon, 2 Tues, 3 Weds, 4 Thurs, 5 Fri, 6 Sat, 7 Sun

[Allouette]

Even though the Washingtonian was listed as 61 (westbound) in Amtrak timetables, it was handled as an eastbound train on CN/CV and B&M, carrying 26 on CN/CV (and shown as such on the Central Station departure boards) and 732 on B&M (Montrealer was 733/27).

Working its way south, the Washingtonian stopped at Union Stations in White River Jct, Bellows Falls, Brattleboro and Springfield. Today's Vermonter adds Windsor (VT) Union Station. Speed limits were mostly in the 40s on the B&M section.

Pan Am Southern serves White River Jct today, mostly with interchange for VRS's Washington County line. In addition to the propane transload at West Lebanon, NECR's ex-C&C (B&M NH Division) serves a road salt shed. A planned industrial park on the Block Plant site could offer more traffic if it ever gets off the ground. NECR/C&C track ends at the Mascoma River bridge, but active track only goes a little ways east of the NH 12-A underpass. The "junction" is at Bank, the switch south of I-89, where the ex-B&M yard lead joins the NECR main.

[ExCon90]

And according to VIA, Monday is the first day of the week.

Same in continental Europe--circled 1 is Monday.
I think that in European practice a midnight arrival is 24.00, while a midnight departure is 00.00. Today being a Monday, midnight last night was both 2400 Sunday and 0000 Monday, etc.
It would be a simple enough system to adopt, costing very little compared to going metric--it would just take somebody to get the snowball rolling.

[Arborwayfan]

Which is why 12 am is noon and 12 pm is midnight.

I agree with your logic, but it's more common the other way around; the US Govt Printing Office Style Manual, for example, as close to a legal standard as we're going to find, gives 12 am as midnight and 12 pm as noon. That kind of ambiguity is why I say use 12 n and 12 m (or 24 hour time). And I like the point that 24 hour distinguishes 24:00 from 00:00 so you know whether it's the beginning of the day or the end. Good point.

Calendars start on Monday in Spanish-speaking countries, too. And of course Europe and Romance-language countries do numerical dates as day month year instead of month day year; after 20 years as a Latin American-specialized historian and living in the US, Chile, and Norway at different times, I almost never use numerical dates unless a form forces me to, because I always have to stop and remember which system the people reading it are going to expect me to use.

Even though the Washingtonian was listed as 61 (westbound) in Amtrak timetables, it was handled as an eastbound train on CN/CV and B&M, carrying 26 on CN/CV (and shown as such on the Central Station departure boards) and 732 on B&M (Montrealer was 733/27).

Wow! Were all those numbers on the tickets? Good thing the train had a name. Did other early Amtrak trains have multiple numbers shown to the public as they ran on different railroads after the first few months?

Sam Martland, 16:36 23 Aug 2019, Terre Haute, Indiana, wishing he could catch a train from here and change for Montreal someplace, under any time system.

[Allouette]

Wow! Were all those numbers on the tickets? Good thing the train had a name. Did other early Amtrak trains have multiple numbers shown to the public as they ran on different railroads after the first few months?

The numbers were only in the Employee Timetables (except on CN).
Amtrak started using the AM code on ATC (Airline) ticket stock in early 1976, not long before the corridor was acquired from the PC estate. Before that travel agents would have to hand write several coupons, all spelled out in the loose leaf tariff that came out every other month. The Amtrak train number was always the only one used, but if there were several carriers, the owner railroad's initials were spelled out as well, "A-SP, A-UP, A-BN" would cover the San Francisco Zephyr, for example. The Montrealer/Washingtonian was the exception to this. Tickets for the M/W were issued with a single "A-PC" coupon, even though Amtrak used contract CV and B&M agents north of Springfield. In 1974, White River Jct. was still an open joint B&M/CV agency.

[Kilo Echo]

Which is why 12 am is noon and 12 pm is midnight.

I agree with your logic, but it's more common the other way around; the US Govt Printing Office Style Manual, for example, as close to a legal standard as we're going to find, gives 12 am as midnight and 12 pm as noon. That kind of ambiguity is why I say use 12 n and 12 m (or 24 hour time).

Because AM stands for ante meridiem, and PM stands for post meridiem, 12:00:00 (high noon) is 12 M (12:00:01 is 12 PM).