If you decided to stay in B'game this weekend, you had some great events to choose from. Friday night at the heart of B'game you could have seen Morty J and the Slipstream again. The guys in the band want you to know that they are available for local charitable events--and will play for free to maximize the charitable take.
When you got up on Saturday--if you got up on Saturday--the charity Chili Fest to benefit CALL Primrose was heating up Steelhead Brewery. Steelhead manager Domingo assembled a great line-up of 14 chili entrants on the back patio
When your taste buds waved the white flag, you could walk across the street to the Lion's Club Car Show and check out some fine machinery. There was a bit of traffic going both ways until 3pm.
And if you still had some gas on Sunday, you could have caught the last Music in the Park show of the summer with "On the Road". They were voted the best cover band in the recent KFOX contest and showed it with the vocals and the guitar
The essence of the Music in the Park series is that it is in Washington Park and July is almost guaranteed to be great weather on a Sunday afternoon. Today was no exception which made it Rock, Roll and Reading weather. Thanks to Veolia for their sponsorship again this year.
High speed rail will ruin all of this. Steelhead will always be in a shadow and so loud you won't be able to talk in the back space. The car show will have to move. The high school will need extra insulation on the windows. No one will be able to hear the quarterback on the new football field.
Posted by: East Side | August 01, 2011 at 10:08 AM
And on Saturday while the chili fest was going on a block awaw we checked out free high end tea and little very tasty cupcakes at the new tea house Rue de Thé behind Burlingame Ave. Nice people.
Posted by: LamontRellish | August 01, 2011 at 05:09 PM
I'm not for high speed rail, mainly because the state cannot afford to build it and it will be a drain forever to run the money-losing trains.
But the Steelhead will always be in a shadow? C'mon, give me a break. The proposed trains are a quarter the height of the eucalyptus trees that are there. I'd much rather look at the eucalyptus trees than an ugly concrete railway, but neither would impact the Steelhead or any other business that side of California Drive. The trains would not need to blow their horns and as long as the high speed trains did not run at full speed the trains would be quieter than they are now.
I'm all for killing high speed rail, but when you try to use false information you lose credibility and it counteracts your goal. The main guns to stick to are the lack of funds, the low estimates on construction and operating costs and the poor business plan. Don't cry over the trees too much, other communities in the state don't care about your trees. They do care about their pocketbooks.
Posted by: fred | August 02, 2011 at 04:46 PM
You are correct on the shadow if I were talking about actual sunshine but I was being more figurative than that. Steelhead is west of the tracks so the shadow is more of a feeling and the noise will definitely be an issue since the trains would be about twice as fast as Caltrain. I think thats right--120 mph vs about 60-70 now?
Posted by: East Side | August 02, 2011 at 06:57 PM
The main noise from the train is the horn. It's what people complained about when Caltrain moved the horns lower, also, when the friendly freight train conductor lays on the horn the whole way up the peninsula in the middle of the night. No need for horns with a grade separation, just the BART-ish "toot-toot" when the electrified Caltrain approaches a platform.
The actual noise of the train could be be suppressed with short sound walls on the elevated structure. It would also be suppressed by trenching.
Again, not a fan of High Cost Rail, just if you're going to argue against it, some things are easy to negate.
Posted by: fred | August 03, 2011 at 11:10 AM
You might want to go to YouTube and actually listen to some HSR noise in other countries. You underestimate the problem. And my family will have to live with it so I don't.
Posted by: East Sider | August 03, 2011 at 10:11 PM
Sure they whine at high speed, but half speed wouldn't be anywhere near that loud. The peninsula could negotiate the speed of the trains so as to mitigate the noise.
I don't underestimate the problem, I just think the problem is more fiscal than physical.
Posted by: fred | August 04, 2011 at 11:21 AM
Back on the topic of this post, I had a chance to check in with Domingo Garcia, the general manager at Steelhead, who reports that they raised several thousand dollars for CALL Primrose and have Big Plans for next year as they expand into the restaurant and turn up the ChiliFest.
Posted by: Joe | August 05, 2011 at 11:18 PM