The super-sexy little van shown above was recently offered on eBay. It's a 1960 Lloyd LT600, but if you want it, it's too late; the auction listing ended last weekend.
Oh well. Luckily, you can still wait in eager anticipation for the upcoming Fall 2011 ABC-TV show that will be called (wait for it...) Pan Am.
Just as NBC is jumping into the period-drama game of Mad Men with Playboy, so too is ABC traveling back to 1963 with Pan Am, the Jack Orman-created drama (directed by The West Wing’s Tommy Schlamme) about the flight crew of the then-premier American airline company. Starring Kelli Garner, Christina Ricci, Margot Robbie, Michael Mosley, Jonah Lotan and Karine Vanasse, the series depicts the professional and personal intrigues of the well-traveled flight attendants and pilots. But there’s also an unexpected espionage subplot that’s set just as the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia was beginning to heat up, which gives the show an intriguing narrative spine that’s about more than just hairstyle malfunctions and extracurricular activities.
Inevitably, there comes a time in every parent's life when they are called upon by their progeny to explain the fundamentals of containerized transportation. For Telstar Logistics, that moment arrived about a week ago, when our junior executive (now age 3.75) asked about all the big metal boxes she's noticed aboard many of the big ships that sail in and out of San Francisco Bay.
Since it was Saturday, and we had nothing else planned, we piled into the fleet vehicle for a trip across the Bay, to the Port of Oakland, to watch the operation of a major container terminal first-hand. It was a very successful foray: We saw lots and lots of big metal boxes, of course, but also trains, and trucks, and ships, and giant cranes, and an assortment of weird machines. She enjoyed the tour, and we came away with a tidy collection of photos to show for the trip:
Flickr user islaylike snapped this photo of pirate Jack Sparrow riding the 27 Bryant bus in San Francisco. Not only does Capt. Sparrow ride the bus, but notice that he also needs a transfer! No doubt to take a vintage F Market streetcar to meet his ship on the waterfront.
UPDATE: 16 May, 2011
Our friends at Muni Diaries got the scoop on the gentleman in the photo, as explained by the photographer. Turns out, he's Swiss:
This is a cellphone picture I took on Wednesday of my new friend, Sebastian Michellod, who stayed with me this week via couchsurfing.org. He is originally from Switzerland, but has been living in Central and South America for the past four years, traveling, making videos and documentaries. More recently, he has been dressing as Jack Sparrow, working his way north to try and meet Johnny Depp (who has been “impersonating him”). He just left for LA to catch the Los Angeles premiere of Pirates 4, and will also be in Las Vegas for another event. He is an amazingly kind and talented person, and I recommend that anyone meet him if provided the opportunity.
Telstar Logistics has always been a fan of Putzmeister. The company, based in Germany, is the world's leading manufacturer of mobile concrete pumping equipment used in the construction industry. That's very cool, but as an added bonus, the name Putzmeister is absolutely hilarious if know know a little bit of Yiddish. (We even bought a safety-orange Putzmeister t-shirt from the company's online store a few years ago.)
Schoolyard giggles aside, however, it turns out that a Putzmeister may be one of the most important pieces of equipment available to help bring Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis under control -- both as firefighting apparatus and as a tool to build new concrete containment facilities.
Only three truck-mounted pumps in the world rise high enough to hose water on the overheating, radioactive reactors in Japan. One of them, it turns out, was in Summerville [South Carolina].
That's why sometime this week a tractor-trailer rig with 10 axles will lumber its way down Interstate 26 hauling more than 80 tons of a device that looks like a huge, folded-up steel girder. The truck is bound for Atlanta, where it will be loaded on the largest cargo plane in the world, scheduled to be flown out Saturday.
It's not the first rescue work for this pump. The devices are built to pour concrete, and this one was bought by a Georgia company to pour concrete for casks at the mixed oxide fuel plant at the Savannah River Site in Barnwell. A shorter version of the pump by the same manufacturer poured concrete for the towers of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
The pump extends to a length more than two-thirds of a football field, but can be folded up to about the length of most tractor-trailers. The problem is the weight. At 170,000 pounds, the rig is double the weight allowed over the road without special permits. [...]
The pump is one of two that will be flown to Japan aboard Russian-made Antonov AN-225 Mriya Super Heavy Transport planes, the world's largest aircraft.
The other pump is in California. The planes were designed to transport the Russian Space Shuttle, said [Putzmeister marketing services manager Kelly Blickle]. The rigs are being moved to pump water, but if a decision is made to encase a reactor in concrete -- similar to a method used in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster -- they could do that, too, she said.
First came ineffective drops by helicopter, next was spraying from fire trucks. The situation was brought closer to control with the arrival of Hyper Rescue and Super Pump Truck from the Tokyo Fire Department, but it was an extra-large concrete pumping machine that has been most effective, particularly at unit 4 where steelwork obstructs spraying from the ground.
The machine already on-site is a Putzmeister 58, named after the length of its boom in metres, supplied to Tepco on the initiative of Hiroshi Suzuki, director of Putzmeister Japan. It is able to pump up to 120 cubic metres of seawater per hour with fairly high precision thanks to a flexible boom. In earlier phases of the Fukushima accident, the ability to control the pumps remotely was a great help in reducing radiation doses to workers.
The site will soon receive delivery of two 62 metre units that were available from a Putzmeister factory in Germany and as well as two 70 metre units from the USA.
In the annals of humanity's noteworthy accomplishments, let us now add another historic feat: This week in Las Vegas, driver Ryan Anderson completed the world's first monster truck backflip during Monster Jam 2011.
Last weekend Telstar Logistics spent a damp saturday trackside at Sears Point Raceway, just north of San Francisco, for the 2011 running of the local 24 Hours of LeMons (that's pronounced "lemons,") a low-budget auto race where the most important rule is that participants must spend $500 or less to purchase and race-prep their cars. This rule not only keeps the race wonderfully devoid of pretension, but it also opens the door to blatant silliness and wild innovation, so that the race itself feels like a pleasant mix of Burning Man and NASCAR -- or as the organizers of the 24 Hours of LeMons call it, "where Halloween meets gasoline."
The cars on the track were a motley bunch. There were a variety of BMWs in various states of disarray, lots of Hondas, a few Ford Crown Victorias and plenty of one-off oddballs, including a Maserati, a 1960s Plymouth, and an Austin Mini with a reindeer strapped to the roof.
Telstar Logistics was there to support Bernal Dads Racing, a team based near our Global Headquarters in San Francisco. BDR took a mutant "hybrid" to the race: A 1995 Mazda Miata that wore the welded-on bodywork of a Volvo 240 wagon. They called it "The Molvo," and it performed surprisingly well, completing the race intact and in fine form, while also garnering a Judge's Choice award for conceptual excellence.
We went a little nuts with the camera during our visit to LeMons, so there are lots more pictures of the scene to review for your motorsports pleasure. Vroom!
While reporting our story about gourmet food trucks for the New York Times late last year, Telstar Logistics spent a lunch shift hanging out backstage with the crew that operates San Francisco's popular Chairman Bao truck. An instant hit with foodies from the moment it first hit the streets in early 2010, Chairman Bao serves Chinese-inspired fusion cuisine that is innovative, affordable, and extremely delicious.
The truck itself is a tasty mix of art and science. Wrapped in a distinctive graphic scheme that looks like a cross between a Chinese Cultural Revolution propaganda poster and a Shepard Fairey art project, Chairman Bao's bold graphics serve a practical purpose: They ensure that the vehicle always stand out, particularly at any one of the organized events in San Francisco where gourmet food trucks gather en masse to create a temporary street food marketplace.
Chairman Bao's success was something of an accident. The truck is operated by Mobi Munch, a San Francisco-based startup that hopes to put hundreds mobile food trucks on the streets nationwide. Mobi Munch won't staff the trucks; instead, it will rent them on a monthly basis to chefs and brick-and-mortar restaurant operators who want to explore the potential of what Josh Tang, the founder and CEO of Mobi Munch, calls “the mobile platform.”
Each Mobi Munch truck will function quite literally as a turnkey system, with a fully equipped kitchen and a pre-installed point-of-sale system connected via wireless networks to a central database. Mobi Munch created Chairman Bao as a proof-of-concept for the business, but it turned out that the truck's tasty and creative menu earned fans among Bay Area foodies.
As part of its plan to scale the gourmet food truck business, Mobi Munch partnered with Los Angeles-based food truck manufacturer AA Cater Trucks to build and distribute its trucks. “An AA truck is kind of like a Porsche 911,” Tang says. “It’s a vehicle that’s been around for 40 years, so it has real pedigree."
The difference, of course, is that it's unlikely anyone ever tried to cook 20 pounds of pork belly inside a 911. Yet during a recent lunchtime shift in San Francisco’s Soma district, Rachel Kier (shown at left, below) stood by griddle in side the Chairman Bao truck, doing just that. With nine years of prior restaurant and catering experience, Kier was unfazed by the transition to a truck. “It’s a lot like the restaurants where I’ve worked, and not much more crowded.” she says. “The pace is a lot quicker, but you have all the same equipment. Plus, you get a regular change of scene.”
San Francisco, meanwhile, gets a very interesting place to have lunch. Lots more pictures, in our Backstage with Chairman Bao photoset. Go full screen, grab a napkin, and enjoy:
No one talks much about Worcy Crawford, who died in July at age 90, leaving a graveyard of decaying buses behind his house on the outskirts of Birmingham.
His private coaches, all of them tended by Mr. Crawford almost until the day he died, do not have the panache of the city buses that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.refused to ride. But they have significance nonetheless.
With their cracked windows and rusting engines thick with brambles, they are remnants of something that was quite rare in the South: a bus company owned by an African-American.
Mr. Crawford’s work was simple. He kept a segregated population moving. Any Birmingham child who needed a ride to school, a football game or a Girl Scout outing during the Jim Crow era and beyond most likely rode one.
So did people heading to dozens of civil rights rallies — including the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
And where is that fleet of buses now?
Today, 18 of Mr. Crawford’s buses sit in various states of repair on a grassy lot behind his house. Family members still charter two newer coaches, keeping his legacy alive. The others are being sold for parts or kept for reasons of nostalgia.
One of them, a tan GMC bus built in 1958, is nicknamed the Rosa Parks.
One of the quirks of life along the California coast is that it can be summer almost any time of year. Summer is dry and winter is wet, but both are generally temperate, so if the meteorology lines up right, you can have a warm and sunny day that would pass for a solstice -- regardless of the actual time of year.
About 90 minutes south of San Francisco, Santa Cruz, California is home to an electrified beach boardwalk and amusement pier that would easily make any refugee from Coney Island or the Jersey Shore feel right at home. In operation since 1907, the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk has a vintage roller-coaster, a log flume, and a swing carousel. But unlike the Jersey Shore, the one in Santa Cruz doesn't have many guidos, and it's open all year-round.
Telstar Logistics visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk during a balmy earlier this month, and we snapped these shots of the recreational infrastructure along the way. The crowds are thinner this time of year, but this is what winter feels like in a place where summer never really goes away.
A private streetcar just for the kids, with plush curtains decorating the windows? Not a bad way for a bunch of San Francisco school kids to embark on a class field trip, as seen in this photo from 1927. Even better, Santa was waiting at the end of the line. Market Street Railway provides the backstory:
57 kindergarten children from Raphael Weill School (now Rosa Parks Elementary School) rode this Market Street Railway Company streetcar downtown for a visit with Santa in December 1927. The “San Francisco” was dedicated to San Francisco school children and classes for education and charitable purposes. It was used exclusively to transport school children on excursions and had no fare box or charged a fare.The children on these excursions were each rewarded with a Market Street Railway Company wooden ruler, and the teacher received a Market Street Railway Company paperweight. This streetcar is now part of the Bay Area Electric Railway Association Collection.
As always with photos like this, the angels are in the details. Like the special sign at the front of the car:
And apart from the uber-styley hat the teacher is wearing, check out the faces of the school kids, who were way multiculti way before it was cool:
Now consider that this picture was taken 84 years ago, and that any of these kids who survive today must be pushing 90 years-old, at least.
Yet here they are, captured for eternity at five or six, during an excursion by streetcar that reminds us all how time flies when you're having fun.
Costa's "Just Things" is a storefront shop located at 575 San Mateo Avenue, on the downtown strip in San Bruno, California. The store is about 5 minutes away from San Francisco International Airport, so throughout the day big airliners soar just overhead as they take off from SFO, bound for points distant. That's fun, but the best attraction is inside, because Costa's is actually a hands-on haven for fans of classic toys.
Here patrons will find a very nicely curated collection of vintage toys, with a particular emphasis on toy vehicles -- old Tonkas, Lionel trains, and steel toy cars, trucks, boats, and aircraft of every size, shape, and color. For us, however, the centerpiece of the store is a set of three 1970s-era store displays for Matchbox cars -- with vintage Matchbox displayed for sale inside.
Telstar Logistics didn't ask about pricing; we were quite happy just to browse. And if for whatever odd reason fate brings you to San Bruno, we suggest you browse at Costa's "Just Things" too. But if you can't, then wandering around this vintage Matchbox website or this site for Matchbox obsessives is almost as much fun.
Telstar Logistics loves infrastructure. And if you're reading this Internet weblog, there's a good chance you're an infrastructuralist too. In a very literal way, infrastructure is the stuff that moves us, feeds us, shelters us, and allows us to live these lives that are so throoughly modern.
Document the structures of the built environment that symbolize contemporary life. Share the most impressive bridges, tunnels, airports, power plants, and other monuments to our ability to reshape and reconnect our world. This theme is a collaboration with Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics.
Telstar Logistics will help select the most sexy photos in the collection, and the best will be included in an upcoming photo feature on Pictory. But you can't get in if you don't submit your pics. So get 'em in fast.
Photos: From top, Oakland Bay Bridge by Ian Collins, Factory in New Mexico by Tim Melideo, Above San Francisco International Airport by Telstar Logistics.
Doyle Drive is not a particularly famous street in San Francisco, but chances are that if you've ever been to the Golden Gate Bridge, you probably traveled on it -- Doyle Drive the multilane elevated freeway that rises above the former Presidio Army Base to shuttle motorists from the streets of the city to the foot of the bridge.
Built in the 1930s, at the same time as the Golden Gate Bridge, Doyle Drive is now a seismic hazard, so it is being completely rebuilt. But the new construction intersects with the pet cemetery used by U.S. personnel in the days when the Presidio was still a functioning military installation. To preserve the site, the cemetery has been fenced off and left scrupulously undisturbed while a whole world of construction chaos takes place all around it. Quite a spectacle.
Humvees are vulnerable to attack. MRAPs work well in Iraq, but they're so top-heavy that they tip over easily in Afghanistan, where the hills are steep and roads are often primitive. What's the solution? Check out the new M-ATV, the US military's new go-to vehicle for mounted patrols, reconnaissance, security, convoy protection, communications, command and control and combat service support. It'll do much of the same work as the Humvee, but as you can see, it's a very different vehicle:
Oshkosh Defense’s M-ATV candidate secured a long-denied MRAP win, and the firm continues to remain ahead of production targets. The initial plan expected to spend up to $3.3 billion to order 5,244 M-ATVs for the US Army (2,598), Marine Corps (1,565), Special Operations Command (643), US Air Force (280) and the Navy (65), plus 93 test vehicles. FY 2010 budgets and purchases have pushed this total even higher, and orders now stand at over 8,000.
