Save the Wales.

Ok, silliest title I’ve come up with in a long time.
Want to turn your mental clock back 50 years or so?
From London or Manchester, grab a train and head west to Wales. For those of you that follow sience fiction, Cardiff is the new center of the Si.Fi. world. Dr. Who and Torchwood are produced in Wales in and around Cardiff.
A few hours north near Porthmadog, on the coast is Port Merion. This first class hotel is “The Village” from “The Prisoner”. Port Merion is worth a day on it’s own, but be advised, that the hotel grounds are on a very steep hillside, on the coast. Lot of up and down walking, and night be a bit much for some people.
Of course Wales has more little railways than you have the time to see, on any one vacation. Rather that repeat my work, I ask you to check out my post “Narrow gauge railways in Wales” under the trains category, on my blog.
One little gem I found is the Oakeley Arms, in Maentwrog, about ten miles east of Porthmadog.
The Oakeley, an old hotel, resturant, and local pup, is mostly stone construction, the rooms are large by U.K. standards, and the food is first rate. A good cook and local produce make for great dinners. The halls in the hotel will make you wonder why you have never seen a mystery movie made here. Lots of turns, and nearly hidden stairs, make this a most interesting building.
From the Oakeley it’s a short drive to Ffestiniog and the slate mines, the other direction and 15 minutes brings you to Porthmadog, and to the south a half hour sits Harlech Castle. A bit beyond Harlech is the town of Tywyn and the Talyllyn Railway. This little known railway, smaller than the Ffestiniog, is a gem. Great museum and a nice ride into the hills. Have tea at the end of the line, while the crew gets ready for the return trip.
Wales is great for unwinding, get away from the job. The only problem, is that if you spend a week with the Welsh people, you might start thinking silly things, like “Is there some way I could make a living out there”.
If somebody offered me a driving job, and it could be done. Too many problems, being a U.S. commercial driver. Well if it could happen, I’d be there as fast as I could get there.

Old PDX stories. Hopefully statute of limitations applies.

Where does one start with airport stories?

I guess with the ones I know to be true, as I was there.

There is the saga of Pacific Express. A start up carrier out of Chico, California. They made an early mistake by saving money on BAC-111 aircraft. They got a good deal on these planes, but the fuel consumption was very high for the planes. The BAC-111 held 70 passengers on a good day, and had to compete with Hughes Air West DC-9 that could carry much more. Fuel load PDX to Boise, Idaho for both place was pretty much the same. Also support for the BAC-111 was not as easy to get, on the west coast.

Then there was the ground staff. Let me first explain that working the ramp for an airline, is the dirty side of the business. Hot in the summer, unbearably cold in winter, dusty, oily, and noisy. Somebody, I’m guessing male and lonely, hired a bunch of girls that looked more like a cheer-leading squad than a ramp crew.
The second day of operation we got a panic-ed call in the office that something was wrong with the plane. The toilets were backed up.
Well I happen to be free, so I got the pleasure of looking into the problem. I grabbed the lavatory service truck and headed over there. Walked upstairs, and asked the cabin crew, when the holding tanks where dumped last. Nobody knew that you had to dump the toilets at the end of the day, and these planes hadn’t been emptied since Pacific had bought them. I took care of the problem, and the office called their main office in Chico to set up regular service.
For some months we supplied push back, that is the pushing of the plane away from the terminal, so they can taxi. Well they got a tow bar hook for their biggest bag tug, and decided that the girls could do this, saving the cost of having the Lockheed crew do it.
Well the first day, the all girl crew sent the overnight plane on it’s way to Boise with the gear pins in place. Crew actually flew the trip like that, flying low, and burning a whole bunch extra fuel. Second push back ran the right wing tip into a parked Northwest Airlines bag pod, knocking it off the cart it was sitting on. About a foot of wing tip was bent. The Co-Pilot came out through the back stairs, looked the damage over, and took off for San Fransisco.
Over a couple years there where other disturbing things about Pacific Express: Pilots that smelled a bit like they had closed the bar the night before, and one February morning while waiting in there operations for the fuel load for the first departure, hearing the Pilot phone a list of no-go items to a mechanic in Chico, so that they could be looked at later that day. That plane then flew to San Fransisco with one radio, and no anti ice for the windshield, and a full load of passengers. I always thought it was a good thing for the pilot to be able to see where he was going.
Late in the life of Pacific Express they got hold of a couple Boeing 737s, but it was too little too late and a few years after they started Pacific Express closed their doors.
Could have been worse, they did make it through those years, without killing anybody, but I don’t know why.

Expedia. Oh I’m so gone.

Well it’s over. Looks like Avrila (my oldest daughter) will be overnight at Heathrow.

For those of you not up to date on the Expedia story.

Some months ago, my daughter was going through a stressful moment in her life. There’s no place in the world like Wales to get rid of stress. So a ticket to Manchester, England and a train ticket out to Wales seem the right thing at the moment.

Now the part that’s my fault. While booking the trip on Expedia, I clicked the wrong return trip. What I’d ment to get was Phoenix/Chicago/Manchester, and Manchester/Chicago/Phoenix return. While picking the return trip I got a Manchester/London/Chicago/Phoenix, with a long layover in London (10 hours).

Starting that evening and for the last several months I’ve tried to get the trip corrected, finally asking if she could just board the plane in London, skipping the Manchester/London leg of the trip. That way she could take a train from Wales to London the day before, enjoy the sites in London for the day, then catch the flight to Chicago the next morning.

Sounds simple right? Well no way, if she dosen’t take the Manchester/London flight the entire trip is canceled. Expedia will do nothing, BMI will do nothing.

During the 80s and 90s, I worked in the aircraft support business. While with Lockheed an Portland, Oregon (PDX), I worked with many of the old school airlines, some of them, Braniff, Eastern, Western, Air Cal, and now it seems Northwest Orient are gone.

With few exceptions, these seem to have been replaced by transportation companies. There’s a big difference between an airline, and a transportation company. When things are going well, ones about as good as the other. When things get difficult, you really need an airline.

I’ve seen entire plane loads of people shifted to another carrier for a trip to Seattle so that they could make their connections. This was when an Alaska Airlines plane had a radio problem in Portland, and the departure was going to be delayed while the mechanics installed a fresh radio. Instead of taking the chance the their customers would miss connecting flights, Alaska transfered the passengers to a Delta flight at the next gate over, getting all their passengers to Seattle on time. By the way the Alaska plane departed within the 1/2 hour, and probably would have made most connections, but they didn’t take the chance. That folks is a real airline.

As a side story..While I was pushing back the Alaska flight, now empty except for the three crew. The pilot asked over the headset “You ever wonder how steep a 727 can climb?’

Me ” Ready for push back, brakes off…And yes I have wondered.”

Pilot ” B pumps off, interconnect closed, brakes off,ready to push…Stick around any watch this take off.”

Well I did. A 727 weighs about 100,000 pounds dry, and has a maximum about 209,000. And I,ve seen that max weight “streched” to about 227,000. But that’s another story.

Anyway. I had just fueled the plane to go to Seattle, and there were only about 18,000 pounds of fuel on board, far lower that the 54,000 pounds it could carry. So we’re talking a 118,000 pound taxi weight, and they burn some just getting to the runway.

So after I disconnected the tug from the plane, and got out of the way, I hung around to watch. They taxied to the east end of the airport to runway 28 Left, turned to the center line, then brought the throttles full up with the brakes set. Easy to imagine the this might have been one of those takeoffs where the Flight Engineer was bent around from his normal possition to watch the engine temp gauges. Thay would have been quite high.

A lot of smoke and dust blown toward 82nd Ave. then brake release. The 727 rolled a short distance on the ground, lifted, then after the gear came up, settled just a few feet off the 11,000 foot long runway, at full throttle. Windows at the terminal shook, much like when a couple of F-15s leave in full afterburner.

Midfield still right down on the deck, I think if he had lowered the landing gear at this point, he would have had to climb just a bit. Then about 3/4 down the runnway He let it climb just a little to clear the ground, and as soon as he had 20 feet or so elevation, must have pulled the wheel way back. That 727 headed for the clouds like an Angel, late for a meeting.

Oh yeah…Expedia (sorry about that). The other day I was stuck in L.A., the truck broke, on what was suppose to be a quick turn. June needed to be in Portland on Sunday for a wedding, so I looked for a last minute fare to get her back to Portland. Got a fare from the Expedia site for a starting point, logged on with Alaska Air / Horizon and found a less expensive fare through that airline.

Got to wonder..If there is no customer service, and by customer service, I mean somebody who will step up and solve a problem. Well what do we need Expedia for anyway? What we really need is a internet travel site that is easy to use, and when the occasional mistake is made, can make a phone call and solve the error. Just reading me back the “Rules of the booking” isn’t good enough. I was in that business long enough to know that “The customer isn’t always right, but he is always the customer”. The sooner Expedia realizes this, the longer they will be around. There are too many places to buy a cheap ticket to put up with this kind to treatment.

I’ve spent a lot through Expedia, and this correction would have made the airline money, in that they could have resold the empty seat. A no loss for everybody. Now unless something is done by Expedia, or BMI (British Midland), well there are other ways to get to the U.K.

Truck in the shop tonight.

Boy this has got to stop soon. Just spent $17,000 plus to get the truck back on the road. This morning in L.A. on a trip I really didn’t want to make, I’m running down I-210 and the truck sputters a couple times then quits.
Figured it might be a bad fuel filter, had a service truck come out, we fiddled with it a bit. The mechanic had a computer with him, and we found that all of the fuel injectors, had low pressure.
The engine would not stay running, so called a tow truck ($640) to take the truck to Freightliner, in Ontario.
Very probably something simple in the fuel system, not like every injector would go bad at the same instant. Still makes me very unhappy. This was suppose to be a quick turn, Junes sister is getting married Sunday, and I wasen’t happy about working this trip in anyway. Now it’s looking like I need to take her to the airport, to get her home on time.
Had wanted to take a few days off, and get the truck into Freightliner in Brooks, Oregon where I know the people. Now it being looked at in L.A. by mechanics that know they will probably never see me again.
My instincts all told me to not take this trip. I think I’m going to start listening to them more.

Global Warming, I Don’t Think So.

Stopped at Laramie, Wyoming last night. April 10 2008. Went to warm up the truck this morning and found a foot of snow on the hood, and at least 6 inches the lenght of the trailer. That’s a lot of snow.
I allways thought “April Showers” where suppose to be rain. The only “May Flowers” we’re going to see at this rate, will be tended by snow men.
Interstate 80 was open westbound so we took off. We where very heavy this trip (77,000 pounds) so traction was not a problem. Others like a Fed Ex truck with a set of doubles where having trouble. We slipped our way to Sinclair, Wyoming, there the road got much better.
Can’t help but worry about Al Gore’s Polar Bears. Not for the reason he gives, but rather the if this keeps up, they may not find any open water to fish in.
In the mean time I’ll just keep buying the over priced, Earth Friendly, ultra low sulfer fuel. Kinda gives me a warm feeling….A Global Warm Feeling.

Eastern Colorado

So we stopped tonight at a small town in eastern Colorado, very near the border with Nebraska. Not sure why Sterling, Colorado is even here. Your not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but I think you can see it from here.

Still, nice people, and lots of open space around. Flat corn and wheat land just isn’t my cup of tea.

Got to get to Imperial, Nebraska tomorrow, pick up a load of popcorn. That goes to Idaho, and they will take the bulk off the truck, then load retail packed popcorn to take to the Portland area.

Just a note to this trip.  The place that loaded the popcorn, had huge bags for sale at the office.  Bought a 12 plus pound bag of yellow, and a bag of with for $8.00.  Kind of one of the cool things about this jod, is that you do end up at the source for many products.