Happy 4th of July

Enjoy your weekend :...........

100 Years of Digging up Montreal Streets

          Filed under: history, tramways, pointe a calliere, telegraph, electric buses

(More before and after shots below...)

Montreal is thinking about electrifying its bus system and bringing electric tramways back, both of which would require overhead wires on city streets.

It was 100 years ago this month -- June 27, 1910, to be exact -- that an organization, the Commission des services électriques de Montréal (CSEM), was created to rid Montreal of its tangle of overhead electric, telephone and telegraph wires. They were an eyesore and a fire hazard.

The CSEM's first customers: 17 electric companies, six telephone and telegraph companies, and four tramway companies.

The first task was to bury wires on Ste. Catherine St., between Atwater and Papineau, a project it completed in October 1915. 

Within 20 years of CSEM's creation, it had installed underground conduits for wires under most of downtown and Old Montreal, as well as five major thoroughfares (Sherbrooke, Mont Royal, Rachel, St. Laurent and St. Denis).

These days, the CSEM, a public-private agency, manages the island's underground electric, cable-TV, telephone and optical cable network. It works for about 80 companies and its network of underground conduits is 21,000 kilometres long.

To mark its 100th anniversary, the Pointe à Callière museum is presenting an exhibit, 100 ans sous terre, that will run from Jun 29 to Aug. 29.

The museum has dug through the archives of the CSEM, which has a wealth of photos of Montreal streets from the early 20th century. At the time, the CSEM hired professional photographers to take shots before and after it buried the wires.

The photos at the top of this post show Notre Dame St. West., looking toward McGill St. in 1907 and in 2010.

Here are a few more.

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, before 1907:

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, today:

Ontario and Orléans, 1929:

Ontario and Orléans, today:

Phillips Square, 1914:

Phillips Square, 1921:

Phillips Square, today:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1924:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1926:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, today:

The poster promoting the museum exhibit:

- Andy Riga

100 Years od Digging up Montreal Streets

Filed under: history, tramways, pointe a calliere, telegraph, electric buses

(More before and after shots below...)

Montreal is thinking about electrifying its bus system and bringing electric tramways back, both of which would require overhead wires on city streets.

It was 100 years ago this month -- June 27, 1910, to be exact -- that an organization, the Commission des services électriques de Montréal (CSEM), was created to rid Montreal of its tangle of overhead electric, telephone and telegraph wires. They were an eyesore and a fire hazard.

The CSEM's first customers: 17 electric companies, six telephone and telegraph companies, and four tramway companies.

The first task was to bury wires on Ste. Catherine St., between Atwater and Papineau, a project it completed in October 1915. 

Within 20 years of CSEM's creation, it had installed underground conduits for wires under most of downtown and Old Montreal, as well as five major thoroughfares (Sherbrooke, Mont Royal, Rachel, St. Laurent and St. Denis).

These days, the CSEM, a public-private agency, manages the island's underground electric, cable-TV, telephone and optical cable network. It works for about 80 companies and its network of underground conduits is 21,000 kilometres long.

To mark its 100th anniversary, the Pointe à Callière museum is presenting an exhibit, 100 ans sous terre, that will run from Jun 29 to Aug. 29.

The museum has dug through the archives of the CSEM, which has a wealth of photos of Montreal streets from the early 20th century. At the time, the CSEM hired professional photographers to take shots before and after it buried the wires.

The photos at the top of this post show Notre Dame St. West., looking toward McGill St. in 1907 and in 2010.

Here are a few more.

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, before 1907:

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, today:

Ontario and Orléans, 1929:

Ontario and Orléans, today:

Phillips Square, 1914:

Phillips Square, 1921:

Phillips Square, today:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1924:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1926:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, today:

The poster promoting the museum exhibit:

- Andy Riga

100 Years od Digging up Montreal Streets

Filed under: history, tramways, pointe a calliere, telegraph, electric buses

(More before and after shots below...)

Montreal is thinking about electrifying its bus system and bringing electric tramways back, both of which would require overhead wires on city streets.

It was 100 years ago this month -- June 27, 1910, to be exact -- that an organization, the Commission des services électriques de Montréal (CSEM), was created to rid Montreal of its tangle of overhead electric, telephone and telegraph wires. They were an eyesore and a fire hazard.

The CSEM's first customers: 17 electric companies, six telephone and telegraph companies, and four tramway companies.

The first task was to bury wires on Ste. Catherine St., between Atwater and Papineau, a project it completed in October 1915. 

Within 20 years of CSEM's creation, it had installed underground conduits for wires under most of downtown and Old Montreal, as well as five major thoroughfares (Sherbrooke, Mont Royal, Rachel, St. Laurent and St. Denis).

These days, the CSEM, a public-private agency, manages the island's underground electric, cable-TV, telephone and optical cable network. It works for about 80 companies and its network of underground conduits is 21,000 kilometres long.

To mark its 100th anniversary, the Pointe à Callière museum is presenting an exhibit, 100 ans sous terre, that will run from Jun 29 to Aug. 29.

The museum has dug through the archives of the CSEM, which has a wealth of photos of Montreal streets from the early 20th century. At the time, the CSEM hired professional photographers to take shots before and after it buried the wires.

The photos at the top of this post show Notre Dame St. West., looking toward McGill St. in 1907 and in 2010.

Here are a few more.

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, before 1907:

Notre Dame and St. Laurent, today:

Ontario and Orléans, 1929:

Ontario and Orléans, today:

Phillips Square, 1914:

Phillips Square, 1921:

Phillips Square, today:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1924:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, 1926:

St. Francois Xavier and Notre Dame, today:

The poster promoting the museum exhibit:

- Andy Riga

Achieved dubious distinction of being Worst Accident Ever (no sh** ! Sherlock) !!

An exhausted oil-covered brown pelican tries to climb over an oil containment boom along Queen Bess Island Pelican Rookery, 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Grand Isle, Louisiana June 5, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana - A supertanker began skimming oil in the Gulf of Mexico Friday as the disaster became the worst accidental spill on record, surpassed only by the deliberate release by Iraqi troops during the 1991 Gulf War.

An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day has been gushing out of the ruptured well since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on April 22 some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

A containment system has captured about 557,000 barrels of oil, but rough seas have delayed the deployment of a third vessel which is set to increase capacity from 25,000 barrels to 53,000 barrels a day.

That means an estimated 1.9 to 3.6 million barrels — or 79.5 to 153 million gallons — of oil has now gushed into the Gulf.

Using the high end of that estimate, the spill has now surpassed the 1979 Ixtoc blowout which took nine months to cap and dumped an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 million gallons) into in the Gulf of Mexico.

An estimated six to eight million barrels of oil were released by Iraqi troops who destroyed tankers and oil terminals and set wells ablaze in Kuwait.

It will likely be mid-August at the earliest before the well is permanently capped by injecting mud and cement with the aid of relief wells.

The Taiwanese supertanker dubbed "A Whale" could radically increase the amount of oil crews are able to recover from the Gulf.

"It's a giant tanker which has cuts in the side," BP spokesman Toby Odone told AFP.

"It ingests oil and oily water and then separates out the oil and expels the water."

The giant ship is some 300 yards (275 meters) long and can suck up 21 million gallons of oily water a day.

The small skimming boats which have been patrolling the Gulf for the past 10 weeks have only collected 28.2 million gallons of oily water to date.

Tests began Friday on the tanker to see whether it could safely handle and dispose of the oil and it will take several days before a deployment decision is made, Odone said.

Rough seas caused by the first major storm of the Atlantic season have kept the thousands of ships hired to skim oil, lay boom, carry out controlled burns and move equipment in harbor since Tuesday.

They cannot safely resume work until the swells calm to less than four feet (1.3 meters) and seas were still around seven feet (two meters) Friday morning.

"Obviously the beach cleanup activity continues and it's time for all the boats involved in the skimming operations to undergo repairs and for the teams to work on strategy for when they go out again," Odone said.

The rough seas have also helped break up and weather the oil, which helps keep it from reaching delicate coastal wetlands, Odone said.

Around 428 miles (689 kilometers) of U.S. shorelines have now been oiled as crude spews into the sea at an alarming rate, 73 days into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Separately, BP's managing director Bob Dudley admitted faults in the firm's spill response during a live online question-and-answer forum.

"The clean-up effort has not been perfect," Dudley confessed in the Google- and YouTube-partnered event. "There have been gaps in the defenses."

The spill "will change the oil industry forever," Dudley said.

.................................................................................................................hf&rv

Deja-Vu, shades of 1970 ? I hope not.

           A small element of little gutless creeps ,are taking responsibiltiy for an explosion at a recruitment office in Three Rivers.....  I hope these little _ricks (remember the P is silent like in Psalm) .......get a beating they never forget if & when they are caught, What good does bombing a building do..? This is how it started way back when, the lunatic fringe make difficult for the rest of the public (who are generally good people,getting along well, without the irritation of these no-mind groups creating problems, Quebec would do well to round up these fools & take care of them quickly,before they escalate their shenanigans.

A little known group has claimed responsibility for the bombing that ripped through a Canadian Forces recruitment office in Trois-Rivieres, Que., early Friday, according to media reports.

Quebec provincial police said no one was injured since the building was closed when the blast occurred at 3 a.m.

Sgt. Eloise Cossette of the Surete du Quebec said the local police force received a phone call some 20 minutes before the explosion. "It was what we call a bomb threat," Cossette said.

A group calling itself "Resistance internationaliste" issued a statement Friday claiming responsibility for the attack.

Montreal newspaper La Presse reported Friday that it received an e-mail from the group noting it is opposed to Canada's military practices and wants to prevent a "further indoctrination."

The Surete du Quebec was not immediately available Friday to comment on the group's claim.

The police are investigating the incident with a team of bomb specialists and sniffing dogs.

A large security perimeter has been set up around the building, located in downtown Trois-Rivieres near a bus station and a hotel. So far, no one in the area has been evacuated.

The extent of the damage has not yet been assessed, but the building's windows and door were shattered.

A spokesman for the recruitment centre said the attack comes as a "shock".

Neighbours said they were woken up by a major explosion.

There are reports all federal buildings in the area have been put on high alert, but Sgt. Cossette said the SQ has not yet given such an order.

It is not yet known if the group is the same as the Initiative de resistance internationaliste that claimed responsibility in 2006 for bombing the car of a spokesman for Canada's petroleum industry and in 2004 for a failed attempt to topple a Hydro-Quebec transmission tower carrying electricity to the United States.

.................................HF&RV...........................................