Google Lemonade: Blogger Label Menu "Bug"

I wrote and tested code for Bell Labs for over 40 years, so I have ignored the industries of computers and software because I learn a lot more studying railroads, bridges, steel mills, dams, coal mines, etc. But Google plans to force a new version of the blog authoring software down our throats. They initially claimed that it would be the default in late June and that they would force us to switch to it in late July. I see they have now removed saying when we will be forced to use it.

The text window in their feedback window is only 360 x 125 pixels. That won't even hold 144 words. Regular readers, about 20, know that I don't think in terms of 144 words or less. I've been known to write introductions that are longer than that.  I've had trouble keeping up with the information that I have been finding on Facebook before Google asked us to try the new software. This new software is putting me even further behind on my blog writing. So I've decided that, since Goggle has given me a bunch of lemons, I'm going to make some lemonade. In particular, I'm going to write some real life examples of software change. I'm not going to make a lot of my feedback public, but I am going to make at least my work analyzing the label menu issue public. It turns out, it is not a bug, it is a change that I can adapt to now that I understand what the needed adaptation is.



I discovered this problem when I tried looking for a post concerning the CB&Q. I could not find the label, rrCBaQ! So I'm going to start by using the old version to document the labels that I do have. Then I'll compare that to the labels offered in the new version.

In the new version the popup is the same dinky size no matter how tall the window is. According to a photo on the "better blogger experience" page, their design goal is to make it easier to use your phone. They seem to be so fixated on using a phone that they are ignoring how it behaves on a desktop. And the loss of the counts is NOT a "better experience." For example bridgeMovable having a count of 1 means that I haven't converted a post to one of the more specific movable types: lift, swing, bobtail, rolling, strauss, trunnion, rare. (I just fixed it.)

New Version

Note that CREATE has moved to the top.

I didn't find any labels missing from the first menu snapshot.

needsMap looks like another label that could be eliminated. I didn't find any labels missing for this screenshot either.

I thought rrBRC was missing, but then I found it between rrAmtrak and rrBaO. So they have switched from a case insensitive sort in the old version to a case sensitive sort in the new version. And uppercase letters are considered "smaller" than lowercase letters. That is why CREATE is now at the top.

Likewise, rrCBaQ, rrCGW and rrCSSaSB are not missing, they just moved from their old position to a position between rrBig4 and rrCaEI. Now that I understand there is a new rule for alphabetization, I'll quite studying the labels because they are not missing, and I now understand where to find them.

IHB Icing (Ice) Facility at Blue Island Yard

(Satellite, it has been replaced by a car repair shop)

Some general notes on icing platforms

Dwayne Weber posted

Does anyone know where this icing station would have been for IHB. This is a WW2 photo. Thanks!

[Some comments talk about what it was like to work in the ice house.

LC-USW3-014139-D
The chute is lowered and the ice poured down from the platform above.]

Dennis DeBruler commented on Dwayne's post

The south side of Blue Island Yard, 1938 aerial.
https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/.../0bwq10070.jpg
Mike Breski Notice the partially finished round house to the north west?
Dennis DeBruler I had never noticed that it was partially finished.

Digitally zoomed in on the above photo

HS House Camping posted
January 1943. Riverdale, Illinois. "Blue Island Yard of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad with view of the icing platform." Photo by Jack Delano, Office of War Information.
Mike Breski shared

 

HS House Camping posted
January 1943. "Icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. Blue Island Yard south of Chicago." Acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information.
Mike Breski shared

Tom Siniawski: Ice house was still up and running when I hired on the IHB IN 1970.

Frank Hall: I took some pictures of it in 1974 for high school project. I will See if I can find them. I also have some of the timbers from the old stock yard holding up my house. My dad drug them home in his pickup truck. Think they are 16 ft long 10"×20" timbers

 

HS House Camping posted
January 1943. Blue Island, Illinois. "Inside the ice storehouse of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad near Chicago. It has a storage capacity of almost 15,000 tons." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information
Joseph Obrien shared

Mike Girdwain commented on Joseph's share
Ice House on Wolf Lake near Calumet City Illinois.

The following photos are WWII Jack Delano photos from Lot 222.

We think of the railroads having to keep produce cool in the Summer. But they also had to keep it from freezing in the Winter. The gas holder in the background confirms this photo was taken in the Blue Island Yard.

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Placing charcoal heaters in a refrigerator car of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

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Heaters on the platform of the icing station of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

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Refrigerator cars waiting to be iced at the icing station of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The little carts on the platform are used for carrying the crushed ice up and down the platform and dumping it down the chutes into the cans

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At the icing platform the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The chute is lowered and the ice poured down from the platform above.

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Icing a car at the icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

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Icing a car at the icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

[We can see both grain elevators in the background.]

Michael Brandt posted

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The icing station of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The brick building on the left is the icing plant

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The icing station of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The brick building on the left is the icing plant

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The icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

Michael Brandt posted

A cool Jack Delano pic from the icing platform of the IHB Icehouse .

A rare shot of both Grainery's in one pic.

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The icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

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Inside the ice storehouse of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. It has a storage capacity of almost 15,000 tons

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Block of ice being sent up an elevator into the storehouse of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad

Michael Brandt posted

A block of ice being sent up an elevator into the storehouse of the IHB icehouse, from 1943 taken by Jack Delano.

Tom Siniawski: I worked at the old rip starting in 1970 and was told they weighed 400. Place was still in operation.

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Inside the ice storehouse of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. It has a storage capacity of almost 15,000 tons

Carl Venzke posted

Inside the ice storehouse of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. It has a storage capacity of almost 15,000 tons - January 1943 - Jack Delano photo

Candy Lachman Birkenfeld posted
IHB photo

Dennis DeBruler

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001016040/PP/

Freight operations on the Indiana Harbor Belt railroad between Chicago, Illinois and Hammond, Indiana. The train goes off to the icehouse as the caboose is cut off and goes down a siding to the yard office

[On the left background is the yard tower.]

Update: I didn't have all of Jack's photos.

Michael Brandt posted
A picture of the IHB icehouse from 1943 taken by Jack Delano.

Jim Griffith posted seven photos with the comment: "More archive photos.

Blue Island Icing Platform"

Andrew Urbanski shared

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Tod Ave+Republic+McCook Ave+Kennedy Ave Interlockings: B&OCT vs. IHB

The railfan post below got me looking for the "Republic interlocking" in East Chicago. My 2005 SPV Map shows that there were four interlockings between B&OCT and IHB in about a mile along the B&OCT. So I'm doing all four in one post.

Instead of a satellite, I'm using a topo image because it still has the tracks that were in these interlockings. The numbering convention is the one used by the 2005 SPV Map except that I added 99 to represent what is labelled as Calumet Tower.

• Tod Ave: 8
• Republic: 9
• McCook Ave: 10
• Calumet Tower: 99
• Kennedy Ave: 11

1953 Whiting Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 plus Paint

Interlocks 8-10 were obviously connections between B&OCT and IHB spurs. Kennedy Ave confused me until I looked at a contemporary satellite image. It was a crossover.

Satellite

This is how I learned about the Republic interlocking.

Steven W Panek posted
With the Indiana Harbor Canal a little higher than normal due to recent thunderstorms in the past week,
CSX 3168 was the rear DPU on an eastbound manifest that had just cleared Republic interlocking on the CSX Barr Subdivision in East Chicago, Indiana on 5/23/2020

Today, the spurs associated with interlockings 8 and 10 are gone.

RR Aban Map

And the connection in the southwest quadrant of Republic is gone.

Evidently the water level of the Indiana Harbor Canal is normally rather high. I'm guessing from the images of the bridge that the girders are concrete instead of steel. It appears the purpose of the south fork of the canal is to help drain Grand Calumet River rather than navigation because all of the bridges across it are fixed.

Street View

1894 The Lost High (Suicide) Bridge in Lincoln Park

(Satellite???, Since it was gone by 1919, I can't look for it on a 1938 aerial photo)

WTTW

Joseph Ruzich posted
Check out my blog and read a story with postcards about Suicide Bridge in Lincoln Park. I think you'll like it!
https://www.vintagechicagopostcards.com/2020/06/lost-souls-on-chicagos-forgotten.html

It was a four-story tall bridge so that sailboats could pass underneath it. It was built in 1892 or 94. Unfortunately, it was high enough that it became a popular place to commit suicide. Fortunately, for a couple of amateur actors, falling off the bridge was not a guaranteed death. They did it in 1916 for a movie and survived. It was torn down in 1919. [WTTW]

Beer drinking, bicycle riding, Chicago photography club posted five images with a comment that is text copied from the Geoffrey Baer's WTTW article.
Raymond Kunst shared

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Raymond Kunst posted six images with the comment:

Lincoln Park's 'Suicide Bridge’, the High Bridge at the Lincoln Park Lagoon (non extant).

This was called the “Suicide Bridge.” It was a four story bridge over Lincoln Park lagoon south of Fullerton and east of Lincoln Park Zoo. It connected Lincoln Park to the lakefront at the time when Lake Shore Drive was a carriage route rather than a 'drive' / 'urban parkway'.

It was simply called the High Bridge, built in either 1892 or 1894 to be tall enough for sailboats to fit underneath.

The bridge offered spectacular views of the lake, but unfortunately also became the choice location for people wishing to end their lives. There are dozens of accounts of people throughout the years leaping over the bridge. Soon, the press was widely calling this the “Suicide Bridge.”

In 1916, amateur movie-makers shot a chase scene on the bridge. The characters were to fall from the bridge, but a stunt man they hired refused to jump, saying the water below was too shallow. The amateur actors decided to do it themselves and both survived.

The Park District became greatly concerned, and talked about fencing the bridge over or tearing it down. It survived until 1919, when it was finally torn down. By then, the bridge became so rusty that anyone going across it risked his life.

Raymond Kunst shared

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David S McCoy commented on Raymond's share
Note that Fullerton did not always extend to Lake Shore Drive. Perhaps this was a reason for the pedestrian bridge.