So how bout that blog....

 So some of you have noticed that I've been rather absent from my blog.... Yes I have been. For which I can blame a number of things which I won't get into because, quite frankly, its inconsequential and unimportant to you :p. Things are calming down a bit so now I have a bit more time to again start sharing my thoughts and pictures. So lets see... what fact can I share today...

Oh, I know... lets take a trip back to the days where political correctness wasn't even a term :)

Fact of the Day:

Just shy of 20 years after the official founding of Minneapolis, the city's increasing population and skyrocketing density provided the opportunity for trolleys to take centerstage in the streets. The first line opened in September 2, 1875 with an initial toll of just a nickel (5 cents for those unfamiliar with American monetary nomenclature). The population at the time was 26,765 in 11 square miles, not bad for a city not even twenty years old in the middle of the prairies. Originally these trolleys were horse pulled and held about 12 to 14 passengers on two long banches flanking the inside of the trolley. A city ordinance limited the speed of these trolleys to six miles an hour :p. 

For the first 15 years of service, no transfers were issued so each seperate trolley ride cost another five cents (where wages were often around 20 dollars a month).  The introduction of the transfers allowed the expansive system to continue adding more passengers to their ridership totals. However, issues quickly arose after the introduction of the transfers. For those unfamiliar with transfers, its basically a ticket that allows you to switch from bus to bus, trolley to trolley or whatever mass transit you have (and in most cases they also allow thinks like bus to trolley, whatever) without having to pay a separate fee within a given time frame. Transfers promote the use of a system as opposed to strictly just individual routes. However, back in the days prior to standardized time and other technological features that make the transfer system today run, transfers lasted an entire day. This allowed passengers to give their transfers away for others to basically use as a free ride for the entire day. Scrupulous kids would even pick up discarded transfers or beg others to give them away to turn around and sell the transfers at 2 cents a piece (60% discount!). With an increasing passenger load and an increasingly stagnant income created the need to stop such behavior. So Minneapolis devised a plan....

The transfer slip now became somewhat more complicated. Instead of just having the date and the Minneapolis streetcar logo on it, 7 faces adorned the end of the slip. Five of these faces were masculine with four having the beards du jour (the four most common beard styles of the day) and the fifth was clean shaven. Two of the faces were feminine, one of the middle aged matron variety, another of the... "flapper" variety. When requesting a transfer, the agent would match your face that went best with the face on the slip, reducing the chances of successfully peddling a transfer ticket. However, as you can imagine, many people became offended at what the agent presumed their faces were. 

Sorry women, you were either a seedy lady of the night or an old mother in Minneapolis :p. Don't worry, this system failed within months and was promptly discarded. 


On other note, my street has recently undergone a lot of construction and suddenly history was available right in front of my apartmnet!










There... I'm back :)