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Talk:Norman Finkelstein

Adding popular interview with Finkelstein to external links or videos section
September 2020 interview with Finkelstein has over 16k views on youTube and more views on the interviewers website. The interview is titled "How true academic freedom creates intellectual conflict" Finkelstein talks about his career and why he struggled to conform to academia.

I would like to add
 * Interview with Norman Finkelstein, "How True Academic Freedom Creates Intellectual Conflict" September 2020

Footnote 112
Per this RFC, the use of Mondoweiss on controversial topics and BLP is not optimal. Is there a better citation for the sourced claim? FortunateSons (talk) 20:03, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

 * What's wrong with it? It would be more helpful if you actually described your issue with the source rather than just waving at an RFC that doesn't prohibit its use in this case. Parabolist (talk) 11:15, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure, thank you for your response.
 * Per this RfC: that it should either not be used at all — or used with great caution — for biographies of living people.
 * While the other uses are covered by aboutself or acceptable for other reasons, 112 was not. Based on the person, the source and the topic, I was BOLD, reflecting my understand of the limited permissibility of fringe source citations for BLP. In my opinion, the other uses are (at least with the current close) acceptable. FortunateSons (talk) 11:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The RFC allows use with caution. You haven't actually explained the problem with the usage here. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It is a rather critical review of Finkelstein (though while I am not generally opposed to those, being not ‘radical‘ enough is definitely the rarer type of criticism). The content is harmless - and if I recall, there is a video somewhere, though I couldn’t find it - and isn‘t the primary concern: I’m a lot more concerned about citing non-experts (and basically reprinted) SPS/statements about a BLP, and would prefer if we just got the content from him directly. FortunateSons (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * So your issue is that you think the source is "basically reprint[ing]" his words, and the solution is that you want the words from him directly? Seems like the source is exactly what you want? Parabolist (talk) 22:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The most important issue is the other stuff inside the article, such as:
 * the tag as „activism“ (compared to other tags, such as „news“
 * the use of non-expert non-journalists to make a claim about BLP, something that should be avoided in cases that are equivalent or worse than RSEDITORIAL in combination with Biographies of living persons, mentioning This policy extends that principle, adding that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable and whether it is in a biography or in some other article. The material should not be added to an article when the only sources are tabloid journalism. When material is both verifiable and noteworthy, it will have appeared in more reliable sources.
 * for this person and topics (see this talk page), the standard is rightly higher than usual, him being a highly controversial BLP (see also, the recent RSN discussion) active in one of the most controversial issues of our time. An argument can be made for inclusion (and was made below), but saying „ah it’s probably fine“ is not the standard for BLP, we need a source reliable for BLP or a selfsource, particularly based on the mix of aggregating circumstances.
 * The redeeming factor here, as stated by @Aquillion below, is that the actual claim is so mild that all of those concerns can be ignored in favour of a „this is so minor it isn’t an issue“ style approach, which probably can be covered by 'great caution, if at all‘ FortunateSons (talk) 22:50, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

 * It's definitely something to be cautious about, but I think at least this usage is fine - in the context of the rest of the section (which makes it clear he supports the two-state solution), him saying he supports it because he thinks it's more practical is fairly anodyne; it's neither BLP-sensitive nor exceptional or potentially unencyclopedic in tone. The other usages are perhaps more serious in that they attribute relatively sharp words and major statements to him using only his WP:ABOUTSELF statements in Mondoweiss as a source, so it would be ideal to find other sources for those, but I don't think we need to worry so much about a comparatively bland statement that the reason why he supports the two-state solution is because he thinks it's more practical. --Aquillion (talk) 17:35, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that makes sense, thank you. I was also concerned with the source content and context, and not just the specifically cited section. I would still strongly prefer removal here as well, but understand that this is unlikely to find consensus unless I find a better source. Thank you all for taking the time. FortunateSons (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't feel strongly about this but I think that now there is an RfC closure that we should only use this source with extreme caution in a BLP, it is appropriate to boldly the onus should be on those who want it included to secure consensus for that by showing why it is exceptional. Otherwise we have a community consensus that is meaningless. In this particular case, the contentious source was removed with a clear edit summary in line with that RfC closure, but replaced within two days on the basis that it "appears to have been removed for no good reason" - when really consensus should have been reached first. The quotation is from from a critique of the subject of the BLP by somebody who is neither notable nor noteworthy ("a regular commenter on this site, Daniel Crowther, who works in Boston in the technology development industry") summarising the BLP subject's position. Surely we can find a reliable source to summarise his position from? While the quotation isn't itself contentious, I think we have the duty to find a better source for it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I definitely agree, thank you!
 * Regarding a replacement, I have been looking a little but can’t find anything great. FortunateSons (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Just for the sake of due diligence: we currently have five citations of MW, citing three different texts. This is the only one that seems problematic to me. His comments on on B’Tselem’s "apartheid regime" designation for Israel and an interview with his thoughts on BDS are both used for his own words, so that seems fine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:37, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

NF connection with Unz Review
@Makeandtoss you claimed that my edit on this subject contained "ADL (ironic) defamation". Can you explain? As far as I'm aware what I wrote there in the name of the ADL had never been denied or claimed to be defamatory. Vegan416 (talk) 21:51, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

 * It is synth to collect information from multiple sources and coming up with one's own conclusion. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * But there was no conclusion in my edit. At any rate, I didn't ask you about SYNTH, because I don't have time now to debate what is SYNTH and what isn't. I asked you specifically about your seeming accusation against the ADL as if my edit contained some defamation that came from them. Can you explain what you meant by that? Vegan416 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that it was SYNTH and also that the text exceeded what was in the source. This is all the source says, with no dates: The most prominent and clearest connection between the Alt-Right and conspiracy theory sites in our conspiracy theory selection is called The Unz Review, which appeared very frequently amongst the Alt-Right twitter handles. The Unz Review is a "mix of far-right and far-left anti-Semitic crackpottery, from 9/11 ‘truther’ and conspiracy theorist Paul Craig Roberts to ‘Holocaust industry’ critic Norman Finkelstein, who believes Jews exploit the Holocaust to justify oppressing Palestinians".
 * This bit isn't SYNTH, but it only has a primary source: In 2014, in the preface to one of his books Finkelstein thanked Ron Unz for his "friendship and support". BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:01, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Personally I think the ADL is a usable source for saying that Finkelstein received funding from the Unz Foundation: The Unz Foundation has also given grants to Mondoweiss, an anti-Israel blog run by Philip Weiss, which regularly reports on and promotes the initiatives of some of the more prominent leaders and groups associated with the domestic anti-Israel movement, including Ali Abunimah, co-founder of “Electronic Intifada”; Alison Weir, the executive director of If Americans Knew; and Norman Finkelstein, an anti-Israel speaker whom Unz also funds. But we might want to wait until the ADL RfC plays out before adding that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We have also a public admission of NF to that effect in the preface to another of his books. See here: "I am grateful for the Unz Foundation support". Vegan416 (talk) 16:14, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposed minor edit: Finkelstein's dissertation and From Time Immemorial
The current version of this article states that "Finkelstein's doctoral thesis examined the claims made in Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial".

This is not correct. A digitized version of Finkelstein's dissertation (Norman G. Finkelstein, "From the Jewish Question to the Jewish State: An Essay on the Theory of Zionism" (PhD dissertation: Princeton, 1988)) is now available from ProQuest: Peters's book does not even appear in its bibliography (which includes every title cited in his notes.)

Finkelstein's critique of FTI was a side project. It was published first as an article in the journal In These Times, and then as a chapter in the book Blaming the Victims.

This passage in the article should be edited to read: "While still a graduate student at Princeton, Finkelstein published a critique of the claims made in Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial".

Update: I see that I neglected to sign and date this proposal. --Cliodule (talk) 12:43, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Norman Finkelstein


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Intimate media

Intimate media are media artifacts created and collected by individuals, friends, and families to capture and commemorate aspects of family and intimate relationships. Intimate media includes such things as personal and family photo collections, home videos and films, diaries and journals, and letters. Depending on the meaning and values attributed to an object, anything could be considered intimate media. Great value is placed on intimate media possessions due to its ability to serve as "proof" that an event or memory actually occurred.

Intimate media in relation to technology

"Our memory and the stories we create, share, retell and live are a powerful way in which we determine and express who we are."

In their chapter of The New Everyday: Views on Ambient Intelligence, entitled Intimate Media: Emotional Needs and Ambient Intelligence, John Cass, Lorna Goulden, and Slava Kozlov discuss the ways in which humans, as they "become familiar with the potential of new technologies in their workplaces...find ways to re-use what they have encountered there and find benefits in other parts of their lives." This process has led to the onset of digital and social media-based "intimate media," such as digital scrapbooks, email, text messaging, Pinterest pages, blogs, the "messages" portion of Facebook, online photo-sharing websites such as Flickr, and websites like YouTube. Human memory and computer memory are quite different in terms of their accuracy and durability. Storing intimate media on a computer mechanism helps to preserve the accuracy of the memory and lengthens its life as well. One potential problem with fusing intimate media and technology is that most technological intimate media is stored rather than displayed—it lives on hard drives, CDs, and the internet. The decorative nature of non-technological intimate media allows a person to imbue their living space with memories, triggers of happy moments, sentimental objects, and the like. The onset of technologies such as digital photo-frames, however, has begun to solve these technological deficiencies. This new virtual digital domain opens up a whole world of possibilities. With intimate media now becoming increasingly digitalized, its potential for mobility, sharing, and copying is increasing drastically. Not only can a person transfer intimate media from one person or household to another, but the same intimate media can also be viewed simultaneously in a limitless number of locations. This opens up a new realm: ambient intelligence. Now intimate media is no longer confined to bookshelves, mantles, closets, and coffee tables. It can travel with a person in her/his pocket, via cell phone or other digital device, wherever s/he goes.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Intimate media


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Arnold Dreyblatt

Arnold Dreyblatt (born 1953) is an American composer, performance artist and visual artist.

Biography
Arnold Dreyblatt was born in 1953 in New York City. His mother, Lucille Wallenrod (1918–1998), was a painter.

He started his studies at Wesleyan University in the 1970s and transferred to the Center for Media Study at the University at Buffalo. In 1982, Dreyblatt obtained a master's degree in composition from Wesleyan University; his thesis was titled, "Nodal Excitation". He studied music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier (at Wesleyan University), and new media art with Steina and Woody Vasulka.

In his installations, performances and media works, Dreyblatt creates complex textual and spatial metaphors for memory which function as a media discourse on recollection and the archive. His installations, public artworks and performances have been exhibited and staged extensively in Europe. Dreyblatt's 2006 sculpture "Innocent Questions", which resembles the layout of an IBM punch card, is installed at the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Oslo, Norway.

Among the second generation of New York minimal composers, Dreyblatt developed a unique approach to composition and music performance. He invented a set of new and original instruments, performance techniques and a system of tuning. His compositions are based on harmonics and thus just intonation, played either through a bowing technique he developed for his modified double bass, and other modified and conventional instruments which he specially tuned. He originally used a steady pulse provided by the bowing motion on his double bass (placing his music in the minimal category), but he eventually added many more instruments and more rhythmic variety.

Dreyblatt received a 1998 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. He has worked with Paul Panhuysen, Pierre Berthet and Ex-Easter Island Head.

He has been based in Berlin, Germany, since 1984. In 2007, he was elected to the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

Collaboration
Dreyblatt has collaborated on material with the psych-folk band Megafaun. They recorded an album in 2012 and performed at the third annual Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September 2012 and at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City in February 2013.

Discography

 * Nodal Excitation, (India Navigation, 1982)
 * Propellers in Love, and "High Life" (HatART, 1986)
 * a haymisch groove, Extraplatte, Vienna (1994)
 * Animal Magnetism, (Tzadik)
 * The Sound of One String – Previously Unreleased Live Recordings 1979–1992, (Table of the Elements, 1998)
 * "Escalator" on Renegade Heaven, Bang on a Can All-Stars, (Cantaloupe, 2000)
 * The Adding Machine, (Cantaloupe, 2002)
 * Lapse, (Table of the Elements, 2004)
 * Live at Federal Hall, (Table of the Elements, 2006)
 * Resonant Relations, (Cantaloupe, 2008)
 * Appalachian Excitation, with Megafaun (Northern Spy, 2013)

title: Arnold Dreyblatt


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International Star Registry

The International Star Registry (ISR) is an organization founded in 1979 for the purpose of giving the general public the novelty of unofficially naming stars.

Overview
The company sells the right to unofficially name a star, often as a gift or memorial. These names are recorded in the book Your Place in the Cosmos, and are not recognized by the scientific or astronomical community as the International Astronomical Union is the only internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies. Some astronomers have criticized the registry for not conforming to the IAU's designations while others, like Edward Bowell, approved of it. The company's director of marketing Elaine Stolpe stated that "the service is not intended for scientific research; it is intended as a lasting gift."

Since its founding, the International Star Registry has catalogued individual stars using coordinate data. It previously used data from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog, before switching to using data from the NASA Star Guide, which allowed them to locate stars down to the 16th magnitude. The stars are catalogued on charts stored at the International Star Registry headquarters, and a catalogue of named stars is stored in a vault in Switzerland.

Customers are given a signed certificate, a booklet of star charts, and a chart identifying the named star. Packages sold by the company include framed certificates and personalized jewelry. The text of the certificates, with its blank spaces filled in by hand, is:

"Know ye herewith that the International Star Registry doth hereby redesignate star number _____ to the name _____. Know ye further that this star will henceforth be known by this name. This name is permanently filed in The Registry's vault in Switzerland and recorded in a book which will be registered in the copyright office of the United States of America."

Advertisements for the Registry air at the end of ABC News Radio's top-of-the-hour reports.

History
International Star Registry of Illinois was started in Toronto in 1979 by Ivor Downie, and is thought to be the earliest commercial star naming company. That year, the Toronto International Film Festival announced that it had purchased the naming rights to stars in the Andromeda Galaxy from the company, and would be naming them after festival patrons. In 1980, John and Phyllis Mosele bought an American franchise of the company. Phyllis had first learned of the company when she named a star for her husband as a gift.

The American company quickly grew in popularity, appearing on AM Chicago and Wally Phillips' WGN Morning Show. The Moseles purchased sole ownership in 1981 after Downie's death. The present owner of the company is Rocky Mosele, one of John and Phyllis Mosele's twelve children. The company has published nine large volumes of the copyrighted book named Your Place in the Cosmos.

After the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the city of Daytona Beach named a star after each of the seven astronauts who died in the accident through the ISR.

In 1998, the International Star Registry was issued a complaint by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs for deceptive advertising for claiming "official" naming rights. The Illinois Attorney General later found that the company had done no wrongdoing. The International Star Registry's FAQ states that only the International Astronomical Union has the right to name stars.

In 1999, the Delaware Museum of Natural History held a contest to name the star TYC 3429-697-1 in the Ursa Major constellation, after the museum purchased naming rights from the International Star Registry. The star was named the "Delaware Diamond", derived from Delaware's nickname "The Diamond State". Despite the nickname not having any scientific validity, a bill recognizing it as the official star of the State of Delaware was passed unanimously by the Delaware General Assembly in 2000.

The International Star Registry named a star after each victim of the September 11 attacks as a memorial.

John Smith's Brewery named stars in a pint glass-shaped constellation after fans who won a competition in 2015. As of 2017, the company had reportedly registered over 2 million stars names.

Jack in the Box partnered with the company to nickname a constellation, shaped like the fast food chain's mascot, after various food items offered by the franchise. The promotion was intended to celebrate the dual occurrence of Star Wars Day and National Space Day in May 2018. That same year, the company ran a promotion with the Sprint Corporation for customers who purchased a Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+.

In 2019, as the series The Big Bang Theory neared its finale, Warner Bros. Television Studios announced that the ISR had nicknamed the Big Dipper constellation "The Big Bang Dipper" in honor of the show. Disney+ commemorated the launch of the Star content hub in February 2021 by naming several stars in the International Star Registry.

In popular culture
The company has also appeared in numerous films and television series. In the 2002 romantic coming-of-age film A Walk to Remember depicts a young man (Shane West) naming a star after his girlfriend (Mandy Moore) through the International Star Registry. The International Star Registry appeared in the American Dad! episode "I Ain't No Holodeck Boy", when Hayley buys Roger's homestar, and claims to be his queen as a result.

A 1992 Time magazine article noted that the company had become popular with celebrities and politicians, with Elizabeth II, Charles III, and Diana, Princess of Wales receiving stars. Some stars have been nicknamed as a memorial, such as when William Baldwin nicknamed a star after John F. Kennedy Jr., in the wake of the latter's death. Nicole Kidman named a star in the Hercules constellation "Forever Tom" in the registry, after her husband Tom Cruise. Winona Ryder also named a star after her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp.

Other public figures who have had stars named for them include Barry Manilow, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jon Pertwee, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Lindsey Graham. Del E. Webb Construction Company named a star after Marco Rubio in 1993. Actor Kirk Douglas had a star named after him for his 99th birthday in 2015.

In 2012, Anderson Cooper presented guest John Cusack, who had just received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with a star named after him in the International Star Registry. Ellen DeGeneres presented 5-year old Xander Rynerson with a star named after him on a 2020 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In a 2020 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Patrick Stewart had a star named for him after defeating Pete Buttigieg in a Star Trek trivia match.

At the 2015 Academy Awards, nominees were given stars named in their honor and hardcover copies of Your Place in the Cosmos, Vol. 10, inside of their Oscar gift bags.

title: International Star Registry


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Verney Junction

Verney Junction is a hamlet in the parish of Middle Claydon in north Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the route of the former Varsity Line. , the line is disused but is scheduled to be reopened by about 2025 as part of the East West Rail project.

The stone cottages that make up the hamlet were largely constructed to provide houses for workers on the railway in the early Victorian era. The hamlet is named after the railway junction around which it grew. The new village included a cricket ground for the railway workers.

The original junction here was established (without a station) by the Buckinghamshire Railway, which planned a Bletchley –  Banbury route (subsequently the 'Banbury to Verney Junction Branch Line') and a Bletchley  –  Oxford route. The Bletchley –  Banbury Merton Street section was completed in May 1850 and the section from here to Oxford Rewley Road was completed in October of the same year. Verney Junction railway station was added when the Metropolitan Railway was extended here (from Baker Street).

Local legend has it that the station was so called because the then isolation of the area meant that the only obvious name was that of the local landowner, the Verney family of Claydon House.

title: Verney Junction


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Verney Junction railway station

Verney Junction railway station was an isolated railway station at a four-way railway junction in Buckinghamshire, open from 1868 to 1968; a junction existed at the site without a station from 1851.

The first line to open on the site was the Buckinghamshire Railway, which opened a line from Bletchley to Banbury in 1850; a line branching west to Oxford followed in 1851. This formed an east–west link from Oxford to Bletchley and Cambridge passing through Verney Junction and this, known as the Varsity line, became the busiest line through the site, leaving the line to Banbury as a relatively quiet branch. The station opened in 1868 concurrently with the opening of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (later owned by London Underground) towards Aylesbury and London. Soon after the Buckinghamshire Railway became absorbed into the London and North Western Railway.

The lines south to Aylesbury closed to passengers in 1936 and the line to Buckingham in 1964, but the station remained open until the Oxford-Cambridge line closed to passengers in 1968. The track was singled and then mothballed, but a disused track has remained through the station site. As part of East West Rail, the line between Oxford and Bletchley is to be reopened by 2025, but because of its isolated location Verney Junction will not be reopened.

While never very busy, Verney Junction was a local interchange point for a century from which excursions as far as Ramsgate could be booked. Situated 50 mi from Baker Street, the station is one of London's disused Underground stations and, although it never carried heavy traffic, the Aylesbury line was important in the expansion of the Metropolitan Railway into what became Metro-land.

Opening
Verney Junction opened in 1868 as northern terminus of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway's (A&BR) single track from Aylesbury. The station was at a junction with the Buckinghamshire Railway's Bletchley to Oxford line, which was leased and operated by the LNWR before it acquired the route altogether in 1878. The station was built 1.75 mi east of Steeple Claydon, and constructed to a rudimentary design at the cost of the A&BR, whose progress the LNWR viewed with disfavour.

Plans to extend the railway north to Buckingham never materialised and Verney Junction remained remote with a few cottages for tenants of Claydon House estate. Claydon's occupant, Sir Harry Verney, was on the board of the A&BR which was chaired by the Duke of Buckingham, and he invested heavily in the scheme. There being no settlement from which the station could take its name, it was named in honour of Sir Harry, who was later to have another nearby station – Calvert – named after him; he had been born Harry Calvert, and took the surname Verney in order to inherit his late cousin's estates in 1827.

Early years
The A&BR initially began advertising services to and from Banbury, Oxford and Bletchley but the LNWR attempted to isolate the A&BR by encouraging passengers to take its longer route to Aylesbury via Bletchley and Cheddington. The A&BR turned to the Great Western Railway (GWR), with whom it managed Aylesbury, to agree to services over the GWR's Wycombe Railway; the Wycombe line was converted to standard gauge on 23 October 1868 and A&BR services were reinstated.

The GWR worked the A&BR for more than 20 years, turning down the chance to acquire it in 1874, although for the first six years the route was operated by the A&BR's own staff, except for footplate crews who were GWR employees. Traffic was initially "almost non-existent" due to Verney Junction's rural locality, but the Metropolitan Railway under the influence of Sir Edward Watkin nevertheless saw an opportunity for growth and absorbed the A&BR on 1 July 1891. The A&BR would be the line that the London Extension of Watkin's Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) would meet at Quainton Road. In anticipation of the connection, the A&BR was doubled by 1897 and the Metropolitan extended its line from Chalfont Road to Aylesbury in 1892.

Metropolitan era
Not long after the Metropolitan reached its northern outpost, Verney Junction was elevated to main line status with the opening of the MS&LR's London Extension (later to be known as the Great Central Railway). Around the same time, the Metropolitan inaugurated a service of through trains between Baker Street and Verney Junction, although this could hardly be said to be merited on the basis of traffic. From 2 April 1906, all Metropolitan services north of Harrow South Junction to Verney Junction came under the control of the Metropolitan & Great Central Joint Committee which had been set up by an Act of Parliament to manage the companies' joint lines.

The Metropolitan opened another intermediate station on the A&BR at Waddesdon in 1897, adding to the three existing stations at Grandborough Road, Quainton Road and Winslow Road which had opened in 1868. A new Pullman service was introduced in 1910 as part of a drive to attract first-class paying passengers from the Great Central; two Pullman coaches named "Mayflower" and "Galatea" were used on alternate weeks between Verney Junction, Chesham and London.

The Metropolitan was vested in the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) on 1 July 1933 and freight and passenger workings to Verney Junction continued in trains repainted with the London Transport lettering. However, little over three years later, the LPTB decided to discontinue their services beyond Aylesbury and in consequence two Metropolitan outposts were closed — the Brill Tramway ended on 30 November 1935 and passenger services ceased between Quainton Road and Verney Junction on 6 July 1936 when the line was singled. Freight services continued until 8 September 1947 when the line closed. The track to Winslow Road was used for stock storage until 1961.

Decline and closure
Although the two World Wars brought an increase in freight traffic from Verney Junction to London, with considerable volumes of freight passing through the station's transfer sidings, the post-war period saw a decline in the station's fortunes. The closure of the Aylesbury-Verney section by the LPTB in 1936 was followed by the removal of one of the line's tracks on 28 January 1940. In the same year, freight traffic through Verney Junction was substantially diminished by the opening on 14 September 1940 of an east-facing connecting spur between the LNWR and GCR lines at Calvert which enabled freight from the Oxford-Bletchley route to work south over the Great Central Main Line without having to pass over the Verney Junction-Quainton Road section.

By the end of 1940, Verney Junction was effectively left "severed from its purpose", having little usefulness other than as a rural interchange for local services. It played a useful part in the transfer of goods between the interconnecting lines, but passenger traffic declined in the face of the availability of more direct routes to and from Banbury and Oxford. Goods services were withdrawn in 1964 and later that year the line to Buckingham was closed. The station closed completely when all passenger services were withdrawn in 1968.

After closure, the track on the northern section of the A&BR between Verney Junction and Winslow Road was retained until 1961, including the former Metropolitan sidings which were subsequently used for storing veteran railway vehicles.

Present and future
A single-track freight line from Bletchley to Bicester was retained and then abandoned in place in 1993. Until late 2019, this track had remained rusted beyond use and in overgrown state, albeit with modern signage still warning travellers to watch for approaching trains. From early 2020, the route has been cleared as part of engineering works on the East West Rail project. Of the station itself, the stationmaster's house remains as a private residence, and the station ticket office has become a private garage. The platform edges have also survived in a dilapidated state. The stationmaster's house's garden occupies the former Metropolitan trackbed.

, works are scheduled for "late 2020" to begin clearing the route for the new line.

title: Verney Junction railway station


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Asphalt concrete

Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century. It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with bitumen (a substance also independently known as asphalt), laid in layers, and compacted.

The process was refined and enhanced by Belgian-American inventor Edward De Smedt.

The terms asphalt (or asphaltic) concrete, bituminous asphalt concrete, and bituminous mixture are typically used only in engineering and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, AC, is sometimes used for asphalt concrete but can also denote asphalt content or asphalt cement, referring to the liquid asphalt portion of the composite material.

Mixture formulations

Mixing of asphalt and aggregate is accomplished in one of several ways:
 * Hot-mix asphalt concrete (commonly abbreviated as HMA): This is produced by heating the asphalt binder to decrease its viscosity and drying the aggregate to remove moisture from it prior to mixing. Mixing is generally performed with the aggregate at about 300 F for virgin asphalt and 330 F for polymer modified asphalt, and the asphalt cement at 200 F.  Paving and compaction must be performed while the asphalt is sufficiently hot.  In many locales paving is restricted to summer months because in winter the base will cool the asphalt too quickly before it can be packed to the required density. HMA is the form of asphalt concrete most commonly used on high traffic pavements such as those on major highways, racetracks and airfields. It is also used as an environmental liner for landfills, reservoirs, and fish hatchery ponds.
 * Warm-mix asphalt concrete (commonly abbreviated as WMA): This is produced by adding either zeolites, waxes, asphalt emulsions or sometimes water to the asphalt binder prior to mixing. This allows significantly lower mixing and laying temperatures and results in lower consumption of fossil fuels, thus releasing less carbon dioxide, aerosols and vapors. This improves working conditions, and lowers laying-temperature, which leads to more rapid availability of the surface for use, which is important for construction sites with critical time schedules. The usage of these additives in hot-mixed asphalt (above) may afford easier compaction and allow cold-weather paving or longer hauls. Use of warm mix is rapidly expanding. A survey of US asphalt producers found that nearly 25% of asphalt produced in 2012 was warm mix, a 416% increase since 2009. Cleaner road pavements can be potentially developed by combining WMA and material recycling. Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) technology has environmental, production, and economic benefits.
 * Cold-mix asphalt concrete: This is produced by emulsifying the asphalt in water with an emulsifying agent before mixing with the aggregate. While in its emulsified state, the asphalt is less viscous and the mixture is easy to work and compact. The emulsion will break after enough water evaporates and the cold mix will, ideally, take on the properties of an HMA pavement. Cold mix is commonly used as a patching material and on lesser-trafficked service roads.
 * Cut-back asphalt concrete: Is a form of cold mix asphalt produced by dissolving the binder in kerosene or another lighter fraction of petroleum before mixing with the aggregate. While in its dissolved state, the asphalt is less viscous and the mix is easy to work and compact. After the mix is laid down the lighter fraction evaporates. Because of concerns with pollution from the volatile organic compounds in the lighter fraction, cut-back asphalt has been largely replaced by asphalt emulsion.
 * Mastic asphalt concrete, or sheet asphalt: This is produced by heating hard grade blown bitumen (i.e., partly oxidised) in a green cooker (mixer) until it has become a viscous liquid after which the aggregate mix is then added. The bitumen aggregate mixture is cooked (matured) for around 6–8 hours and once it is ready, the mastic asphalt mixer is transported to the work site where experienced layers empty the mixer and either machine or hand lay the mastic asphalt contents on to the road. Mastic asphalt concrete is generally laid to a thickness of around 20 - 30 mm for footpath and road applications and around 10 mm for flooring or roof applications.
 * High-modulus asphalt concrete, sometimes referred to by the French-language acronym EMÉ (enrobé à module élevé): This uses a very hard bituminous formulation (penetration 10/20), sometimes modified, in proportions close to 6% by weight of the aggregates, as well as a high proportion of mineral powder (between 8–10%) to create an asphalt concrete layer with a high modulus of elasticity (of the order of 13000MPa). This makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the base layer up to 25% (depending on the temperature) in relation to conventional bitumen, while offering as very high fatigue strengths. High-modulus asphalt layers are used both in reinforcement operations and in the construction of new reinforcements for medium and heavy traffic. In base layers, they tend to exhibit a greater capacity of absorbing tensions and, in general, better fatigue resistance.

In addition to the asphalt and aggregate, additives, such as polymers, and antistripping agents may be added to improve the properties of the final product.

Areas paved with asphalt concrete—especially airport aprons—have been called "the tarmac" at times, despite not being constructed using the tarmacadam process.

A variety of specialty asphalt concrete mixtures have been developed to meet specific needs, such as stone-matrix asphalt, which is designed to ensure a strong wearing surface, or porous asphalt pavements, which are permeable and allow water to drain through the pavement for controlling storm water.

Roadway performance characteristics

Different types of asphalt concrete have different performance characteristics in roads in terms of surface durability, tire wear, braking efficiency and roadway noise. In principle, the determination of appropriate asphalt performance characteristics must take into account the volume of traffic in each vehicle category, and the performance requirements of the friction course. In general, the viscosity of asphalt allows it to be applied directly to form a convex surface, which provides a convenient way of promoting the drainage of streets and roads. This is an advantage over concrete. Concrete can be screeded to form many shapes and curves, yet this method is not as immediate as in asphalt concrete. As a disadvantage of asphalt, however, concrete is more durable, and the preference for surface is weighed against this depending on the situation. For example, 60% of the U.S. interstate highway system is concrete, which must somehow incorporate a drainage method.

Asphalt concrete generates less roadway noise than a Portland cement concrete surface, and is typically less noisy than chip seal surfaces. Because tire noise is generated through the conversion of kinetic energy to sound waves, more noise is produced as the speed of a vehicle increases. The notion that highway design might take into account acoustical engineering considerations, including the selection of the type of surface paving, arose in the early 1970s.

With regard to structural performance, the asphalt behaviour depends on a variety of factors including the material, loading and environmental condition. Furthermore, the performance of pavement varies over time. Therefore, the long-term behaviour of asphalt pavement is different from its short-term performance. The LTPP is a research program by the FHWA, which is specifically focusing on long-term pavement behaviour.

Degradation and restoration
Asphalt deterioration can include crocodile cracking, potholes, upheaval, raveling, bleeding, rutting, shoving, stripping, and grade depressions. In cold climates, frost heaves can crack asphalt even in one winter. Filling the cracks with bitumen is a temporary fix, but only proper compaction and drainage can slow this process.

Factors that cause asphalt concrete to deteriorate over time mostly fall into one of three categories: construction quality, environmental considerations, and traffic loads. Often, damage results from combinations of factors in all three categories.

Construction quality is critical to pavement performance. This includes the construction of utility trenches and appurtenances that are placed in the pavement after construction. Lack of compaction in the surface of the asphalt, especially on the longitudinal joint, can reduce the life of a pavement by 30 to 40%. Service trenches in pavements after construction have been said to reduce the life of the pavement by 50%, mainly due to the lack of compaction in the trench, and also because of water intrusion through improperly sealed joints.

Environmental factors include heat and cold, the presence of water in the subbase or subgrade soil underlying the pavement, and frost heaves.

High temperatures soften the asphalt binder, allowing heavy tire loads to deform the pavement into ruts. Paradoxically, high heat and strong sunlight also cause the asphalt to oxidize, becoming stiffer and less resilient, leading to crack formation. Cold temperatures can cause cracks as the asphalt contracts. Cold asphalt is also less resilient and more vulnerable to cracking.

Water trapped under the pavement softens the subbase and subgrade, making the road more vulnerable to traffic loads. Water under the road freezes and expands in cold weather, causing and enlarging cracks. In spring thaw, the ground thaws from the top down, so water is trapped between the pavement above and the still-frozen soil underneath. This layer of saturated soil provides little support for the road above, leading to the formation of potholes. This is more of a problem for silty or clay soils than sandy or gravelly soils. Some jurisdictions pass frost laws to reduce the allowable weight of trucks during the spring thaw season and protect their roads.

The damage a vehicle causes is roughly proportional to the axle load raised to the fourth power, so doubling the weight an axle carries actually causes 16 times as much damage. Wheels cause the road to flex slightly, resulting in fatigue cracking, which often leads to crocodile cracking. Vehicle speed also plays a role. Slowly moving vehicles stress the road over a longer period of time, increasing ruts, cracking, and corrugations in the asphalt pavement.

Other causes of damage include heat damage from vehicle fires, or solvent action from chemical spills.

Prevention and repair of degradation
The life of a road can be prolonged through good design, construction and maintenance practices. During design, engineers measure the traffic on a road, paying special attention to the number and types of trucks. They also evaluate the subsoil to see how much load it can withstand. The pavement and subbase thicknesses are designed to withstand the wheel loads. Sometimes, geogrids are used to reinforce the subbase and further strengthen the roads. Drainage, including ditches, storm drains and underdrains are used to remove water from the roadbed, preventing it from weakening the subbase and subsoil.

Sealcoating asphalt is a maintenance measure that helps keep water and petroleum products out of the pavement.

Maintaining and cleaning ditches and storm drains will extend the life of the road at low cost. Sealing small cracks with bituminous crack sealer prevents water from enlarging cracks through frost weathering, or percolating down to the subbase and softening it.

For somewhat more distressed roads, a chip seal or similar surface treatment may be applied. As the number, width and length of cracks increases, more intensive repairs are needed. In order of generally increasing expense, these include thin asphalt overlays, multicourse overlays, grinding off the top course and overlaying, in-place recycling, or full-depth reconstruction of the roadway.

It is far less expensive to keep a road in good condition than it is to repair it once it has deteriorated. This is why some agencies place the priority on preventive maintenance of roads in good condition, rather than reconstructing roads in poor condition. Poor roads are upgraded as resources and budget allow. In terms of lifetime cost and long term pavement conditions, this will result in better system performance. Agencies that concentrate on restoring their bad roads often find that by the time they have repaired them all, the roads that were in good condition have deteriorated.

Some agencies use a pavement management system to help prioritize maintenance and repairs.

Recycling

Asphalt concrete is a recyclable material that can be reclaimed and reused both on-site and in asphalt plants. The most common recycled component in asphalt concrete is reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). RAP is recycled at a greater rate than any other material in the United States. Many roofing shingles also contain asphalt, and asphalt concrete mixes may contain reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS). Research has demonstrated that RAP and RAS can replace the need for up to 100% of the virgin aggregate and asphalt binder in a mix, but this percentage is typically lower due to regulatory requirements and performance concerns. In 2019, new asphalt pavement mixtures produced in the United States contained, on average, 21.1% RAP and 0.2% RAS.

Recycling methods
Recycled asphalt components may be reclaimed and transported to an asphalt plant for processing and use in new pavements, or the entire recycling process may be conducted in-place. While in-place recycling typically occurs on roadways and is specific to RAP, recycling in asphalt plants may utilize RAP, RAS, or both. In 2019, an estimated 97.0 million tons of RAP and 1.1 million tons of RAS were accepted by asphalt plants in the United States.

RAP is typically received by plants after being milled on-site, but pavements may also be ripped out in larger sections and crushed in the plant. RAP millings are typically stockpiled at plants before being incorporated into new asphalt mixes. Prior to mixing, stockpiled millings may be dried and any that have agglomerated in storage may have to be crushed.

RAS may be received by asphalt plants as post-manufacturer waste directly from shingle factories, or they may be received as post-consumer waste at the end of their service life. Processing of RAS includes grinding the shingles and sieving the grinds to remove oversized particles. The grinds may also be screened with a magnetic sieve to remove nails and other metal debris. The ground RAS is then dried, and the asphalt cement binder can be extracted. For further information on RAS processing, performance, and associated health and safety concerns, see Asphalt Shingles.

In-place recycling methods allow roadways to be rehabilitated by reclaiming the existing pavement, remixing, and repaving on-site. In-place recycling techniques include rubblizing, hot in-place recycling, cold in-place recycling, and full-depth reclamation. For further information on in-place methods, see Road Surface.

Performance
During its service life, the asphalt cement binder, which makes up about 5–6% of a typical asphalt concrete mix, naturally hardens and becomes stiffer. This aging process primarily occurs due to oxidation, evaporation, exudation, and physical hardening. For this reason, asphalt mixes containing RAP and RAS are prone to exhibiting lower workability and increased susceptibility to fatigue cracking. These issues are avoidable if the recycled components are apportioned correctly in the mix. Practicing proper storage and handling, such as by keeping RAP stockpiles out of damp areas or direct sunlight, is also important in avoiding quality issues. The binder aging process may also produce some beneficial attributes, such as by contributing to higher levels of rutting resistance in asphalts containing RAP and RAS.

One approach to balancing the performance aspects of RAP and RAS is to combine the recycled components with virgin aggregate and virgin asphalt binder. This approach can be effective when the recycled content in the mix is relatively low, and has a tendency to work more effectively with soft virgin binders. A 2020 study found that the addition of 5% RAS to a mix with a soft, low-grade virgin binder significantly increased the mix's rutting resistance while maintaining adequate fatigue cracking resistance.

In mixes with higher recycled content, the addition of virgin binder becomes less effective, and rejuvenators may be used. Rejuvenators are additives that restore the physical and chemical properties of the aged binder. When conventional mixing methods are used in asphalt plants, the upper limit for RAP content before rejuvenators become necessary has been estimated at 50%. Research has demonstrated that the use of rejuvenators at optimal doses can allow for mixes with 100% recycled components to meet the performance requirements of conventional asphalt concrete.

Other recycled materials in asphalt concrete
Beyond RAP and RAS, a range of waste materials can be re-used in place of virgin aggregate, or as rejuvenators. Crumb rubber, generated from recycled tires, has been demonstrated to improve the fatigue resistance and flexural strength of asphalt mixes that contain RAP. In California, legislative mandates require the Department of Transportation to incorporate crumb rubber into asphalt paving materials. Other recycled materials that are actively included in asphalt concrete mixes across the United States include steel slag, blast furnace slag, and cellulose fibers.

Further research has been conducted to discover new forms of waste that may be recycled into asphalt mixes. A 2020 study conducted in Melbourne, Australia presented a range of strategies for incorporating waste materials into asphalt concrete. The strategies presented in the study include the use of plastics, particularly high-density polyethylene, in asphalt binders, and the use of glass, brick, ceramic, and marble quarry waste in place of traditional aggregate.

Rejuvenators may also be produced from recycled materials, including waste engine oil, waste vegetable oil, and waste vegetable grease.

Recently, discarded face masks have been incorporated into stone mastic.

title: Asphalt concrete


text:
Talk:Battle of Dieppe

This is semi-redundant with Dieppe Raid... Stan 22:34, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I checked, and there is nothing on this page not covered in Dieppe Raid. DJ Clayworth 22:43, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Battle of Dieppe


text:
Boston Strangler

The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in Greater Boston during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, on details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim.

In the years following DeSalvo's conviction – but prior to the emergence of this DNA evidence – various parties investigating the crimes suggested that the murders (sometimes referred to as the "Silk Stocking Murders") were committed by more than one person.

Names
Initially, the crimes were assumed to be the work of one unknown person dubbed "The Mad Strangler of Boston". On July 8, 1962, the Sunday Herald wrote that "[a] mad strangler is loose in Boston" in an article titled "Mad Strangler Kills Four Women in Boston". The killer was also known as the "Phantom Fiend" or "Phantom Strangler", due to his ability to get women to allow him into their apartments. In 1963, two investigative reporters for the Record American, Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin, wrote a four-part series about the killer, dubbing him "The Boston Strangler". By the time that DeSalvo's confession was aired in open court, the name "Boston Strangler" had become part of crime lore.

Events
Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in the Boston area. Most were sexually assaulted and strangled in their apartments. Originally, the police believed that one man was the sole perpetrator. With no sign of forced entry into their homes, the women were assumed to have let their assailant in, either because they may have known him or because they believed him to be a service provider. The attacks continued despite extensive media publicity after the first few murders. Many residents purchased tear gas and new locks and deadbolts for their doors. Some women even moved out of the area in response to the killings.

The murders occurred in several cities, including Boston, complicating jurisdictional oversight for prosecution of the crimes. Massachusetts Attorney General Edward W. Brooke helped to coordinate the various police forces. He permitted parapsychologist Peter Hurkos to use his alleged extrasensory perception to analyze the cases, for which Hurkos claimed that a single person was responsible. This decision was controversial. Hurkos provided a "minutely detailed description of the wrong person", and the press ridiculed Brooke. The police were not convinced that all the murders were the actions of one person, although much of the public believed so. The apparent connections between a majority of the victims and hospitals were widely discussed.

DeSalvo's confession
On October 27, 1964, a stranger entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied the victim to her bed, sexually assaulted her, and suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The woman's description of her attacker led police to identify the assailant as DeSalvo. When his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproules, became suspicious and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo.

DeSalvo was not initially suspected of being involved with the strangling murders. After he was charged with rape, he gave a detailed confession of his activities as the Boston Strangler. He initially confessed to fellow inmate George Nassar. Nassar reported the confession to his attorney F. Lee Bailey, who also took on the defense of DeSalvo. The police were impressed at the accuracy of DeSalvo's descriptions of the crime scenes. There were some inconsistencies, but DeSalvo was able to cite details that had been withheld from the public. Bailey states in his 1971 book, The Defense Never Rests, that DeSalvo got one detail right that one of the victims was wrong about: DeSalvo described a blue chair in the woman's living room. She stated it was brown. Photographic evidence proved DeSalvo was correct.

No physical evidence substantiated his confession. Because of that, he was tried on charges for earlier, unrelated crimes of robbery and sexual offenses, in which he was known as "The Green Man" and "The Measuring Man", respectively. Bailey brought up DeSalvo's confession to the murders as part of his client's history at the trial in order to assist in gaining a "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict to the sexual offenses, but it was ruled as inadmissible by the judge.

DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year, he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital, triggering a full-scale manhunt. A note was found on his bunk addressed to the superintendent. In it, DeSalvo stated that he had escaped to focus attention on the conditions in the hospital and his own situation. Immediately after his escape, DeSalvo disguised himself as a U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class, but he gave himself up the following day. After the escape, he was transferred to the maximum security Walpole State Prison. Six years after the transfer, he was found stabbed to death in the prison infirmary. His killer or killers were never identified.

Multiple-killer theories
Doubts persist as to whether DeSalvo was the sole perpetrator behind the Boston Strangler murders. At the time of his confession, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of such vicious crimes. Several factors created doubt that a serial killer was involved, given that they characteristically have a certain type of victim and method of murder: women killed by "The Strangler" were from a variety of age and ethnic groups, and they were murdered using multiple methods.

In 1968, Dr. Ames Robey, medical director of Bridgewater State Hospital, insisted that DeSalvo was not the Boston Strangler. He said the prisoner was "a very clever, very smooth compulsive confessor who desperately needs to be recognized." Robey's opinion was shared by Middlesex District Attorney John J. Droney, Bridgewater Superintendent Charles Gaughan, and George W. Harrison, a former fellow inmate of DeSalvo's. Harrison claimed to have overheard another convict coaching DeSalvo about details of the strangling murders.

DeSalvo's attorney Bailey believed that his client was the killer, and described the case in The Defense Never Rests (1971). Susan Kelly, author of the book The Boston Stranglers (1996), drew from the files of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts "Strangler Bureau". She argues that the murders were the work of several killers rather than a single individual. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler said, "You're putting together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler murders] that it's inconceivable behaviorally that all these could fit one individual."

John E. Douglas, the former FBI special agent who was one of the first criminal profilers, doubted that DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. In his book The Cases That Haunt Us, he identified DeSalvo as a "power-assurance" motivated rapist. He said that such a rapist is unlikely to kill in the manner of crimes attributed to the Boston Strangler; a power-assurance motivated rapist would, however, be prone to taking credit for the crimes.

In 2000, attorney and former print journalist Elaine Sharp took up the cause of the DeSalvo family and that of the family of Mary Sullivan. Sullivan was publicized as being the final victim in 1964, although other strangling murders occurred after that date. Sharp assisted the families in their media campaign to clear DeSalvo's name. She helped organize and arrange the exhumations of Mary Sullivan and Albert H. DeSalvo, filed various lawsuits in attempts to obtain information and trace evidence (e.g., DNA) from the government, and worked with various producers to create documentaries to explain the facts to the public.

Sharp noted various inconsistencies between DeSalvo's confessions and the crime scene information (which she obtained). For example, she observed that, contrary to DeSalvo's confession to Sullivan's murder, the woman was found to have no semen in her vagina and she was not strangled manually, but by ligature. Forensic pathologist Michael Baden noted that DeSalvo got the time of death wrong. This was a common inconsistency also pointed out by Susan Kelly in several of the murders. She continued to work on the case for the DeSalvo family.

DNA evidence
On July 11, 2013, the Boston Police Department announced that they had found DNA evidence that linked DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan. DNA found at the scene was a "near certain match" to Y-DNA taken from a nephew of DeSalvo. Y-DNA is passed through the direct male lines with little change and can be used to link males with a common paternal-line ancestor. A court ordered the exhumation of DeSalvo's corpse to test his DNA directly. On July 19, 2013, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis announced the DNA test results proving that DeSalvo was the source of seminal fluid recovered at the scene of Sullivan's 1964 murder.

In popular culture

 * Philadelphia 76ers player Andrew Toney was dubbed "the Boston Strangler" because of his outstanding performances against the Boston Celtics; a notable example is Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference Finals.
 * The 1964 film The Strangler was inspired by the unsolved killings.
 * William Goldman's 1964 novel No Way to Treat a Lady and its 1968 film adaptation were both inspired by the multiple-killer theories of the Boston Strangler.
 * The rock and roll band The Standells referred to the Boston Strangler in their 1965 Boston-themed song "Dirty Water" with the lines "have you heard about the Strangler?" and "I'm the man, I'm the man."
 * The 1968 film The Boston Strangler starred Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo. Henry Fonda co-starred.
 * The 1995 film Copycat makes reference to the Boston Strangler.
 * The 2007 novel The Strangler by William Landay depicts the family of an attorney on the Strangler task force.
 * A 2008 film The Boston Strangler – The Untold Story stars David Faustino as De Salvo.
 * The 2010 television film The Front, starring Andie MacDowell and Daniel Sunjata, depicts a detective who reopens an unsolved 1960s murder of a woman who may have been the first victim of the Boston Strangler. The plot suggests that DeSalvo was not the only perpetrator of these Boston murders.
 * The Boston Strangler made an appearance in the episode "Strangler" of CBS's American Gothic, where he was summoned by the antagonist sheriff Lucas Buck to get rid of Merlyn Temple. However, Lucas leaves town to attend a convention, and Albert De Salvo -aka The Boston Strangler- decides to do more than just try to kill Merlyn.
 * The Boston Strangler was featured as a central figure in the second episode of TNT's Rizzoli & Isles, starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. The episode was called "Boston Strangler Redux", featuring a new serial killer who killed women with the same names as the original Strangler's victims. He is eventually revealed to have been one of the original detectives investigating the case who tried to frame the man whom he believed to be the real Boston Strangler.
 * He and the Zodiac Killer are featured in Image comics' The Roberts.
 * A waxwork of Albert DeSalvo was featured in an episode of the British comedy series Psychoville. The waxwork comes to life in a fantasy sequence (along with those of John George Haigh, John Christie, and Jack the Ripper), trying to persuade character David Sowerbutts to kill a man by strangling. The others accused him of having several personalities, referencing the 1968 movie.
 * In the 13th episode of the second season of Crossing Jordan titled "Strangled", the characters have a Cold Case party where they role play the investigation into two murders that fit the MO of the Boston Strangler.
 * A Boston hardcore band is named the Boston Strangler.
 * The Rolling Stones released "Midnight Rambler" on the album Let It Bleed in 1969. The song is a loose biography of Albert DeSalvo; "the Boston Strangler" is mentioned in the lyrics once.
 * A 2016 podcast titled Stranglers delves into the Boston Strangler investigation and features clips of the DeSalvo confession tapes and interviews with relatives of the key players in the investigation, including chief investigator Phil DiNatale's sons.
 * Boston Strangler is a 2023 American drama starring Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, Chris Cooper, and David Dastmalchian. The film was shot in the Boston area. It was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Studios.

title: Boston Strangler


text:
ALCO Century 415

The ALCO Century 415 is a diesel-electric locomotive of B-B wheel arrangement produced by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) as part of their Century Series of locomotives.

Specifications
The C415 is a large switcher locomotive or small road switcher locomotive equipped with a raised cab mounted slightly off-center, with a lower, narrower hood on either side. The longer one contained the diesel engine, a 1500 hp eight-cylinder turbocharged Alco 251-F, while the shorter contained auxiliaries. The C415 could be ordered with three different cab heights; a low one for minimum clearances, a regular height one, and an extra-height one for maximum visibility. Trucks fitted were either Type B standard road trucks or ALCO Hi-Ad (high adhesion) Type B trucks.

Service history
The locomotive was not very popular; 26 were built between 1966 and 1968 for seven different owners. The locomotive may still be in use. According to the November 2011 issue of Railfan & Railroad magazine, the Burlington Junction Railway owned three C415s numbered 21, 701 and 702.

Original owners

 * Hamersley Iron in Western Australia bought the prototype in May 1968, formerly lettered as ALCO 415. The locomotive was equipped with a medium height cab and AAR Type B trucks.
 * Chehalis Western Railroad bought a single high cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks.
 * Columbia and Cowlitz Railway bought a single high cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks. (Both the Columbia and Cowlitz and the Chehalis Western are Weyerhaeuser properties)
 * Monongahela Connecting Railroad bought a single low cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks.
 * Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad bought ten medium cab units with AAR Type B trucks.
 * Southern Pacific Railroad bought ten high cab units with Type B road trucks.
 * Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway bought two medium cab units with Hi-Ad trucks; these were passed to the Burlington Northern Railroad, 4010-4011 after a merger between the two railroads. More units were on order when Alco ended locomotive production in 1969.

Preservation

 * Southern Pacific Railroad 2406 is in Monterrey, Mexico, lettered as Fundidora Monterrey Steel 25.
 * Hamersley Iron 1000, formerly Alco Demonstrator 415 is at the Pilbara Railways Historical Society in Western Australia.
 * Monongahela Connecting Railroad 701 is at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
 * Chehalis Western Railroad 684 is at Fife History Museum and Cultural Center in Fife, Washington.
 * Buffalo Southern Railroad 423, formerly Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad 423 is at the Buffalo Southern's Hamburg Shops in Hamburg, New York.

title: ALCO Century 415


text:
Southern Pacific Transportation Company

The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names Southern Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Company and Southern Pacific Transportation Company.

The original Southern Pacific began in 1865 as a land holding company. The last incarnation of the Southern Pacific, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, was founded in 1969 and assumed control of the Southern Pacific system. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company was acquired in 1996 by the Union Pacific Corporation and merged with their Union Pacific Railroad.

The Southern Pacific legacy founded hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, and Houston. In the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This telecommunications network became part of Sprint, a company whose name came from the acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony.

History
The original Southern Pacific Railroad was founded in San Francisco in 1865, by a group of businessmen led by Timothy Phelps with the aim of building a rail connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California. The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of businessmen known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Jr. and C. P. Huntington. The Big Four had, in 1861, created the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) It later acquired the Central Pacific Railroad in 1885 through leasing. By 1900, the Southern Pacific system was a major railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco and Sacramento. Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. Other subsidiaries eventually included the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt), El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad at 328 mi, the 1331 mi Southern Pacific Railroad of Mexico, and a variety of narrow-gauge routes.

The SP was known for its mammoth back shops at Sacramento, California, which was one of the few in the country equipped to design and build locomotives on a large scale. Sacramento was among the top ten largest shops in the US, occupying 200 acres of land with dozens of buildings and an average employment of 3,000, peaking at 7,000 during World War II. Other major shop sites were located at Ogden, Utah; Houston, Texas; and Algiers, New Orleans. After the 1906 earthquake destroyed much of San Francisco, including the SP shops there, new shops and yards were built six miles south of the city at Bayshore. The Alhambra Shops in Los Angeles consisted of 10 buildings and employed 1,500 but declined in importance when the Taylor Yard was built in 1930.

The SP was the defendant in the landmark 1886 United States Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, which is often interpreted as having established certain corporate rights under the Constitution of the United States.

The Southern Pacific Railroad was replaced by the Southern Pacific Company and assumed the railroad operations of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1929, Southern Pacific/Texas and New Orleans operated 13,848 route-miles not including Cotton Belt, whose purchase of the Golden State Route circa 1980 nearly doubled its size to 3085 mi, bringing total SP/SSW mileage to around 13508 mi. The T&NO was fully merged into the SP in 1961.

In 1969, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company was established and took over the Southern Pacific Company; this Southern Pacific railroad is the last incarnation and was at times called "Southern Pacific Industries", though "Southern Pacific Industries" is not the official name of the company. By the 1980s, route mileage had dropped to 10423 mi, mainly due to the pruning of branch lines. On October 13, 1988, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company (including its subsidiary, St. Louis Southwestern Railway) was taken over by Rio Grande Industries, the parent company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Rio Grande Industries did not merge the Southern Pacific Transportation Company and the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad together, but transferred direct ownership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad to the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, allowing the combined Rio Grande Industries railroad system to use the Southern Pacific name due to its brand recognition in the railroad industry and with customers of both the Southern Pacific Transportation Company and the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. A long time Southern Pacific subsidiary, the St. Louis Southwestern Railway was also marketed under the Southern Pacific name. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, the former mainline of the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railroad that once belonged to the Alton Railroad, the total length of the D&RGW/SP/SSW system was 15959 mi. Rio Grande Industries was later renamed Southern Pacific Rail Corporation.

By 1996, years of financial problems had dropped Southern Pacific's mileage to 13715 mi. The financial problems caused the Southern Pacific Transportation Company to be taken over by the Union Pacific Corporation; the parent Southern Pacific Rail Corporation (formerly Rio Grande Industries), the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, the St. Louis Southwestern Railway and the SPCSL Corporation was also taken over by the Union Pacific Corporation. The Union Pacific Corporation merged the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, the St. Louis Southwestern Railway and the SPCSL Corporation into their Union Pacific Railroad but did not merge the Southern Pacific Transportation Company into the Union Pacific Railroad. Instead, the Union Pacific Corporation merged the Union Pacific Railroad into the Southern Pacific Transportation Company on February 1, 1998; the Southern Pacific Transportation Company became the surviving railroad and at the same time the Union Pacific Corporation renamed the Southern Pacific Transportation Company to Union Pacific Railroad. Thus, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company became, and is still operating as, the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Locomotives
Like most railroads, the SP painted most of its steam locomotives black during the 20th century, but after 1945 SP painted the front of the locomotive's smokebox silver (almost white in appearance), with graphite colored sides, for visibility.

Some passenger steam locomotives bore the Daylight scheme, named after the trains they hauled, most of which had the word Daylight in the train name. The most famous "Daylight" locomotives were the GS-4 steam locomotives. The most famous Daylight-hauled trains were the Coast Daylight and the Sunset Limited.

Well known were the Southern Pacific's unique "cab-forward" steam locomotives. These were 4-8-8-2, 2-8-8-2, and 4-6-6-2 (rebuilt from 2-6-6-2) locomotives set up to run in reverse, with the tender attached to the smokebox end of the locomotive. Southern Pacific had a number of snow sheds in mountain terrain, and locomotive crews nearly asphyxiated from smoke in the cab. After a number of engineers began running their engines in reverse (pushing the tender), Southern Pacific asked Baldwin Locomotive Works to produce cab-forward designs. No other North American railroad ordered cab-forward locomotives.

Steam locomotives

 * T.D. Judah -
 * C.P. Huntington -
 * E class - Eight Wheeler/American (various (inc. Gov. Stanford, Jupiter, Leviathan))
 * A class - Atlantic (A-1 – A-6)
 * S class - Switcher (S-1 – S-22)
 * M class - Mogul (M-1 – M-4 (SP 1673), M-6 (SP 1744) – M-22)
 * Pr class - Prairie (Pr-1)
 * MM/AM-class / - Cab forward Mallet/Articulated Mogul (MM-1, MM-2/AM-2, MM-3; Convention on the SP was that Mallet referred to compound expansion, while Articulated referred to simple expansion.)
 * T class - Ten Wheeler (T-1 – T-31 (SP 2353, SP 2355) – T-58)
 * P class - Pacific (P-1 – P-8 (SP 2467, SP 2472) – P-10 (SP 2479) – P-14)
 * Se class - Switcher (Se-1 – Se-4)
 * C class - Consolidation (C-1 – C-8 (SP 2706, SP 2718), C-9 (SP 2579) – C-32)
 * Mk class - Mikado (Mk-2, Mk-4, Mk-5 (SP 745, SP 786) – Mk-11;
 * MC/AC class - / - Cab Forward Mallet/Articulated Consolidation (MC-1/AC-1, MC-2/AC-2, AC-3, MC-4/AC-4, AC-5, MC-6/AC-6, AC-7, AC-8, AC-10, AC-11, AC-12 (SP 4294))
 * AC-9 - - Yellowstone/Articulated Consolidation
 * TW-class - Twelve Wheeler (Mastodon, TW-1 – TW-8)
 * Mt-class - Mountain (Mt-1 – Mt-5)
 * GS-class - Golden State/General Service ((GS-1, GS-2, GS-3, GS-4 (SP 4449), GS-5, GS-6 (SP 4460), GS-7, GS-8)
 * D-class - Decapod (D-1)
 * F-class - Fourteen Wheeler (F-1 (SP 975, SP 982) – F-5; Usually called the Santa Fe, but since the ATSF was SP's primary rival, they refused to use the name.)
 * El Gobernador -
 * SP-class - Southern Pacific (SP-1 (SP 5021))

Narrow Gauge Locomotives
 * Ten Wheeler - See SP 18

Diesel locomotives

 * ALCO PA
 * ALCO RSD-15
 * BLW AS-616
 * EMC E2
 * EMD E7
 * EMD E8
 * EMD E9
 * EMD FP7
 * GE 70-ton switcher
 * EMD NW2
 * EMD NW5
 * EMD SW1
 * EMD SW8
 * EMD SW900
 * EMD SW1200
 * EMD SW1500
 * GE U25B
 * GE U28B
 * GE U30C
 * GE U33C
 * FM H-12-44
 * FM H-24-66 "Train Master"
 * EMD GP7
 * EMD GP9
 * EMD GP9R
 * EMD GP9E
 * EMD SD7
 * EMD SD7R
 * EMD SD9
 * EMD SD9E
 * GE P30CH
 * EMD SD40M-2
 * EMD SD39
 * EMD SD38-2
 * EMD SD35
 * EMD SDP45
 * EMD GP60
 * EMD GP40P-2
 * EMD GP40M-2
 * EMD GP40-2
 * EMD GP38-2
 * EMD GP20
 * EMD SD35
 * GE B30-7
 * GE B36-7
 * GE B39-8
 * GE B40-8
 * GE AC4400CW
 * GE C44-9W
 * EMD SD50
 * EMD SD45
 * EMD SD45T-2
 * EMD SD45T-2R
 * EMD SD40T-2
 * EMD SD40R
 * EMD SD70M
 * EMD SD44R

Passenger train service
Until May 1, 1971 (when Amtrak took over long-distance passenger operations in the United States), the Southern Pacific at various times operated the following named passenger trains. Trains with names in italicized bold text still operate under Amtrak:

 * 49er
 * Acadian
 * Apache
 * Argonaut
 * Arizona Limited
 * Beaver
 * Californian
 * Cascade
 * City of San Francisco
 * Coast Daylight
 * Coast Mail
 * Coaster
 * Del Monte
 * Fast Mail
 * Golden Rocket
 * Golden State
 * Grand Canyon
 * Hustler
 * Imperial
 * Klamath
 * Lark
 * Oregonian
 * Overland
 * Owl Limited
 * Pacific Limited
 * Peninsula Commute
 * Loop Service
 * Rogue River
 * Sacramento Daylight
 * San Francisco Challenger
 * San Joaquin Daylight
 * Senator
 * Shasta Daylight
 * Shasta Express
 * Shasta Limited
 * Shasta Limited De Luxe
 * Starlight
 * Sunbeam
 * Sunset Limited
 * Suntan Special
 * Tehachapi
 * West Coast
 * El Costeño
 * El Yaqui

Notable accidents

 * John Sontag, a young Southern Pacific employee, was injured c. 1888 while coupling cars in the railroad yard in Fresno. He accused the company of not providing him with medical care while he was recuperating from his on-the-job injury and then not rehiring him when he had healed. He soon turned to a life of crime (mostly train robberies) and died of gunshot wounds and tetanus in the Fresno jail in 1893 aged 32 years.

 * Sontag's partner in crime, Chris Evans also hated the Southern Pacific, which Evans accused of forcing farmers to sell their lands at reduced rates to the company.

 * On 28 March 1907, the Southern Pacific Sunset Express, descending the grade out of the San Timoteo Canyon, entered the Colton rail yard traveling about 60 mph, hit an open switch and careened off the track, resulting in 24 fatalities. Accounts said 9 of the train's 14 cars disintegrated as they piled on top of one another, leaving the dead and injured in "a heap of kindling and crumpled metal". Of the dead, 18 were Italian immigrants traveling to jobs in San Francisco from Genoa, Italy.
 * The Coast Line Limited was heading for Los Angeles, on 22 May 1907, when it was derailed just west of Glendale, California. Passenger cars reportedly tumbled down the embankment. At least 2 people were killed and others injured. "The horrible deed was planned with devilish accurateness" the Pasadena Star News reported at the time. It said spikes were removed from the track and a hook placed under the end of the rail. The Star's coverage was extensive and its editorial blasted the criminal elements behind the wreck:"The man or men who committed this horrible deed near Glendale may not be anarchists, technically speaking. But if they are sane men, moved by motive, they are such stuff as anarchists are made of. If the typical anarchist conceived that a railroad corporation should be terrorized, he would not scruple to wreck a passenger train and send scores and hundreds to instant death."
 * In the early hours of 1 June 1907, an attempt to derail a Southern Pacific train near Santa Clara, California, was foiled when a pile of railway ties was discovered on the tracks. A work train crew found that someone had driven a steel plate into a switch near Burbank, California, intending to derail the Santa Barbara local.
 * On 12 August 1939, the westbound City of San Francisco derailed from a bridge in Palisade Canyon, between Battle Mountain and Carlin in the Nevada desert. Among the passengers and crew members 24 people were killed and many more injured, and 5 cars were destroyed. An act of sabotage was determined to be the most likely cause; however, no suspect(s) was(were) ever identified.
 * On New Year's Eve 1944 a rear-end collision west of Ogden in thick fog killed 48 people.
 * On 17 January 1947, the Southern Pacific Nightflier wrecked 12 mile outside of Bakersfield; 7 people were killed and over 50 injured. Four coaches and a tourist sleeper were overturned, landing far off the tracks; the other seven cars remained upright. The locomotive stayed on the tracks and its crew was uninjured. A 29-year-old passenger, Robert Crowley from Miami, Florida, had been conversing with a man across the aisle who was killed instantly. Crowley, who was a combat war veteran, said “I never saw such a mess” even on a battlefield.
 * On 8 May 1948, in Monterey, California, a Southern Pacific passenger train, the Del Monte Express struck a car driven by influential marine biologist Ed Ricketts at the now defunct railroad crossing at Drake Avenue. Ricketts subsequently succumbed to his injuries three days later in the hospital.
 * On 17 September 1963, a Southern Pacific freight train crashed into an illegally converted bus at a grade crossing in Chualar, California, killing 32 bracero workers. It would later be a factor in the decision by Congress in 1964 to terminate the bracero program, despite its strong support among farmers. It also helped spur the Chicano civil rights movement. As of 2014, it was the deadliest automobile accident in United States history, according to the National Safety Council
 * On 28 April 1973, a Southern Pacific freight train carrying munitions exploded in Roseville Yard injuring 52 people, the cause of this was due to a hot box on a railcar setting the floor ablaze, heating a bomb until it detonated.
 * On 12 May 1989, a Southern Pacific train carrying trona derailed in San Bernardino, California. The train failed to slow while descending a nearby slope, and sped up to about 110 mph before derailing, causing the San Bernardino train disaster. The crash destroyed 7 homes along Duffy Street and killed 2 train workers and 2 residents. Thirteen days later on 25 May 1989, an underground pipeline running along the right-of-way ruptured and caught fire due to damage done to the pipeline during clean-up from the derailment or from the derailment itself, destroying 11 more homes and killing 2 more people.

 * On the night of 14 July 1991, a Southern Pacific train derailed into the upper Sacramento River at a sharp bend of track called “the Cantara Loop”, upstream from Dunsmuir, California, in Siskiyou County. Several cars made contact with the water, including a tank car. Early in the morning of 15 July, it became apparent that the tank car had ruptured and spilled its entire contents into the river – approximately 19,000 usgal of metam sodium, a soil fumigant. Ultimately, over a million fish, and tens of thousands of amphibians and crayfish were killed. Millions of aquatic invertebrates, including insects and mollusks, which form the basis of the river's ecosystem, were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of willows, alders, and cottonwoods eventually died; many more were severely injured.

 * The chemical plume left a 41 mile wake of destruction from the spill site to the entry point of the river into Shasta Lake. The accident still ranks as the largest hazardous chemical spill in California history. At the time of the incident, metam sodium was not classified as a hazardous material.

Preserved locomotives
There are many Southern Pacific locomotives still in revenue service with railroads such as the Union Pacific Railroad, and many older and special locomotives have been donated to parks and museums, or continue operating on scenic or tourist railroads. Most of the engines now in use with Union Pacific have been "patched", where the SP logo on the front is replaced by a Union Pacific shield, and new numbers are applied over the old numbers with a Union Pacific sticker, however some engines remain in Southern Pacific "bloody nose" paint. Over the past couple years, most of the patched units were repainted into the full Union Pacific scheme and as of January 2019, less than ten units remain in their old paint. Among the more notable equipment is:
 * 745 (Mk-5, 2-8-2), owned by the Louisiana Rail Heritage Trust, operated by the Louisiana Steam Train Association, and based in Jefferon (near New Orleans), Louisiana
 * 786 (Mk-5, 2-8-2), owned by the City of Austin, leased to the Austin Steam Train Association. Currently under full mechanical restoration in Austin, Texas.
 * 794 (Mk-5, 2-8-2), the last Mikado built for the Texas and New Orleans Railroad in 1916 out of spare parts in their Houston shops. It currently resides with cosmetic restoration at San Antonio Station, San Antonio, Texas, but plans are to restore it to operating condition.
 * 982 (F-1, 2-10-2), tender located at the Heber Valley Railroad in Heber City, Utah, main locomotive located in Houston, Texas.
 * 1518 (EMD SD7), former EMD demonstrator 990 and first SD7 built, located at the Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Illinois
 * 1744 (M-6, 2-6-0), components slowly being gathered at Brightside, California for a restoration to operating condition on the Niles Canyon Railway.
 * 2248 Puffy (T-1, 4-6-0), operated by the Grapevine Vintage Railroad, but is currently pending for a 1,472-day overhaul required by the FRA in Grapevine, Texas.
 * 2353 (T-31, 4-6-0), on display at the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo, California.
 * 2467 (P-8, 4-6-2), on loan by the Pacific Locomotive Association, Fremont, California to the California State Railroad Museum
 * 2472 (P-8, 4-6-2), owned and operated by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum, Redwood City, California
 * 2479 (P-10, 4-6-2), owned and being restored by the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation, San Jose, California
 * 3100 (former SP6800 Bicentennial), U25B owned and operated by the Orange Empire Railway Museum, Perris, CA
 * 3420 (C-19, 2-8-0), owned by El Paso Historic Board, stored at Phelps Dodge copper refinery, El Paso, Texas
 * 3709 (EMD GP9), being restored to operation at Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo, California
 * 3769 (EMD GP9), On display and used as a switch engine for the Utah State Railroad Museum in Ogden, Utah.
 * 4294 (AC-12, 4-8-8-2), located at the California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, California
 * 4449 (GS-4, 4-8-4), formerly located at the Brooklyn Roundhouse before being relocated to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center in June 2012, Portland, Oregon
 * 4460 (GS-6, 4-8-4), located at the National Museum of Transportation, Kirkwood, Missouri
 * 5119 (GE 70-ton switcher), Operational and awaiting paint restoration to SP colors at Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo, California
 * 7304 (ALCO RS-32), on display awaiting restoration at Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo, California
 * 7457 (EMD SD45) the first GM Electro-Motive Division SD45 diesel-electric road switcher locomotive to be built for that railroad in 1966. It last saw service on Donner Pass. It was donated to the Utah State Railroad Museum in 2002.

Honorary tribute
On August 19, 2006, UP unveiled a brand new EMD SD70ACe locomotive, Union Pacific 1996, as part of a new heritage program. It was the final unit in UP's Heritage Series of locomotives, and was painted in a color scheme inspired by the "Daylight" and "Black Widow" schemes.

Presidents

 * Timothy Guy Phelps (1865–1868)
 * Charles Crocker (1868–1885)
 * Leland Stanford (1885–1890)
 * Collis P. Huntington (1890–1900)
 * Charles Melville Hays (1900–1901)
 * E. H. Harriman (1901–1909)
 * Robert S. Lovett (1909–1911)
 * William Sproule (1911–1918)
 * Julius Kruttschnitt (1918–1920)
 * William Sproule (1920–1928)
 * Paul Shoup (1929–1932)
 * Angus Daniel McDonald (1932–1941)
 * Armand Mercier (1941–1951)
 * Donald J. Russell (1952–1964)
 * Benjamin F. Biaggini (1964–1976)
 * Denman McNear (1976–1979)
 * Alan Furth (1979–1982)
 * Robert Krebs (1982–1988)
 * D. M. "Mike" Mohan (1988–1993)
 * Edward L. Moyers (1993–1995)
 * Jerry R. Davis (1995–1996)

Chairmen of Executive Committee

 * Leland Stanford (1890–1893)
 * (vacant 1893–1909)
 * Robert S. Lovett (1909–1913)
 * Julius Kruttschnitt (1913–1925)
 * Henry deForest (1925–1928)
 * Hale Holden (1928–1932)

Chairmen of Board of Directors

 * Henry deForest (1929–1932)
 * Hale Holden (1932–1939)
 * (position nonexistent 1939–1964)
 * Donald J. Russell (1964–1972)
 * Benjamin F. Biaggini (1976–1982)
 * Denman K. McNear (1982–1988)
 * Edward L. Moyers (1993–1995) Chairman/C.E.O.

Notable employees

 * Carl Ingold Jacobson, Los Angeles, California, City Council member, 1925–33
 * W. Burch Lee, employee in New Orleans office, along with his father, John Martin Lee Jr., before serving in the Louisiana House of Representatives
 * Blake R. Van Leer, President of Georgia Tech, United States Army officer and hydraulic process inventor
 * Charles Wright, land surveyor for the railway, before becoming a botanist
 * Jack Kerouac, novelist
 * Harry K. McClintock, singer-songwriter, The Big Rock Candy Mountains
 * Jimmie Rodgers, Father of Country Music, singer-songwriter

title: Southern Pacific Transportation Company


text:
Nonoxynol-9

Nonoxynol-9, sometimes abbreviated as N-9, is an organic compound that is used as a surfactant. It is a member of the nonoxynol family of nonionic surfactants. N-9 and related compounds are ingredients in various cleaning and cosmetic products. It is widely used in contraceptives for its spermicidal properties.

Spermicide
As a spermicide, it attacks the acrosomal membranes of the sperm, causing the sperm to be immobilized. Nonoxynol-9 is the active ingredient in most spermicidal creams, jellies, foams, gel, film, and suppositories.

Lubricant
Nonoxynol-9 is a common ingredient of most vaginal and anal lubricants due to its spermicidal properties.

A 2004 study found that over a six-month period, the typical-use failure rates for five nonoxynol-9 vaginal contraceptives (film, suppository, and gels at three different concentrations) ranged from 10% to 20%.

Condoms
Many models of condoms are lubricated with solutions containing nonoxynol-9. In this role, it has been promoted as a backup method for avoiding pregnancy and a microbicide for sexually transmitted diseases in the event of condom failure. However, the 2001 WHO / CONRAD Technical Consultation on Nonoxynol-9 concluded that: ''There is no published scientific evidence that N-9-lubricated condoms provide any additional protection against pregnancy or STDs compared with condoms lubricated with other products. Since adverse effects due to the addition of N-9 to condoms cannot be excluded, such condoms should no longer be promoted. However, it is better to use N-9-lubricated condoms than no condoms.''

Compared to regular lubricated condoms, condoms containing nonoxynol-9 present another disadvantage — they are limited by the shelf-life of the spermicide.

Cervical barriers
Almost all brands of diaphragm jelly contain nonoxynol-9 as the active ingredient. This jelly may also be used for a cervical cap. Most contraceptive sponges contain nonoxynol-9 as an active ingredient.

Shaving cream
Nonoxynol-9 is sometimes included in shaving creams for its properties as a nonionic surfactant; it helps break down skin oils that normally protect hair from moisture, so that they become wet and, hence, softer and easier to shave. Gillette formerly used nonoxynol-9 for this purpose in its Foamy products, but has discontinued the practice.

Sports cream
Nonoxynol-9 is also found in Bengay Vanishing Scent as an inactive ingredient.

Poison ivy creams
Nonoxynol-9 is also found in Zanfel poison ivy cream. It effectively helps to break up the oil urushiol that causes the rash.

Side effects
From 1996 to 2000, a UN-sponsored study conducted in several locations in Africa followed nearly 1,000 sex workers who used nonoxynol-9 gels or a placebo. The HIV infection rate among those using nonoxynol-9 was about 50% higher than those who used the placebo; those using nonoxynol-9 also had a higher incidence of vaginal lesions, which may have contributed to this increased risk. Whereas these results may not be directly applicable to lower-frequency use, these findings combined with lack of any demonstrated HIV-prevention benefit from nonoxynol-9 use led the World Health Organization to recommend that it no longer be used by those at high risk of HIV infection. The WHO further notes that "Nonoxynol-9 offers no protection against sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhoea, chlamydia." A 2006 study of a nonoxynol-9 vaginal gel in female sex workers in Africa concluded that it did not prevent genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and could increase the virus's ability to infect or persist.

title: Nonoxynol-9


text:
Alex Penelas

Alexander Penelas (born December 18, 1961) is an American attorney who is the former mayor of Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Education and personal life
Penelas, an American of Cuban descent, attended St. Thomas University and graduated in 1981 with a degree in political science. In 1985, he received his J.D. degree from the University of Miami School of Law, where he graduated cum laude and was inducted into the university's Iron Arrow Honor Society.

Penelas and his wife, Lilliam, have two adult sons, William and Christopher, and a younger daughter, Alexandra.

Political life
Alex Penelas served on the city council of Hialeah, Florida from 1987 to 1990. In 1990, he was elected to serve as a county commissioner in Dade County.

Miami-Dade Mayor
Penelas ran in 1996 for Mayor of Dade County, renamed Miami-Dade County in 1997. Penelas advanced to the runoff for Mayor against fellow Commissoner Arthur Teele. Penelas scored 37% to Teele's 25% with former mayor of Miami Maurice Ferre and Xavier Suarez in third and fourth. In the run-off Penelas soundly beat Teele with 60.56% to Teele's 39.44%. Penelas ran for reelection in 2000 and beat Miami Dade Commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla with 51.6% to Diaz de la Portilla's 20.9%. Because Penelas reached the 50% threshold, a runoff was not needed.

As mayor, he vocally opposed the repatriation of Elián González in 2000, but was not successful in stopping the repatriation.

2004 Senate campaign
In 2004, Penelas was term-limited as mayor and ran for 2004 United States Senate election in Florida. This was the first open Senate seat since 1980, it was being vacated by longtime incumbent and Dade County native Bob Graham. Penelas finished third in the primary, behind Betty Castor and Peter Deutsch. His campaign was made more difficult when Al Gore called him "the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the 2000 presidential election campaign anywhere in America."

2020 mayoral bid
In April 2019, Penelas announced his campaign for re-election to the office of Miami-Dade County Mayor, a position he previously occupied for eight years. Penelas initially led in most polls but finished in third in the first round behind Daniella Levine Cava and Esteban Bovo.

title: Alex Penelas


text:
Rob Gifford

Rob Gifford is a British radio correspondent and journalist. He has degrees in Chinese Studies from Durham University and in Regional Studies (East Asia) from Harvard University. He began to learn Mandarin Chinese in 1987 whilst in China.

Gifford was on staff at the BBC World Service for three years. In the United States, he worked for two years at WGBH in Boston. From 1999 to 2005, Gifford was the China correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). He took leave of absence from NPR to write his first book, China Road, (2007; ISBN 1-4000-6467-8), which was based on his six-week trip on National Highway 312, China's 3000 mi "mother road" stretching from Shanghai to the Gobi Desert. Gifford initially covered this journey in a seven-part radio series for NPR's program Morning Edition, as one of his last journalistic projects in China.

Gifford is currently the China editor of The Economist (beginning August 2011), and was previously the London bureau chief for NPR.

title: Rob Gifford