The first streetcar to roll on tracks in Washington in over 50 years on H Street between 3rd & 4th Streets, NE, near the western terminal of H Street line (December 14, 2013). (Photo by Jeffrey Mora)

Following up on our recent post “Streetcars Return to DC” (December 16, 2013), we received some photos of the test car, courtesy of Jeffrey Mora and Ken Briers.

Ken Briers writes:

This evening my wife, Sally, and I were sitting in our corner bar, The Big Board, at 5th and H Streets, NE. About 7:30, a lot of flashing blue police vehicle lights went by. Next came a line truck, followed by what probably is the first DC streetcar operating under its own power. It appeared to be a test of the trolley wire installation. The car was accompanied by dozens of people wearing hard hats and safety vests, some riding inside, and some just walking along, observing.

I caught up with it at 7th Street and followed it down to 12th Street.

Paul DeVerter writes:

I see that your December CERA meting will be on DART and TE and DR&T. Sorry that I will miss it. Have you thought on making a video recording of your programs, and putting them on YouTube?
Thanks.

This is an interesting question that has come up before, and it deserves a good answer. It’s pretty much up to our presenters whether or not they would want to create something like a slideshow or video that others could watch over the Internet.

Simply pointing a video camera at the screen wouldn’t be very satisfactory, since the quality would really suffer. In theory you could arrange your slides on a computer and create a slideshow with synchronized narration, but that is a lot of work in its own right apart from actually presenting a program.

There is the issue of rights. Usually our programs include images collected from a variety of sources. The presenter may not own the copyright on what is being shown, and would have to get somebody else’s permission in order to do this.

Finally, once a presentation has been “canned,” it takes something away from the presenter’s ability to show the same program to another audience. Some of our presenters do this.

The other thing, which I forgot to mention, is the connection between the presenter and the audience. Putting on a slideshow is somewhat akin to a performance. It helps to know your audience- to play to your audience.

In a “canned” presentation, there is no audience… you don’t know who is going to see it. There is a difference between the slideshow I might put on in an empty room, as opposed to one in front of our usual crowd, people we have known for many years.

Dan Morris writes:

This might interest you, it’s of my son Eric sitting on the custom made South Shore Toy Box which was his 2nd year birthday present. I am sure it’s the only one ever made. 11-10-79

Very nice, thanks! And where is that toy box now?

The Toy box is still in my son’s old room. He’s stationed in Guam as a USAF C-17 loadmaster who just got his fifth stripe. He also has been blessed (11-25-13) with a son who will one day get the toy box I had made.

We thank you for sharing those priceless family photos with our readers. Congratulations on the birth of your grandson. We also thank your son for his service to our country.

To you, your son and his family, and all of our readers and their families, we wish everyone the very best in this Holiday Season.

-David Sadowski

The CTA Holiday Train southbound at Chicago Avenue on December 17, 2013. (Photo by Eric Bronsky)