FESTIVALS GALORE, including "National Train Day" ~ May 10 update, 2014

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In addition to all this weekend's FESTIVALS that are covered in the previous edition, and all the ongoing events (including stage plays and musicals) there is another FREE Saturday-only event. Hence, this quickie edition.
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Sat, May 10,
Pseudo-FESTIVAL,
in L.A.:
Annual "NATIONAL TRAIN DAY" all day at L.A. Union Station (on Alameda at the 110 Fwy), has music stages and other entertainment, kids activities, tours through modern and vintage railroad equipment and displays, exhibits from clean energy manufacturers and advocates, food, operating modular model railroads, and more. All free, including little snacks from the gourmet food demonstrations in the station's rarely-accessible old Harvey House nightclub.
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Avoid parking crushes and expenses by riding a train to Union Station -- Amtrak, Metrolink, and Metro's Red Line subway and Gold Line light rail all go directly there. You can add a short walk from Union Station and enjoy Olvera Street, a block away, and Chinatown's restaurants are also nearby.
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This year, "NATIONAL TRAIN DAY" even falls-on the anniversary of the event that inspired it. On May 10, 1869, the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory, Utah, completed the first transcontinental railroad, changing a months-long wagon odyssey from "the East" into just a few days aboard a train to reach California. The best celebration in America is today's annual re-enactment at Golden Spike National Historic Site, northwest of Salt Lake City, which includes a troupe of actors and exact replicas of the two 1860s steam locomotives immortalized in Brett Harte's famous poem of the time:
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"What was it the engines said,
Pilots touching head-to-head,
Facing on a single track,
Half a world behind each back?"
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Hit your browser for the rest.
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More recently, there was "Driving the Last Spike," the fine song by STING. And there was that brutal and claustrophobic "Hell on Wheels" on cable TV with embarrassingly spindly props for trains and a motley assortment of improbable and dysfunctional characters.
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In actuality, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the great feat of the age. Its 1869 completion was compared, 100 years later, to the 1969 landing on the moon. Except that the railroads went on to build America, and the legacy of Apollo was simply and disgracefully abandoned.
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Wherever you are, raise a glass today to bolder times and hardy and daring people who got things done. Toast the legions of Irish immigrants who built the Union Pacific from Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the trackless plains to Promontory, and the Chinese immigrants who built the Central Pacific from Sacramento, across the "impossible" barrier of the High Sierra to Promontory. Next time you hear a train whistle, remember. They gave us the beginnings of the modern world.
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"NATIONAL TRAIN DAY" includes over 300 events around the nation on Saturday. There's info and links for all of them at:
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www.nationaltrainday.com
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to locate one happening in a town near you.
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You can follow or join the conversation and help celebrate why trains matter, at:
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#AmtrakNTD.
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Also at www.nationaltrainday.com is a sweepstakes, running through May 14th, where you can enter for your chance to win great prizes, including an Amtrak Vacations' "Family Adventures Package" for four, and a Walthers model train (Grand Prize), or two round trip tickets to anywhere Amtrak travels (First Prize). See official rules, available at nationaltrainday.com, for full details, eligibility restrictions and prize limitations.
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There are even special excursion train rides from Chicago Union Station and Washington Union Station, but both are sold out.

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See the previous edition for all the May FESTIVALS and ongoing events, including stage plays and musicals.
 
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Though the Guide's brief hiatus is NOT yet over, we did believe you would enjoy this quickie. More, soon, as always.
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♪  The Guide has made some CH-CH-CHANGES – turn, embrace the change – with more to come as spring becomes summer of 2014. A new editor will soon take over the reins. There are already, and will be more, points of departure to make room (and time) for the new. As always, the Guide will cover all that we can, because we operate with the editor’s motto, “One does what one can.”
 
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Direct to the current and recent and archived editions /

MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY editions, and all load quickly at

www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com

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CONTACT US / Questions / Comments / etc., all at

tiedtothetracks@hotmail.com

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Contents copyright © 2014,
Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
All rights reserved.
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The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS and views of interest to artists everywhere, more specifically to musicians and the creative community, and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music, both traditional and innovative. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues, and schedules of performances in Southern California venues large and small. We cover workshops and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kids o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to proto blues.
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