Kiera Bass

My Trip to Urban Engineering and Penn Dot

On the trip today to Urban Engineering it was very interesting.  I found out that the Urban Engineering Company is building a new roadway on route 309’s expressway.  This route will allow you to go through Philadelphia and Montgomeryville.  It will take about five years to build because they have to organize and plan things out in steps and stages: they have to make sure it is safe for the environment.  They also have to deal with plumbing, drainage, overseers, accounting, lawyers, and surveyors.  I also learned that it takes a lot of people, time, and effort to do a project like this.  80% of the money comes from federal founds and 20% comes from state founds.  You need experience in engineering to work in that type of field, but you must have an engineering degree to design transportation ideas. Next we went to PENNDOT where we saw traffic on the highway through cameras at the station.  We came at the right time because there was an accident and we got to see how the camera watchers helped out and did there job.  They called the tow truck and the police.  It was a great experience because people actually got out and helped the victims that were in the accident.  So far this has been the best trip because in my opinion it was more up dated and real life.

  Philadelphia Int’l Airport  

          Today, July 13, 2004 we went to the Philadelphia airport and took a tour.  It was very interesting to me because I got to learn a lot about what people have to g through to catch an airplane.  When we were going to a different terminal we had to go through a medal detector and because my shoes were rubber instead of sneaker I had to take them off.  I was very disturbed because in my opinion I think all of that was not necessary.  But I know that it is for our own safety so I tried not to complain that much.  We went through the mall but we didn’t get to shop because we were running out of time and the bus driver was waiting for us.

I learned that the little stores in the Mall like Gap, and Booksellers are called tenants and they set their own salaries for their employees.  The busiest days are on Saturday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Today when we went it was not that crowded on the side we started on, but on the side we finished it was very crowded.  The airport is a public place and it is open 24 hours and day seven days a week, so it is not illegal for homeless people to live there.  In fact about 12 homeless people live in the airport.  The train route R1 takes you straight to and from the airport if you do not have a car or you just do not want to drive.  The lady that gave us our tour through the airport was Ms. Bernadette.  Her position was marketing and public affairs.  She makes about $50,000 a year. In order for her to have that job she had to get an aviation degree in college.  If you bring pets, they are not allowed on the plane but will be put in a special area for pets.  They do this because sometimes baggage storage is to hot or to cold for the pets.  We saw a very beautiful piece of art called “Impulse” it was built and made available to be viewed on May 2, 2003 when the terminal with was opened.

Railroad Museum

Today we went to the railroad museum.  It was very interesting because I learned a lot of new things about trains, railroads, and their history. I learned things like in 1791 an anthracite coal was discovered at Mauch Chunk, Pa.  In 1804 Richard Trevithick builds a successful steam locomotive to run on rails of the Pen-Y-Darren tramway in south Wales.  1827 Schuylkill navigation canal was completed, and in 1837 the first American – type locomotive (4-4-0) is planned and built.  We took a trip on one of the trains and visited Paradise Pa.  We really didn’t stop and look around, more like stopped to change the direction of our train so that we could go back to the museum.  One thing I realized is that we were only allowed on the dingy trains instead of the well polish and detail based trains.  I think that if we were allowed to get on the good looking trains it would have been a better experience on how the people felt when they were really riding on the trains. 

On my trip we also tried to build well looking bridges for the model trains to go under out of ‘kanex’.  In my opinion that was the best part of the trip.  Overall it was a nice sighting set and good gesture of models to try and get in the mindset of the way people lived and traveled on trains.  I hope that you go and see the great things and also learn great things when you go the railroad museum. 

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/

The Franklin Institute

Today on July 14, 2004 we took a trip to the Franklin Institute.  I have been here a couple of times before but I never get to see the whole museum in one visit.  Today we went to the planetarium and saw a movie about the solar system. It was very interesting to me because I learned that there are millions of galaxies in the solar system that scientist today don’t know about.  There is nothing really much to say about the museum because we really didn’t get to see much because there were a lot of little kids running around every where.  On the bus everybody slept there and back.  We also had our lunch on the bus and while we were eating our lunch we took a tour of downtown.  When we were coming back from the trip and everyone was asleep except one student who put some objects from off the floor into another student’s mouth. It woke everybody up and everybody was also very disturbed at the certain student.  I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. I was upset   at this certain issue.

              Building Planes                          

Building My Bridge

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