5. California Museum Highlights era of Steam Locomotives
By Mike O’Sullivan
Los Angeles
14 July 2005
It is called the travel Town museum, and it features locomotives and rail cars in an open-air display.
Linda Barth, the museum’s director.’ Travel Town was founded back in the 1950s, at a time when steam engines were still actually running, and people were familiar with them, and kids could see them out their windows and on their way to school. But rather quickly they were being replaced by diesels.”
The Los Angeles parks department decided to preserve this bit of history by collecting the locomotives in a section of Griffith Park, which sprawls across the hills northwest of the city.
“And we happen to be sitting to be sitting in front the very first steam locomotive that was donated to travel Town. It actually arrived here in October of 1952.”
The collection has grown to 14 steam locomotives, several diesel engines, and other railroad cars.
“Over the years, we have collected, besides those locomotives, railroad passenger cars, cabooses, freight cars, boxcars. We eventually had some electric vehicles too.”
The display is interactive. Visitors sit on a steam locomotive built in 1860, and push the control lever just as the engineer did back then.
“We are talking about essentially what is a time machine. When you sit in there, you are sitting inside something that was built while the American Civil war was being fought. And there you are sitting inside it, looking out the window just like an engineer did 120 years ago, 50 years ago. It has a great history in California. It was used in different places in California until it was finally donated here to travel town.”
The Travel Town Museum is popular with families, and especially with young children, most of whom
have little experience with trains. The historic locomotives all stand still today, but people can take a ride a miniature train that offers something of the feel of railroad travel.
Visitors can also make entries in a book to recount their experiences with trains. Ms. Barth says many speak of parents or grandparents who were railroad employees, such as engineers or conductors.
“And besides engineers or conductors, all kinds of people. There were railroad police, there were railroad accountants, and there were railroad business people. And we invite people to write in book or write on a card what their railroad experience or their railroad familymember waws.”
Most visitors write of their nostalgia for the days when the passenger train, pulled by a steam locomotive, was the preferred means of travel across the country.
注解：
1. diesel ['di: zEl] n. 柴油機
2. vehicle ['vi:ikl] n. 交通工具。車輛
3. nostalgia [nOs ' t Q ldZiE] n. 思家病，鄉愁，向往過去，懷舊之情
6. Camera Phones Demonstrate Their value for News reporting
By Kimberly Russell
Washington, D.C.
13 July 2005
Camera phone technology is not new, but it was the main source of the first images from inside the London subway system after the bombings. Passengers with camera phones helped provide the media with pictures for a major story.
Jonathan Taplan, a communications professor at the University of Southern California, says camera phones are changing the way news is covered.” As digital technology disperses- - look at the tsunami pictures, all captured by amateurs - - more people have access to these tools. More people have access to broadband web and can get this video out there.”
U.S market research shows that of the 192 million cell phones in America, at least 30 percent have cameras. And the percentage of camera phones is higher in Europe- - where the technology has been around longer.
Media experts say that having convenient recording devices is revolutionizing the use of amateur footage in news coverage. Some may say camera phones are annoying or distracting, but the London subway tragedy, like the tsunami pictures, show they can be used for serious purposes.
注解：
１. subway [' sVbwei ] n. 地道，〈美〉地鐵
２. tsunami [tsju: ' nA:mi] n. 海嘯
３. 3. footage [' futidZ] n. 以尺計算長度，電影膠片
