Vinyl Record Price Guide

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Kings Dominion

www.kingsdominion.com/

Owner

Cedar Fair

Opened

1975

Previous names

Kings Dominion – 1975-93, 2007 to present

Paramount’s Kings Dominion – 1993 to 2006

Operating season

Late March through October

Area

400 acres (1.62 km)

Rides

60 total

14 roller coasters

14 water rides

Slogan

“Ride On”

Kings Dominion is an amusement park located in Doswell, Virginia in Hanover County, 23 miles (37 km) north of Richmond and 83 miles (134 km) south of Washington, DC on Interstate 95.

The 400-acre (1.6 km2) park is currently owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, and was part of the former Paramount Parks chain that Cedar Fair acquired from CBS Corporation on June 30, 2006. The park was named after its sister park, Kings Island in Kings Mills, Ohio, which opened in 1972. Both parks were originally built and owned by Kings Entertainment Company aka KECO. While Kings Island was named as a combination of Kings Mills (its location) and Coney Island (the theme park that it was built to replace), Kings Dominion’s name was more than likely a reference to Virginia’s nickname as the “Old Dominion”.

Contents

1 History

1.1 Early history as Kings Dominion (1975-89)

1.2 Early 1990s/transition to Paramount ownership

1.3 Paramount’s Kings Dominion (1993-2006)

1.4 The Cedar Fair era (2006-present)

2 Current rides/attractions

2.1 International Street

2.2 Old Virginia

2.3 The Grove

2.4 Nick Central

2.5 KidzVille

2.6 Congo

2.7 WaterWorks

3 Kings Dominion’s Timeline

4 Retired rides and attractions

5 References

6 External links

//

History

Early history as Kings Dominion (1975-89)

The park entrance as seen from the observation deck of the replica Eiffel Tower

Kings Dominion officially opened in 1975 with 15 rides. However, in 1974, the park had a “soft” (partial, low key) opening only for the now-defunct Lion Country Safari attraction and a junior roller coaster, now called Scooby Doo’s Ghoster Coaster. Also in 1974, the park had completed the Rebel Yell racing roller coaster (designed by John Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company); however, it would not open until 1975 with the rest of the park. When the park debuted in the spring of 1975, it also included a log flume; antique cars; steam train; and a collection of flat rides. Another roller coaster, Galaxie, was located in the Grove next to the man-made Lake Charles, which took up 10 acres (40,000 m2) of the park’s property. In addition, Kings Dominion’s 1/3-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, which features an observation deck from which visitors could see the entire park, was open by the park’s first full operating season. In addition to the Lion Country Safari, the original themed areas of the park were called The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera, Old Virginia, and Coney Island (renamed Candy Apple Grove prior to the next season).

Kings Dominion added their fourth roller coaster, a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop known as the King Kobra, in 1977. The King Kobra featured a 50-ton counter weight drop launch and was the park’s first launched roller coaster. It was in the park for nine seasons before being relocated to Jolly Roger Amusement Park in Ocean City, Maryland. After several more relocations, it continues to operate today as Katapul at Hopi Hari in Brazil. Also in 1977, Kings Dominion was one of several amusement parks used as sets for the film Rollercoaster.

In addition to the King Kobra, Kings Dominion opened a campground and its well-known Lost World mountain before the end of the 1970s. Originally, the Lost World featured three rides: a flume ride called Journey to Atlantis, a children’s attraction known as Land of the Dooz, and a rotor called Time Shaft. Journey to Atlantis was replaced by the Haunted River themed flume ride in 1980. Kings Dominion would add their second wooden roller coaster, the Grizzly, in the forests of the Old Virginia section of the park in 1982. Kings Dominion opened its rapids ride, White Water Canyon, in Old Virginia in 1983. Also in 1983, a 13 year old boy died while riding on the Galaxie roller coaster. A swinging, inverting pirate ship known as the Berserker was added on International Street the following year. In 1984, a Smurf ride, Smurf Mountain would replace the mine ride in the Lost World. From then on, the Lost World was known as Smurf Mountain. The mountain was rebuilt in 1997, and has been occupied solely by Volcano: The Blast Coaster since 1998.

The replica Eiffel Tower at Kings Dominion

After three seasons without a new roller coaster, Kings Dominion unveiled its TOGO stand-up roller coaster, Shockwave, in 1986, the same year that the park removed King Kobra. Shockwave, like King Cobra, has one loop but also has a helix. (The similarly-named King Cobra roller coaster at Kings Island, which was a stand-up coaster similar to Shockwave, closed in 2002.) The third and last roller coaster that Kings Dominion added during the 1980s was Avalanche, which remains the only Mack bobsled roller coaster in the United States. The trains of Avalanche are themed after the United States’, France’s, Germany’s, Canada’s and Switzerland’s bobsleds, so that riders in different trains can simulate being in a bobsled race in the Winter Olympics.

Although the Lion Country Safari attraction was the first portion of the park to open, it was phased out after Paramount bought the park. Much of the Lion Country Safari occupied the land behind the Anaconda roller coaster; Kings Dominion still owns the land but has used most of it primarily for storage rather than opening new attractions. Diamond Falls, another flume ride, premiered in 1985 until closing in 2002. Three sets of Racing Rivers slides water slides premiered in 1987 and stayed open through the early 1990s.

Early 1990s/transition to Paramount ownership

Kings Dominion continued adding new areas to its park in the early- to mid-1990s. In 1990, they expanded Hanna-Barbera Land to include more rides for children. The 1991 season saw the addition of their next large roller coaster, the Arrow looper Anaconda, which was also the world’s first coaster to feature an underwater tunnel. (Its tunnel went under part of Lake Charles.) Anaconda was also originally billed as having six loops and continues to be billed that way. However, unlike Drachen Fire, a six-inversion Arrow looper which was opened at Busch Gardens Williamsburg the following year, the Anaconda actually has only four inversions: a vertical loop, a sidewinder, and two consecutive corkscrews.

Kings Dominion opened its water park as Hurricane Reef in 1992. In its opening season, it first featured the Monsoon Chutes (two pairs of free-fall body slides, at 70 and 50 feet (15 m) high, respectively), the Torrential Twist (two enclosed body slides which wrapped around each other), the Pipeline (four open body slides), Cyclone (three enclosed body slides, the center of which was a free-fall), Tidal Wave (two open slides, which riders rode on inner tubes, Splash Island (an area for children with five water slides), and a lazy river. To build the water park, Kings Dominion filled in the two thirds of Lake Charles nearest the Candy Apple Grove region of the park; the Anaconda continued to pass over the remainder of the lake.

Paramount’s Kings Dominion (1993-2006)

The Kings Dominion Theatre (Named “The Paramount Theatre” during the Paramount Parks era)

Kings Dominion Logo Used from 1993 – 2002 During the Paramount Years (a revised one was used from 2003-06)

Kings Dominion continued its growth when it became part of Paramount Parks in 1993 and switched its name to Paramount’s Kings Dominion. New attractions and areas of the park themed to Paramount’s television shows and movies appeared at Paramount’s Kings Dominion almost every season that they were under Paramount’s ownership. In 1993, they added a motion simulator attraction, originally featuring the Days of Thunder movie, and Lion County Safari was removed at the end of the season. The 1994 season saw the addition of a new area of the park themed to the 1992 Paramount motion picture Wayne’s World, which featured their third full-size wooden roller coaster, The Hurler, a shop called the Rock Shop, and a Stan Mikita’s restaurant similar to the one featured in Wayne’s World. Since then, the Wayne’s World section has been merged into the Candy Apple Grove (since renamed the Grove); the Stan Mikita’s was converted to the Happy Days Cafe, and the Hurler no longer has Wayne’s World theming, except for a few spray painted “Wayne’s World” logos near the exit of the ride. In the next year, another children’s area, known as Nickelodeon Splat City, opened near the Shockwave roller coaster. This was later converted into Nick Central. Also Smurf Mountain was removed in 1995, leaving a dormant fiberglass mountain in the back of the park.

In 1996, Paramount’s Kings Dominion introduced its second launched roller coaster, and first LIM-launched roller coaster, The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear. The Outer Limits had a 56 miles (90 km) per hour launch, four inversions, and an identical “spaghetti bowl” layout to the ride of the same name at Kings Island. Almost as notable as the launch of The Outer Limits was the fact that the entire ride was in semi-darkness; the riders could not see where they were going. (Six Flags America, a nearby park in Maryland, features another “spaghetti bowl” roller coaster with the same layout as Flight of Fear, known as Joker’s Jinx. Joker’s Jinx, however, is an outdoor coaster.) Five years after The Outer Limits opened, Paramount Parks’ licensing agreement to use theming from the television show after which the ride was named expired; the Outer Limits-related theming in the ride and its queue was removed, and the ride was renamed Flight of Fear.

1997 featured the debut of Kidzville, a re-theming of the Hanna-Barbera section. Added was the new Taxi Jam roller coaster, and Scooby’s Playpark became a construction themed playpen called Kidz Construction Company. Yogi’s Cave was rethemed to Treasure Cave and filled with scrappy theming from other rides. Many rides in Kidzville, such as Scooby Doo’s Ghoster Coaster, George Jetson’s Spaceport, and Huck’s Hot Rods, continued to bear the names of Hanna-Barbera characters.

Paramount’s Kings Dominion continued what became a trend of adding launched roller coasters in 1998, when they opened Volcano, The Blast Coaster in the former Lost World mountain. The mountain’s previous rides had all been removed several years prior, and Volcano gave the mountain a major transformation. Volcano, which was manufactured by Intamin AG, was the world’s first LIM-launched inverted roller coaster. The ride featured two separate launch sections, an Immelman style loop out of the top of the mountain, and three heartline rolls on the way back down. (Huge explosions of fire are shot out the top of the mountain for added effect.) Volcano was themed to Paramount’s 1997 film Volcano; the other Paramount Parks added inverted or suspended roller coasters themed to Top Gun around the same time. During the next two seasons, Paramount’s Kings Dominion expanded Hurricane Reef behind the Rebel Yell and renamed it Waterworks. (Most of the original Hurricane Reef remains open as of 2006; the two areas are joined by a path under the Rebel Yell.) The new portion of Waterworks includes Pipeline Peak, a set of four enclosed water slides, one of which (the Night Slider) is the world’s tallest dark free-fall slide. In 2000, Nick Central opened on what was Nick Splat City and part of Kidzville.

The park added its third launched roller coaster, Hypersonic XLC, in 2001. Hypersonic XLC, a Thrust Air 2000 air-launched coaster made by S&S Power, launched riders from 0 to 80 miles (130 km) per hour in 1.5 seconds, taking them up a 87-degree incline and down a 87-degree drop. The entire ride takes about 25 seconds. Hypersonic XLC broke down frequently and was closed for the first three months of its second season; no other Paramount Parks installed a similar ride. Nevertheless, Hypersonic XLC helped establish Paramount’s Kings Dominion’s reputation as “the launched coaster capital of the world”. Hypersonic XLC was removed after the 2007 season.

The early 2000s saw Paramount’s Kings Dominion opening new rides similar to existing rides at other Paramount Parks. In 2002, the park opened its new wild mouse roller coaster, Ricochet. Carowinds also installed their Ricochet in 2002. Diamond Falls, the giant flume ride at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, also closed that season, leading to several seasons of speculation from park visitors over which ride would take its place. The 2003 season saw Kings Dominion become the final of several of the Paramount Parks to open a Drop Zone Stunt Tower. The Drop Zone at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, at 305 feet (93 m) high, was the tallest freefall ride in the world at the time it opened. In 2004, Paramount’s Kings Dominion added Scooby-Doo! and the Haunted Mansion; similar Scooby Doo-themed dark rides had opened at three other Paramount Parks during the three previous seasons. In the next season, Paramount’s Kings Dominion added an inverted top spin called Tomb Raider: Firefall, which was an outdoor version of a similar ride named Tomb Raider: The Ride at Paramount’s Kings Island. The differences between the two were that at Kings Dominion riders’ feet dangle freely and at Kings Island there is a floor. In the 2006 season, Paramount’s Kings Dominion opened the Italian Job Turbo Coaster, its fourth launched roller coaster. Unlike the previously-built launched coasters at Paramount’s Kings Dominion, each of which was faster than its predecessor, the Italian Job Turbo Coaster is designed more as a family ride and features several launches at 40 miles (64 km) per hour. Renamed the Backlot Stunt Coaster in 2008, the ride is similar to the Backlot Stunt Coaster rides at Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland, which both opened in 2005.

The Cedar Fair era (2006-present)

Logo used briefly in 2007 after the switch from Paramount Parks. It is still currently used in signage and on the park’s website.

Control of the Paramount Parks had been transferred from Viacom to CBS Corporation at the start of the 2006 season; the parks had themselves been up for sale since the previous off season. CBS made several controversial moves with Paramount’s Kings Dominion during the 2006 season. First, a roller coaster based on The Italian Job had been advertised on television as being open at the start of the park’s 2006 season, whereas it did not actually open until late May, almost two months into the season. The placement of the ride was rather dubious; some enthusiasts ridiculed the park management for placing the entrance of The Italian Job, which was themed to a street chase, in the middle of the park’s African-themed Congo section near the Anaconda roller coaster. Second, visitors to the park during the 2006 season found that the trees in the queue of the Grizzly were cut down to make room for a new upcharge go-kart attraction called Thunder Raceway. Third, Paramount’s Kings Dominion closed Flight of Fear. Paramount’s Kings Dominion gave no indication in the previous season that Flight of Fear would be closed for 2006. Rumors had suggested that it would be relocated to another former Paramount Park; since Cedar Fair acquired Paramount’s Kings Dominion, the park worked to get the ride operable again. Flight of Fear reopened on August 18, ending speculation of the ride’s relocation and/or sale.

WaterWorks in 2007, showing the new Tornado.

On May 22, 2006, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. announced that they were purchasing all five Paramount Parks. The sale was finalized on June 30, 2006. The park retained its Paramount’s Kings Dominion name through the end of the 2006 season and reverted to its original Kings Dominion name beginning in the 2007 season. For the 2007 season, the park lowered its single-day admission by $5 to $44.95, one year after Cedar Point had made the same change to their ticket prices. This was the first time that Kings Dominion has ever lowered their ticket prices for a full season. In addition, they brought back their Starlight discount, which allows admission to the park for $29.99 after 4pm. Kings Dominion expanded WaterWorks for the 2007 season, adding a second wave pool called Tidal Wave Bay, a four-person family raft slide called Zoom Flume, and a ProSlide Tornado.

In December 2006, Kings Dominion also put Hypersonic XLC up for sale. The park announced plans to keep it running until a buyer was found. As of the end of the 2009 season, it has not been sold. It remained in operation during the 2007 season and was closed and dismantled several weeks before the 2008 season started. Also during the 2007-2008 offseason, Cedar Fair renamed the park’s last two rides to open with Paramount theming. The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster became Backlot Stunt Coaster, and Tomb Raider: Firefall received the name The Crypt. The Paramount Theater also changed its name to Kings Dominion Theater.

The 2008 and 2009 seasons saw Kings Dominion receive three rides which had operated at Geauga Lake during its dry amusement park’s final season. On October 23, 2007, Kings Dominion announced that Dominator, a floorless roller coaster, would be moved to Kings Dominion and located in the International Street section. Dominator opened on May 24, 2008, becoming Kings Dominion’s first roller coaster with five inversions. For the 2009 season, two flat rides once located at Geauga Lake, like Dominator, opened in 2009. Located near Rebel Yell, Americana became Kings Dominion’s first Ferris wheel. El Dorado, a pendulum ride, opened in the former site of Hypersonic XLC next to the Xtreme Skyflyer.

For the 2010 season, Kings Dominion has installed Intimidator 305, a 305 ft (92.464 m) tall gigacoaster by Intamin AG. The ride will feature a cable lift hill, an 85 first drop and a maximum speed of at least 92 mph (145 kph). The ride, which is themed to the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, was announced on August 20, 2009, and represents the park’s largest-ever capital investment. It is scheduled to open at the start of the 2010 season. Also for the 2010 season, the Kidzville and Nickelodeon Universe areas of the park are being rethemed to Planet Snoopy, as are the children’s areas at Canada’s Wonderland and Kings Island. The park has renamed the Hanna-Barbera themed rides in Kidzville to match the Planet Snoopy theme, ending the park’s 35-year run with Scooby Doo and other Hanna-Barbera characters.

Current rides/attractions

Dominator, a Bolliger & Mabillard floorless roller coaster formerly located at Geauga Lake, opened in 2008 along International Street.

International Street

International Street is the park’s main street area, which greets guests when they enter the park. Both sides of the street are lined with shops, including two park-related souvenir shops just inside the park’s front gate. International Street also has one flat ride, Berserker. Originally, only the street and its shops were considered part of the International Street area ; during the park’s Paramount years, the boundaries of International Street expanded to include the Action Theater.

Like Kings Island, the centerpiece of Kings Dominion is its 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, located just across the International Street fountain from the main entrance gate. This Tower was built by the late company Bristol Steel, which was located in Richmond, Virginia. An elevator regularly takes patrons up to the lookout tower, which provides a chance to see the entire park. The observation deck offered the best view of the nightly fireworks show (which no longer runs), and the Fourth of July fireworks, which are set off from behind the Anaconda roller coaster.

Grand Bandstand features live shows

Eiffel Tower (opened 1975) is a 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower; guests may ride elevators up to its observation deck at 275 feet (84 m).

Berserker (opened 1984) is a swinging Viking ship similar to a Looping Starship.

Action Theater motion simulator attraction has been open in the park since 1993. Dating back to 1975, the park had a country-western themed show in its same location called Hoedown, although it was considered part of the Old Virginia section. In the early 1990s, this became the Country Crossroads amphitheatre. The Country Crossroads Amphitheater closed after the park’s 1992 season and was replaced by Days of Thunder, a motion simulator; at this point, International Street’s borders expanded to include Days of Thunder. After five seasons with the Days of Thunder film, the Action Theater received its current name and has been playing a variety of films in its two motion simulator theaters, including James Bond 007. The Action Theater is currently showing Spongebob Squarepants 3-D, during the Halloween Haunt season its known to show Elvira’s Superstition.

Dominator (opened 2008) is a floorless roller coaster built by Bolliger & Mabillard. It has five inversions, the most of any of Kings Dominion’s roller coasters, and holds the records for largest vertical loop on a roller coaster (135 ft) and the world’s longest floorless coaster (4,210 ft). It originally operated at Geauga Lake.

Old Virginia

Along with International Street, Old Virginia is the only original section of Kings Dominion that has kept its same name throughout the park’s history; one of its current attractions, the Shenandoah Lumber Company (Log Flume), is one of the park’s longest-running rides. In the 1970s, Old Virginia had an Intamin Flying Dutchman flat ride called Jamestown Landing; behind it, Old Virginia had a steam train ride, the Old Dominion Line, which ran through the woods in the back of the park. Jamestown Landing closed by 1980; the Old Dominion Line stayed in the park until it closed in the 1990s. White Water Canyon, the park’s river rapids ride, opened in 1983. Since then, Old Virginia has added its current flat ride, Flying Eagles, which moved over from the park’s former Wayne’s World section.

The Grizzly’s lift hill

Kings Dominion Theater (opened 1975 as Mason Dixon Music Hall, operated through 2007 as Paramount Theatre) is the park’s largest indoor theatre and has hosted a wide variety of shows, including ice skating and musicals.

Flying Eagles, a set of Bisch-Rocco Flying Scooters, first opened with the park in 1975 and has had several location changes and name changes since it first opened. In the 1970s, the ride was called Parrot Troopers and was located in the Safari Village section, overlooking Lake Charles. Parrot Troopers closed in the 1980s and reopened in the park’s new Wayne’s World section as Scream Weaver in 1994. Scream Weaver was located on part of the former Hypersonic XLC site; to make room for the new roller coaster, Kings Dominion moved Scream Weaver to Old Virginia, across from the Kings Dominion Theatre, and renamed (and rethemed) it Flying Eagles to fit into the Old Virginia section.

Shenandoah Log Flume (opened 1975), one of the park’s original attractions, is a log flume with two hills and a course that travels through the woods of Old Virginia and past White Water Canyon’s queue.

White Water Canyon (opened 1983) is a rafting ride with six-person boats, waterfalls, and geysers. White Water Canyon also has an indoor portion toward the end of the ride. In recent years, the ride has often opened at noon (along with WaterWorks) rather than at the rest of the park’s opening time; the ride’s popularity also gives it some of the longest lines in the park.

Blue Ridge Tollway (opened 1975) is an antique cars ride, where riders ride gas-powered antique cars (guided by rails) around a track.

Grizzly (opened 1982), the park’s second full-size wooden roller coaster, has a Coney Island Wildcat design. California’s Great America’s Grizzly, which also has a Coney Island Wildcat Layout but is slightly taller and longer, opened four years later.

The Grove

The Grove, which opened with the park in 1975 as “Coney Island,” was renamed Candy Apple Grove, and is currently Kings Dominion’s largest section. The Candy Apple Grove first opened with an orchard theme, complete with singing mushrooms, and contained large candy apples and 3 apple-themed flat rides, an enterprise called Apple Turnover, a himalaya called Adam’s Apple and a Monster model known as Bad Apple. It lost much of this theming during the 1990s and changed its name to the Grove by 2001.

Today, The Grove is the location of the park’s main midway; the park’s largest arcade, which opened in the 1970s, continues to operate there. The Grove has grown several times since the early 1990s. From the 1980s to 1995, the park had a small Shady Grove section in the present-day location of Shockwave and the Showplace theater. When Nickelodeon Splat City opened in 1995, most of the Shady Grove section was demolished and the Slime Zone rose up in its place; Shockwave has since been part of the Grove. The park also operated a Wayne’s World-themed section for several years, beginning in 1994 with the opening of Hurler. Hurler (which travels over part of the former Old Dominion Line site in Old Virginia) are now part of The Grove. The Grove is also known for the Rebel Yell roller coaster, the park’s first full-size roller coaster; Drop Tower Scream Zone, the world’s tallest drop tower; and its carousel, which was first built in 1917. In 2009, El Dorado and Americana were added.

Carousel (opened 1975) was first built in 1917 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company; prior to opening at Kings Dominion in the park’s first season, it operated at Riverside Amusement Park in Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1917 to 1938, and at Roger Williams Park in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1938 to 1973. This all-wood carousel features 50 jumping horses, 16 standing horses, and two chariots, spread out over four rows.

Ricochet (opened 2002) is a Mack wild mouse roller coaster. Its compact layout contains a series of hairpin turns.

Triple Spin (opened 2002) is a Huss Troika.

Dodgem Bumper Cars opened with the park in 1975 and are located at the edge of the Grove section near the Backlot Stunt Coaster.

Drop Tower: Scream Zone (opened in 2003 as Drop Zone: Stunt Tower) is the world’s tallest drop tower at 305 feet (93 m) high. Drop Tower can take up to 56 riders at a time on its 272-foot (83 m) drop; they travel 72 miles (116 km) per hour before the ride’s magnetic braking slows them. Both this ride and its sister attration, Drop Tower: Scream Zone at Kings Island claim to be the tallest drop towers in the world. In fact, both rightly hold the title. Kings Island’s structure is 10-foot (3.0 m) taller than King’s Dominion’s. However, Kings Dominion’s tower’s breaks begin lower down on the structure, thus allowing riders to drop 8-foot (2.4 m) farther than riders on Kings Island’s.

Hurler

Hurler opened in 1994 as part of Paramount’s Kings Dominion’s Wayne’s World section, which has since become part of the Grove. Hurler has a triple out-and-back layout.

Rebel Yell (opened 1975) is a racing wooden roller coaster with an out-and-back layout that travels along one side of Lake Charles. Beginning in the 1990s, one track featured rear-facing trains, and riders could choose to ride either forwards or backwards. This feature was removed in 2008, and both tracks now have trains going forward only.

Shockwave (opened 1986) is a TOGO stand-up roller coaster located in part of the park’s former Shady Grove section. It features a vertical loop and a helix.

Wave Swinger (opened 1975)

Xtreme SkyFlyer (opened in 1996) is a SkyCoaster bungee jump attraction

El Dorado (opened 2009) is a family-friendly swinging pendulum ride, themed to a 1950′s style El Dorado convertible car which can carry a total amount of 40 riders up 85 feet in the air.

Americana (opened 2009) is Kings Dominion’s first Ferris wheel. It is 110 feet tall, and is located at the former location of the Launch Pad, just next to the Rebel Yell’s exit.

Nick Central

Meet Blue is a meet and greet area where guests can meet the star of Blue’s Clues.

Nickelodeon Meet & Greet is another meet and greet area, this time featuring characters like Tommy, Chuckie and Angelica from Rugrats, SpongeBob and Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants, and Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly Oddparents.

The Showplace is a theater with game shows and shows featuring Nickelodeon characters.

Slime Zone, a maze filled with pipes shooting water in all directions, was one of Kings Dominion’s original Nickelodeon Splat City attractions.

Rugrats Toonpike, is a ride where children can drive through a simulated Rugrats town on small cars in a confined track set up to resemble a miniature town.

Nickelodeon Space Surfer is a Chance Morgan Aviator where riders board kite-like vehicles and glide through the sky at up to a 90 degree angle. Riders travel over the surrounding trees and attain almost the same height as the nearby roller coaster, Shockwave. The cars seat 1-2 riders in seats resembling those from an inverted roller coaster.

KidzVille

KidzVille is a children’s area between International Street and Congo. It opened with the park in 1975 as Hanna-Barbera Land and became known as KidzVille beginning in the 1997 season. It, along with Nickelodeon Central, will be rethemed to Planet Snoopy in 2010.

Treasure Cave is a funhouse featuring gemstones in the walls and tilted floors. It has been renamed and rethemed twice; it was first called Yogi Bear’s Cave and has also had the name Pirate Cave.

Boo Blasters on Boo Hill (opened 2004 as Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion) is a shooting dark ride themed to a large ghost. Passengers ride in a car and shoot at objects to earn points.

Kidz Construction Company is a large children’s play structure themed to a construction site, containing slides and ball pits similar to those found at Chuck E. Cheese.

Alleycat 500 is a small Topcat themed car ride. It has a cow that the riders pass.

Boo Boo’s Tree Swings is a small swing ride located next to Treasure Cave.

Boulder Bumpers is an indoor bumper cars ride for children.

Dick Dastardly’s Airfield is a junior flat ride with small airplanes that goes in a circle over a creek.

George Jetson’s Spaceport is a junior airplane ride themed to The Jetsons.

Huck’s Hot Rods, a driving ride featuring Huckleberry Hound, is located near Alleycat 500.

Ranger Smith’s Jeep Tours is a small jeep ride for little kids.

Topcat’s Turnpike is a junior car ride.

Touche Turtle’s Clipper is a ship ride similar to a scaled-down, tamer Berserker.

Taxi Jam Coaster is an 8-foot-high junior roller coaster.

Ghoster Coaster (opened 1974 as Scooby Doo, then as Scooby-Doo’s Ghoster Coaster), a junior roller coaster, is located near the front of the park next to the former site of the Racing Rivers waterslides. American Coaster Enthusiasts gave the ride an ACE Coaster Classics plaque but have since removed the ride from their list due to design changes.

KidZVille Gazebo is a venue for children’s shows.

Congo

Congo is Kings Dominion’s westernmost and predominantly African-themed section. It was inspired by one of the park’s original attractions, the Lion Country Safari. Containing a boat ride and a monorail train through a nature preserve, the section closed in the 1990s but the theme remains. The Congo section features some of the greatest rides like Volcano, Anaconda, The Crypt, or Intimidator 305

Avalanche (opened 1988) is, as of 2009, the only Mack bobsled roller coaster remaining in the United States; the cars in its trains are themed to Olympic bobsleds from five countries.

Scrambler (reopened 2003), one of the Congo’s two flat rides, is a classic amusement ride similar to a Huss Breakdance. It was originally located on International Street and was moved to Candy Apple Grove in 1993, near the location that the Drop Tower occupies today; it was moved to the Congo section in 2003.

Anaconda Roller Coaster, viewed from its queue

Anaconda (opened 1991) continues to be well-known for its tunnel, which travels under Lake Charles. The ride still traverses most of its layout over the lake. When Anaconda opened, its four inversions were the most of any roller coaster in the park.

Backlot Stunt Coaster (opened 2006 as The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster) was Kings Dominion’s third LIM-launched roller coaster. It is themed to a car chase and is a nearly exact replica of rides found at Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland. Originally themed to The Italian Job, it was the last ride with Paramount theming to open at the park and was renamed in the 2007 offseason.

The Crypt (opened 2005 as Tomb Raider: Firefall) is a suspended Top Spin originally themed to the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It still has the same physical theming but was renamed in the 2007 offseason after the park’s change in ownership.

Volcano, The Blast Coaster (opened 1998) was the second of Kings Dominion’s LIM-launched roller coasters, it is also the park’s fastest roller coaster (after the removal of Hypersonic XLC). The ride, occupying the former “Lost World” mountain, is notable for two launches, the first being 70 mph (110 km/h).

Flight of Fear (opened 1996 as The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear) is one of the first two LIM-launched roller coasters in the world, along with Flight of Fear at Kings Island, with which it shares the same theming and layout. It is an indoor coaster in complete darkness, themed to an Area 51-style military installation. It was renamed in 2001 when Paramount lost the right to Outer Limits. Also in 2001 the over-the-shoulder harnesses were replaced with lap bar restraints after 5 seasons from guests complaining of a rough ride experience.

Intimidator 305 (under construction; scheduled to open April 2010) is the second giga coaster in North America (third in the world), after Millennium Force at Cedar Point. The ride, named and themed after late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., sits on land initially used for the Lion Country Safari that had gone unused since the Safari closed in the early 1990s. Utilizing a similar cable lift hill system to Millennium Force, Intimidator 305 takes riders 305 feet up before they descend an 85-degree, 300-foot first drop. Its height matches the overall height of Drop Tower: Scream Zone, and its first drop equals the first drop of Millennium Force. It will have the steepest drop to date on a giga coaster. The ride’s maximum speed of 92 miles per hour will be the fastest attained by any ride ever located at Kings Dominion, as well as the fifth fastest roller coaster in North America.

WaterWorks

WaterWorks, Kings Dominion’s water park, can be thought of in terms of its two sides, Northside which was formerly known as Hurricane Reef, and Southside which is the newer section of WaterWorks. The rides that WaterWorks had as Hurricane Reef in the mid-1990s are all located in front of the Rebel Yell roller coaster; the newer rides are behind the Rebel Yell and are accessible by walking under the Rebel Yell on a walkway between Baja Bends and Shoot the Curl. The original Hurricane Reef attractions received new names when Kings Dominion renamed the water park WaterWorks in 1999.

Lazy Rider (opened 1992 as Lazy River) is a lazy river which travels around the center of the water park. With the exception of FreeStylin’, all of the remaining slides that originally opened with Hurricane Reef travel over Lazy Rider, which allows the lazy river to have several short tunnels during its course. As of 2005, the Lazy Rider’s entrance and exit were located on different parts of the river, which kept riders from making more than one lap of it without having to exit.

Baja Bends (opened in 1992 as Pipeline) is a set of four green open water slides located behind the Lazy Rider and in front of Lake Charles. The Baja Bends slides travel over Lazy Rider and end in a splashdown pool.

Spiral Chute (opened in 1992 as Torrential Twist) is a pair of enclosed slides that wrap around each other in a spiral manner. The queue for Spiral Chute passes under Anaconda; the loading station for the slides was built over the lake. Spiral Chute was closed for part of 2005 because a construction road for the Backlot Stunt Coaster was cut through its queue, making the station inaccessible. The slides reopened in 2006, however Spiral Chute was not open for the 2009 season, due to structural deficiencies of the platform structure, and is now standing but not operating.

Shoot the Curl (opened in 1992 as Cyclone) is a set of three enclosed blue slides located in front of the Rebel Yell; the slides travel over the Lazy Rider. The center slide is a free-fall slide, though not as tall as Night Slider on Pipeline Peak. The other two slides mirror each other and feature 360-degree helixes.

FreeStylin’ (opened in 1992 as Tidal Wave) is a pair of white open slides, which riders ride on one-person inner tubes; the slides end in a splashdown pool. Because the riders each carry their own tubes, the ride has two separate loading stations on connected towers, and the queue, which starts as one queue, splits in two part of the way up.

Big Wave Bay (opened 1999), the park’s first wave pool, holds 650,000 gallons of water; its wave machines generate four-foot waves.

Surf City Splash House (opened 1999) is a multi-level water play structure with several smaller slides and an 800-gallon bucket which dumps all of its water on guests every several minutes.

Lil’ Barefoot Beach (opened 1999) is a smaller water play structure for young children.

Pipeline Peak (opened 2000), the park’s largest slide structure in 2006, is a set of four enclosed slides manufactured by ProSlide. The top level of the tower features two body flumes: Night Slider, which, at 77 feet (23 m) tall, is the world’s tallest free-falling dark water slide, and Power Plunge, a long, twisting slide which is 77 feet (23 m) high at its beginning. Turbo Twister and Rip Slide, which are at the tower’s 50-foot (15 m) lower level, are two-person raft slides which open in several places in the middle of their course to splash water on riders.

Tidal Wave Bay (opened 2007) is the park’s second wave pool. Several other Cedar Fair parks include multiple wave pools. Dorney Park opened a second wave pool in 2006; California’s Great America will also open their second wave pool in 2007, and Michigan’s Adventure has three wave pools of varying sizes and depths.

Tornado (opened 2007) is a 65-foot-tall slide which deposits riders into a large funnel. ProSlide Tornadoes have opened at many Six Flags parks and several other Cedar Fair parks in the early 2000s; Kings Dominion is the second former Paramount Park to receive a Tornado.

Zoom Flume (opened 2007) is a four-person family raft slide.

Kings Dominion’s Timeline

1974: Preview Center opened featuring a movie theater, a kiddie style wooden coaster (then called the Scooby Doo), and Lion Country Safari. (At that time, visitors had to drive their own vehicles through the Safari section, later to be replaced by a monorail system a few years later.) Rebel Yell wooden racing roller coaster had been completed at that time but did not open until spring of 1975 along with the rest of the park.

1975: Park opened in spring of 1975 (one week after Busch Gardens “The Old Country” in nearby Williamsburg, Virginia)

1975: Apple Turnover (Enterprise style flat ride)

1977: King Kobra (steel coaster)

1978: Kings Dominion Campground opened

1979: Lost World themed area, featuring Journey to Atlantis, Land of Dooz, and Time Shaft (a Rotor ride)

1980: Haunted River replaced Journey to Atlantis

1982: Grizzly; Showplace Amphitheatre also opened

1983: White Water Canyon; Galaxie Closed

1984: Smurf Mountain replaced Land of the Dooz; Berserker

1985: Diamond Falls; Scooby’s Play Park

1986: Shockwave; King Kobra removed

1987: Racing Rivers

1988: Avalanche

1989: Sky Pilot (flat ride took the place of Apple Turnover)

1990: Hanna-Barbera Land expansion

1991: Anaconda

1992: Hurricane Reef water park

1993: Days of Thunder (motion simulator theater)

1994: Hurler; Old Dominion Line steam train removed

1995: Nickelodeon Splat City; Showplace Amphitheatre reopened as Kingswood Amphitheatre; Smurf Mountain is removed

1996: Flight of Fear; Xtreme SkyFlyer

1997: Taxi Jam Coaster; Hanna-Barbera Land renamed KidZville

1998: Volcano; Action Theater replaces Days of Thunder

1999: Expansion of Hurricane Reef water park to WaterWorks

2000: Nickelodeon Central; Pipeline Peak added to WaterWorks

2001: HyperSonic XLC (Xtreme Launch Coaster)

2002: Ricochet; Triple Spin; Diamond Falls closes

2003: Drop Tower; SpongeBob SquarePants 3-D in the Action Theater

2004: Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion

2005: The Crypt; kids area of WaterWorks is removed

2006: Backlot Stunt Coaster; Flight of Fear shut down until mid-August, when it reopened; FearFest’s last year before stepping to a new level of fear, Halloween Haunt

2007: Tidal Wave Bay, Tornado, Zoom Flume added to WaterWorks; last year for Hypersonic XLC; Halloween HAUNT

2008: Dominator (B&M Floorless Coaster from Geauga Lake)

2009: El Dorado & Americana (Both relocated from Geauga Lake)

2010: Intimidator 305 (Intamin AG giga coaster) and Planet Snoopy (Retheme of Nickelodon Central.)

Retired rides and attractions

1975-1983: Galaxie (Galaxi) made by S.D.C.

1977-1986: King Kobra (Steel Coaster)

1979-1980: The Lost World Mountain: Journey to Atlantis, The Mine Train, and Timeshaft (located in the mountain of Volcano)

1980-1997: The Haunted River (located in the mountain of Volcano)

1984-1995: Smurf Mountain (located in the mountain of Volcano)

2001-2007: Hypersonic XLC compressed air-launched coaster made by S&S Power

References

^ “Roller Coaster Database”. King Kobra (Jolly Roger Amusement Park). http://www.rcdb.com/id638.htm. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Roller Coaster Database”. Search Results (Mack Bobsleds). http://www.rcdb.com/installationresult.htm?column=1,10,3,4,5&order=1,2&model=131. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “PkdPlace”. Avalanche. http://www.pkdplace.com/index.php?page=avalanche. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Traveling Today”. Calling All Thrill-Seekers! Welcome to Paramount’s Kings Dominion. http://travelingtoday.com/resources/articles/kingsdominion.htm. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Roller Coaster Database”. Anaconda (Paramount’s Kings Dominion. http://www.rcdb.com/id92.htm. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Richmond.com”. Don let the heat and humidity of a Richmond summer keep you stuck to your vinyl car seats.. http://www.richmond.com/output.aspx?article_id=106. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Paramount’s Kings Dominion”. WaterWorks. http://www2.paramountparks.com/kingsdominion/attractions/category.cfm?ac_id=15. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Coaster-Net.com”. Ride Gallery: Hypersonic XLC. http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=116. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Roller Coaster Database”. Search Results (Hypersonic XLC). http://rcdb.com/qs.htm?quicksearch=hypersonic+xlc. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Coaster-Net.com”. Hypersonic XLC. http://www.coaster-net.com/rg/hypersonicxlc.php. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Coaster-Net.com”. Ride Gallery > The Italian Job: Turbo Coaster. http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=268. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Theme Park Critic”. Grizzly. http://www.themeparkcritic.com/scripts/ViewRide.asp?RideID=283. Retrieved 28 July 2006. 

^ “Screamscape”. Kings Dominion. http://screamscape.com/html/kings_dominion.htm. 

^ “CoasterBuzz”. PKDs Flight of Fear RE-OPENS. http://coasterbuzz.com/forum.aspx?mode=thread&TopicID=45601. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ a b “Cedar Fair”. Cedar Fair to Acquire Paramount Parks. http://www.cedarfair.com/ir/press_releases/index.cfm. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ a b c d e f g “Paramount’s Kings Dominion Press Room”. Kings Dominion To Lower Daily Admission Price For the First Time. http://www2.paramountparks.com/KingsDominion/news/detail.cfm?item_id=462. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Ital International LLC”. Launch Coaster: Reference Number 937. http://www.italintl.com/detail_page.php?record_id=937. Retrieved 14 December 2006. 

^ “Kings Dominion: Virginia’s Premier Themed Amusement Park”. Thrill Rides. http://www2.cedarfair.com/kingsdominion/attractions/category.cfm?ac_id=13. Retrieved 13 December 2007. 

^ Kings Dominion | Virginia’s Premier Themed Amusement Park (Richmond)

^ a b “Kings Dominion Announces Two New Rides for 2009″. http://www.kingsdominion.com/news/detail.cfm?item_id=802. 

^ http://www.intimidator305.com/

^ a b c “PkdPlace”. 1980 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map1980.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ “PkdPlace”. 2005 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map2005detailed.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ a b c d “PkdPlace”. 1978 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map1978detailed.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ a b “PkdPlace”. 1992 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map1992.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ “Thrill Network”. Flying Eagles (Kings Dominion). http://database.thrillnetwork.com/ride_view.php/3702/flying_eagles.html. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ “Roller Coaster DataBase”. Grizzly (Kings Dominion). http://www.rcdb.com/id90.htm. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ “Roller Coaster DataBase”. Grizzly (Kings Dominion). http://www.rcdb.com/id77.htm. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ “Webshots”. Candy Apple Grove 4. http://news.webshots.com/photo/1436980156070495517LxzSRv. Retrieved 4 January 2007. 

^ “Webshots”. Candy Apple Grove 1. http://news.webshots.com/photo/1432227401070495517kuqtCz. Retrieved 4 January 2007. 

^ a b “Coaster-Net”. Ride Gallery > Drop Zone Stunt Tower, Paramount’s Kings Dominion. http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=49. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ a b “PkdPlace”. 2001 Kings Dominion Map. http://www.pkdplace.com/images/map2001detailed.jpg. Retrieved 3 January 2007. 

^ a b “Thrill Network”. Carousel (Kings Dominion). http://database.thrillnetwork.com/ride_view.php/3699/carousel.html. Retrieved 4 January 2007. 

^ “ThrillNetwork”. Nickelodeon Space Surfer. http://database.thrillnetwork.com/ride_view.php/3703. Retrieved 13 December 2007. 

^ “PkdPlace”. Other Attractions: Scrambler. http://pkdplace.com/index.php?page=scrambler. Retrieved 18 December 2006. 

^ “Coaster-Net”. http://www.coaster-net.com/pics/pkd/project06014_blastcoaster.jpg. Retrieved 18 December 2006. 

^ a b “Ultimate Roller Coaster”. Kings Dominion’s WaterWorks Water Park Opens May 14. http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/news/stories/20050511_01.shtml. Retrieved 18 December 2006. 

^ “ProSlide”. Installations: ProSlide Tornadoes. http://www.proslide.com/installation.php?mainRideID=1. Retrieved 18 December 2006. 

External links

Official website

Official website of Intimidator 305

Historical Kings Dominion Gallery

Photos of Kings Dominion c. 1981.

Kings Dominion to open section featuring five water attractions – 1992 article from Travel Weekly announcing the opening of Hurricane Reef (requires subscription)

Kings Dominion attraction timeline

The people’s park: Kings Dominion always takes you back – article in the Hook weekly

Kings Dominion Timeline: 1971-2005

Old Kings Dominion Photos: 1975-2004

v  d  e

Cedar Fair

Theme Parks

Canada’s Wonderland  Carowinds  Cedar Point  Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom  California’s Great America   Gilroy Gardens   Kings Dominion  Kings Island  Knott’s Berry Farm  Michigan’s Adventure  Worlds of Fun  Valleyfair

Waterparks

Wildwater Kingdom  Geauga Lake’s Wildwater Kingdom   Wild Water Adventure  White Water Country  WaterWorks  Splash Works  Boomerang Bay (Kings Island, Great America and Carowinds)  Soak City  Knott’s Soak City (Buena Park, Chula Vista, and Palm Springs)  Oceans of Fun

Former

Star Trek: The Experience  Knott’s Camp Snoopy (Nickelodeon Universe)

Revenue: $831.4 million USD (2006)  Employees: 1,300   Stock Symbol: NYSE: FUN  Website: www.cedarfair.com

Coordinates: 375024 772642 / 37.84N 77.445W / 37.84; -77.445

Categories: Amusement parks in Virginia | Cedar Fair amusement parks | 1975 establishments | Eiffel Tower reproductions | Landmarks in Virginia | Hanover County, VirginiaHidden categories: Articles needing cleanup from August 2008 | All pages needing cleanup

Diy: You are Better Than You Think!

If you DIY (Do It Yourself) long enough, you will probably run into a project which will beat you down. One of those projects that turned out to be far more than you had ever contemplated. One that you didn’t see yourself being able to complete because of either the sheer size or complexity it entails. Usually when you finally come to the realization that it’s time to call in the professionals, the project may be at a point that professionals are reluctant to tackle it for any of a number of reasons.

Some professionals may refuse to finish a job that others have started. Others may look at a particular unfinished job and decide like you did, that it is going to be very complex. Knowing that, they would rather have nothing to do with it. Still other professionals hold the whole DIY concept in contempt and refuse to do work for those they know embrace the do it your self work ethic.

For what ever reason, sometimes it is hard, if not impossible to find a contractor who can effectively take on or complete a job the way you wish it to be done, in a satisfactory manner and in a price range with which you can live.

So what do you do when this happens? Do you pull out the stops and take out a loan, if you can get one? Do you try to sell the darn house to get out from under the burden, or do you run screaming into the night? No, what you do is get smart. You get smart and get ready for your family and friends to abandon you because, trust me, no one will want to know you, no one will admit to being your friend during one of these types of DIY projects.

What I mean by getting smart is this: 1. you need to find a way to either complete the project yourself, or, 2. find others you can hire to do specific portions of the project then, 3. tie the whole thing together yourself. In essence, you become a general contractor. But I have to add, not even this approach can guarantee success.

A friend of mine took on one of these nightmare do-it-yourself projects which needed some masonry work. He hired a capable local mason who has been in the business as long as I can remember. The project turned out to be such a burden that the sub contractor ran screaming into the night, so to speak. He left the job incomplete, leaving my friend with open holes in his home with winter coming on. The brick layer was owed over $1500 for work completed. He never bothered to pick up his tools, never even bothered to collect the money he had coming. He just left. His tools and equipment are still there, in my friend’s back yard, over a year later. The job remains incomplete.

Recently, I had such a project that before I knew it became a monster which I though would never be tamed. Because of a water main problem, I had water damage in my basement. As I started to remove the damaged material, there just seemed to be no stopping point. Not one that would lend itself to any conscionable way to match old to new any way. Before I realized it, I was in for a complete remodel of my basement which went way beyond what a normal remodel usually would encompass.

The wiring was substandard, almost scary.  The wall studs had mold problems from previously unknown water damage.  The main floor support beam had some issues that required new supports to be put in place. Some of the floor joists needed to be replaced because of a previous owner’s poor attempt to affect a repair.  When we pulled the carpet up we found that sometime in the past someone had attempted to scrape up old asbestos tile and found the job too difficult. Then they did a quick mask and covered it with padding and carpet to hide it. Asbestos abatement isn’t easy, but it can be done. You need to be smart, find out what is required and deal with it in a professional manner.

There were issues also with the windows that only replacement was going to solve. Of course, there was no way to come even close to matching what existed. It was going to be necessary to do a lot of masonry work before new windows could be installed.

Basically everything had to go.  A new electrical service panel had to be installed.  Luckily, I have experience in electrical, as I used to work as an electrician.  But of course the trick was to relocate the service panel without having to rewire the upstairs portion of the house as well.  Not easy, but I was able to do it and get it to pass code. 

The next thing was to jack up the entire house and put in some support columns for the main support beam then jack it up again and replace two full span floor joists.  Next was to find a way to frame in new walls, as all the old were either done improperly or previously damaged by the undetected water problem. Adding to that was making it work with a mixed match direction of over head floor joisting. Oh, I forgot, the stair case had to be replaced as well. I found building stairs that go in two directions from a common landing a bit of a challenge.

I bricked in two windows and bricked and framed for three others on one half of the basement, while framing the walls to match the windows framing. Because of time constraints I was unable to complete the job before cold weather set in. With winter coming on I had to get the walls completed without finishing my window replacement.  The house is heated by boiler and hot water base board registers, of which all needed to be replaced. To do so required that the drywall be in place to mount the heaters.

I hate drywall! Of all the things I can do, I do it least well. I tried and tried to get a contractor to show up and give me a bid for the job. Only one ever showed up, and after looking over the situation, and seeing that there were some problems to be over come to do a good job, he never showed up again. He never even gave a bid. My wife and I were so tired from all the work, and working our jobs as well, we were willing to pay double the normal rate, but none would take the job on because it wasn’t easy, it was going to require some work to accomplish.

So I knuckled down and did the best job I could. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish clear up the wall were the new windows will have to be replaced when the weather permits. As really cold weather set in, I finally got the boiler going.  We recorded temperatures as low as 48 inside the house before I did.  This part of the job caused some head aches for sure. The original zones for the heating system were not well defined, and hard to follow which made bleeding the system a mountain of a task. I finally gave up and re-plumbed the pressure and return lines at the boiler to allow for forced pressure bleeding.

Now keep in mind that in all the different areas of construction, reconstruction, electrical and plumbing which I undertook, none of it was easy. When I first looked at the project I didn’t feel I was going to be able to do. Much of it took study, a lot of looking on the internet for suggestions and help guides. Mostly it took a lot of willingness to learn, and some rethinking about my own ability.  

The project isn’t yet complete, but the toughest parts are now over. The finish work continues. I have one more section of windows to install. They will be only slightly different from the last set, some minor differences in masonry work will be the only real difference. 

I ended up buying a quality miter saw on a portable stand, a concrete mixer to mix mortar and concrete and a few other specialty tools that I didn’t have. Even if I don’t feel like keeping these tools, I should be able to recoup most of my money. Since they are pre-assembled, well cared for moderately used tools some DYI engineer will be in need of, I can almost guarantee to not have a problem selling them.

So now its time for me to quit writing about how bad things can get, buckle down, dive in and finish my little DIY nightmare project before my family disowns me.  I haven’t told them, but I am almost certain they are aware, that again soon; my nightmare will be theirs to share in as well.

The moral of this story is I think, “Never give up,” or maybe “You can do it, if you try.” Then again, it might be “You’re better than you think you are.”  So the next time one of those DIY projects starts to get out of hand and it looks like rough sailing ahead, just remember my famous last words: “Smile, it’s not that bad…its worse, you just don’t know it yet!

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Bay Area Rapid Transit

History

Development and origins

Main article: History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit

Some of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System’s current coverage area was once served by the electrified streetcar and suburban train system called the Key System. This early twentieth century system once had regular trans-bay traffic across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. By the mid-1950s that entire system had been dismantled in favor of highway travel using automobiles and buses – given the explosive growth of expressway construction. A new rapid-transit system was proposed to take the place of the Key System during the late 1940s, and formal planning for it began in the 1950s. Some funding was secured for the BART system in 1959, and construction began a few years later. The first passenger rail service commenced on a few stretches of track in September 1972. The new BART system was hailed by some authorities as a major step forwards in subway technology.

However, questions arose concerning the safety of the BART system and the huge expenditures necessary for the construction of the BART network. Praise for the new transportation system was not unanimous at first.

Recent history

2006 statistics

Number of vehicles

670

Initial system cost

$1.6 billion

Equivalent cost in 2004 dollars (replacement cost)

$15 billion

Hourly passenger capacity

15,000

Maximum daily capacity

360,000

Average weekday ridership

322,965

Annual gross fare income

$233.65 million

Annual expenses

$581.81 million

Annual profits (losses)

($300 million)

Rail cost/passenger mile (excluding capital costs)

$.323

A recent study shows that along with some Bay Area freeways, some of BART’s overhead structures could be extensively damaged and could potentially collapse in the event of a major earthquake, which is predicted as highly likely to happen in the Bay Area within the next 30 years. Extensive seismic retrofit will be necessary to address many of these deficiencies, although one in particular, the penetration of the Hayward Fault Zone by the Berkeley Hills Tunnel, will be left for correction after any disabling earthquake, with the consequences for in-transit trains, their operators, and their passengers left to chance.

In May 2004, BART became the first transit system in the nation to offer cellular telephone communication to passengers of all wireless carriers on its trains underground. This is in contrast to other systems in United States, which, while having some cellular telephone service, do not provide it for passengers of all the major cell phone carriers. Service was made available for customers of Verizon Wireless, Sprint/Nextel, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile in and between the four San Francisco Market Street stations from Civic Center to Embarcadero. In 2005, coverage was made available between Balboa Park and 16th St. Mission. By July 2008, the fifth cell phone network of the Bay Area, MetroPCS, was added. In December 2009, service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube, thus providing continuous cell phone coverage between West Oakland and Balboa Park. Service is planned to be added in downtown Oakland, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Hills Tunnel by the end of the third quarter 2010. Coverage is expected to be added to South San Francisco and San Bruno in 2011. The goal is to provide continuous cell phone and internet service throughout the entire BART system.
Starting on February 20, 2007 BART entered into an agreement to permit a beta test of WiFi Internet access for travelers on the BART system. It initially included the four San Francisco downtown stations; Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, and Civic Center. To date over 30,000 patrons have utilized the service. The testing and demonstration also includes above ground testing to trains at BART’s Hayward Test Track. The testing and deployment has been extended into the underground interconnecting tubes between the four downtown stations and further. The successful demonstration and testing provided for a 10 year contract with WiFi Rail, Inc. for the services throughout the BART Right Of Way (ROW).
During the months of May 2008 and July 2008 the WiFi service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube and now awaits BART cars which have the necessary WiFi equipment to benefit from the network access.

Since the mid 1990s, BART has been trying to modernize its aging 30-year-old system. The aforementioned fleet rehabilitation is part of this modernization; presently, fire alarms, water-sprinkling systems, yellow tactile platform edge domes, and cemented-mat rubber tiles are being installed. The rough black tiles on the platform edge mark the location of the doorway of approaching trains, allowing passengers to wait at the appropriate locations for the train, instead of waiting until the train arrives to figure out where to board. All faregates and ticket vending machines have also been completely replaced.

In the spring of 2007, BART experimented with a system of placed advertisement panels in the Transbay Tube, and when riders looking at the windows saw what looked to be a moving commercial for what was Reebok’s “Run Easy” campaign.

On April 10, 2007, BART General Manager Tom Margro, who has been BART chief for eleven years, announced his retirement.

In late May, 2007, BART stated its intention to improve non-peak (night and weekend) headways for each line to only 15 minutes. The current 20-minute headways at these times is viewed as a psychological barrier to ridership. June 2007, BART temporarily reversed its position stating that the shortened wait times would likely not happen due to a $900,000 state revenue budget shortfall. Nevertheless, BART eventually confirmed the implementation of the plan by January 1, 2008.

Furthermore, in June 2007, BART suddenly removed all references to implementation of the TransLink payment system from their website. BART spokesperson Marty Moran stated (via email) that TransLink now may be implemented as early as late 2007. Implementation of TransLink on BART was pushed back even further due to disputes regarding the processing of fares between MTC and BART. TransLink was planned to be rolled out simultaneously on BART, SF Muni, and Caltrain in Spring 2008,. TransLink access was rolled out in May of 2009 .

As BART celebrated the 50th anniversary of its creation by the state legislature, the organization’s management announced their plans for the next 50 years. Their vision includes adding a four-bore transbay tube beneath San Francisco Bay that would run parallel and south of the existing tunnel and emerge at the Transbay Transit Terminal to provide connecting service to Caltrain and the proposed future California High Speed Rail system. The four-bore tunnel would provide two tunnels for BART and two tunnels for conventional/high-speed rail. BART’s plan focus is on improving service and reliability in its core system (where density and ridership is highest), rather than extensions into far-flung suburbia. These plans include: a line that would continue from the Transbay Terminal through the South-of-Market, northwards on Van Ness and terminating in western San Francisco along the Geary corridor, the Presidio, or North Beach; a line along the Interstate Highway 680 corridor; and a fourth set of rail tracks through Oakland.

Numerous rail service changes were implemented beginning on January 1, 2008. Among the changes, the trains on the Pittsburg / Bay Point line extended their service to the San Francisco-Oakland airport (SFO airport) station (at all hours of operation), but they did not continue to the end of the line at Millbrae. (Only a very few late-night Pittsburg / Bay Point trains continued on to Millbrae after stopping at the SFO airport station). During weekdays (until 7:00 pm), the trains on the Richmond line continued on to the Millbrae station, but bypassed the SFO airport station; during weeknights and weekends, trains on the Dublin / Pleasanton line continued to Millbrae, but also bypassed the SFO airport station). All of this meant that there would no longer be a direct train connection between the SFO airport and Millbrae, inconveniencing “Caltrain” passengers who wished to travel to the SFO airport. The BART management discontinued this direct rail connection, citing low ridership between Millbrae and the SFO airport. However, they did implement timed transfers at the San Bruno station for passengers who were traveling from the SFO airport to Millbrae.

With continuing budget constraints, it was necessary for BART to cut back on service beyond Daly City. As of September 14, 2009, the following changes have taken place: The Pittsburg/Bay Point line will still terminate at SFO on weekdays until 7:00 pm. After 7:00 pm, and all day on weekends and holidays, service will extend to Millbrae. The Dublin / Pleasanton line will no longer serve the extension, instead terminating at Daly City Station.

In 2008, BART announced that it would install solar power systems on the roofs of its train yards and maintenance facilities in Richmond and Hayward in addition to car ports with rooftop solar panels at its Orinda station. The board lamented not being able to install them at all stations but it stated that Orinda was the only station with enough sun for them to make money from the project.

Current system

Background

A photo of the third rails used on the BART system. Note how the third rail changes location relative to the train upon entering the station and the crossover walkway crossing the trackway. Note the walkway on the left side of the trackway in the distance, which is the emergency walkway for the aerial trackway leading into the Daly City station again, the third rail positioned opposite of this walkway.

BART comprises 104 miles (167 km) of track and 43 stations. The system uses a controversial 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad rail gauge, as opposed to the 4 ft 8+12 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge predominantly found in railroad systems in the United States. This is the only transit system in the United States using this gauge. The cars are wider than standard transit equipment, but as wide as standard gauge North American passenger cars. The down side is that all maintenance and support equipment must be custom built. Trains can achieve a centrally-controlled maximum speed of 80 mph (130 km/h) and provide a system-wide average speed of 33 mph (53 km/h) with twenty-second station stopping times (dwell times). Trains operate at a minimum length of three cars per California Public Utilities Commission guidelines to a maximum length of 10 cars, spanning the entire 700 feet (213 m) length of a platform. At its maximum length of 710 feet (216 m), BART has the longest train length of any metrorail system in the United States. The system also features car widths of 10.5 feet (3.2 m) (the same width as an Amtrak Metroliner), a maximum gradient of four percent, and a minimum curve radius of 394 feet (120 m) on the main lines .

Electric current is delivered to the trains over a third rail, the position of which alternates relative to the context of the train. Inside stations, the third rail is always on the side furthest away from the passenger platforms. This design feature eliminates the danger of a passenger either falling directly on the third rail, or stepping onto it to climb back to the platform should they fall off. On ground-level trackways, the third rail alternates from one side of the track to the other, providing breaks in the third rail to allow for emergency evacuations across trackways.

Underground tunnels, aerial structures and the Transbay Tube have evacuation walkways and passageways to allow for train evacuation without exposing passengers to easy, inadvertent contact with the third rail, which is located as far away from these walkways as possible. The voltage on the steel third rail is 1000 Volts DC, so there are notices throughout the system warning passengers of its danger. In addition, BART posts notices inside each train car warning of the third rail and the four paddle-like rail contact shoes protruding from the underside of each car by the rail wheel trucks. Other third-rail powered metro systems in the US utilize a lower voltage.

Many of the original system 1970s-era BART stations, especially the aerial stations, feature simple, Brutalist architecture.

Ridership levels

Ridership records have been set during large scale regional-in-scope events such as the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. The records included a Sunday record of 224,500 that coincided with an Oakland A’s baseball game and a weekday record of 405,400 set on September 8, 2008, when both the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Raiders had home games. The one week record for ridership was 2,317,800 between June 23 and June 29, 2008. This broke the previous all time high of 2,301,800 achieved during a closure of the Bay Bridge. BART set an absolute one-day record of 442,000 rides on Thursday, October 29, 2009, following the closure of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge due to the failure of a structural repair.

Problems with Segways on BART

After several high-profile incidents involving Segways, including an incident where a Segway was run over by a train after falling onto the tracks, BART banned them for 45 days until they could regroup and set up a plan to mediate the issue. The consensus reached was the institution of rules similar to bicycles where the Segways would be disallowed during commute hours, except for disabled persons and that the devices could not be on or ridden past the fare gates similar to the rules for all wheeled devices such as skateboards and scooters. Furthermore a permitting system has been established requiring registration for them to be used on the system.

Routes

All routes pass through the city of Oakland, and all but the Richmond Fremont route pass through the Transbay Tube into San Francisco and beyond to Daly City. Most segments of the BART system carry trains of more than one route.

Trains regularly operate on five routes. Unlike most other rapid transit and rail systems around the world, BART lines are generally not referred to by shorthand designations. Although the lines have been colored consistently on BART system maps for more than a decade, they are only occasionally referred to officially by color names, and only rarely referred to in this way by members of the public (e.g., the “Red Line”).

Instead, the five BART lines are generally identified on maps and schedules by the names of their termini:

Fremont Daly City, following a former Western Pacific Railroad right-of-way from Fremont to Oakland, operates Mondays through Saturdays daytime to early evening.

Dublin/Pleasanton Daly City, following Interstate-580 via Castro Valley to San Leandro, where it meets the Fremont-Richmond line, continuing into San Francisco.

Pittsburg/Bay Point SFO/Millbrae, following SR 4, a former Sacramento Northern Railway right-of way, and SR 24 from Bay Point to Oakland, and extending beyond Daly City to San Francisco International Airport. On weeknights and weekends, this line turns around at the airport to continue on to Millbrae.

Richmond Daly City/Millbrae, following a former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway right-of-way from Richmond to Berkeley, and extending beyond Daly City to Millbrae on weekdays daytime to early evening. On Saturdays, this line operates to Daly City only.

Richmond Fremont, coinciding with the Richmond Millbrae line and the Fremont Daly City line between their termini and Oakland, and operates daily.

The line from San Francisco through Daly City to Millbrae follows a former Southern Pacific railroad right-of-way, which is also served by Caltrain beyond San Bruno.

Hours of operation

The BART system consists of five lines, but most of the network consists of more than one line on the same track. Trains on each line historically ran every fifteen minutes on weekdays and twenty minutes during the evenings, weekends and holidays; however, since a given station might be served by as many as four lines, it could have service as frequently as every three to four minutes. However the system is closed for four hours every night for maintenance, reopening at 4:00 AM each morning, except for Sundays.

As of January 1, 2008, service on every line is at 15-minute intervals except for Saturdays between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., when service is at 20-minute intervals. Also, as of January 1, 2008, BART service begins around 4:00 a.m. on weekdays, 6:00 a.m. on Saturdays, and 8:00 a.m. on Sundays. Service ends every day near midnight with station closings timed to the last train at station. Two of the five lines, the Millbraeichmond and SF/Daly Cityremont lines, do not have night (after 7 p.m.) or Sunday service, but all stations remain accessible by transfer from the other lines. All-Nighter Network service is available when BART is closed. All but six BART stations are served (as well as eight Caltrain stations). BART tickets are not accepted on these buses, and each of the four bus systems charge their own fare, which can be up to $3.50; a four-system ride can cost as much as $9.50 as of 2007.

Fares

Ticket vending machines at the Powell Street Station

Fares on BART are comparable to those of commuter rail systems and are higher than those of most metros, especially for long trips. The fare is based on a formula that takes into account both the length and speed of the trip. A surcharge is added for trips traveling through the Transbay Tube, to San Francisco International Airport, or through San Mateo County, which is not a BART member. Historically and up until only recently, passengers have used refillable paper-plastic-composite tickets, on which fares are stored via a magnetic strip, to enter and exit the system (a similar magnetic strip ticketing system is used on the Washington Metro in Washington, D.C). The exit faregate prints the remaining balance on the ticket each time the passenger exits the station. A paper ticket can be refilled at a ticket machine, the remaining balance on any ticket can be applied towards the purchase of a new one, or a card is simply captured by the exit gate when the balance reaches zero; multiple low value cards can be combined to create a larger value card, but only at specific ticket exchange locations which are located at some BART stations. BART relies on unused ticket values, particularly of patrons discarding low-value cards, as a source of revenue, approximated by some to be as high as $9.9 million.

A standard-fare BART ticket. Notice the initial purchased fare printed parallel to the magnetic strip, and the card’s remaining balance printed on the left, updated upon each exit. Images of older tickets, a blue, new-style ticket, and other color tickets can be found here.

A stored-value smart card fare system, called the TransLink smart card, was rolled out in the fall of 2009. This program was launched to the public in fall 2006 with rollout on AC Transit, Dumbarton Express, and Golden Gate Transit lines. BART previously promoted the EZ Rider card, a pilot program using technology similar in design to the TransLink cards. Both are contactless smart cards, and contain stored value that can be used for fare payments. BART contracted with Cubic Transportation Systems to replace all the faregates with ones that have smart card readers inherently installed. The EZ Rider program is expected to last until September 2010.

The BART minimum fare of $1.75 is charged for trips under 6 miles (9.7 km), such as a trip between two adjacent Berkeley stations. The maximum one-way fare including all possible surcharges is $10.90, the 51 miles (82 km) journey between Pittsburg/Bay Point and San Francisco International Airport. The farthest possible trip, from Pittsburg/Bay Point to Millbrae, costs less because of the additional charge added to airport trips. Passengers without sufficient fare to complete their journey must use an AddFare machine to pay the remaining balance in order to exit the station. Because of the amount of the base fare, traveling between BART stations in downtown San Francisco on BART costs 25 cents less than it does to ride the city’s own light rail system, the MUNI Metro, which is generally slower in covering the same distance. However, MUNI permits around two full hours of riding, including transfers to other MUNI vehicles, whereas BART charges $1.75 for a single journey. There are various quirks in the fare system due to a subsidy being provided to riders traveling between some outlying stations. For example, for a trip from Dublin/Pleasanton to Fremont, it is less expensive to exit the station at the transfer point, Bay Fair, and re-enter the station, instead of staying on the platform, because you would get charged two $1.75 base fares instead of a $4.35 fare from end to end.

BART uses a system of five different color-coded tickets for regular fare, special fare, and discount fare to select groups as follows:

Blue tickets General: the most common type, includes high-value discount tickets

Red tickets Disabled Persons and children aged 4 to 12: 62.5% discount, special ID required (children under the age of 4 ride free)

Green tickets Seniors age 65 or over: 62.5% discount, proof of age required for purchase

Orange tickets Student: special, restricted-use 50% discount ticket for students age 13-18 currently enrolled in high or middle school

BART Plus special high-value ticket with ‘flash-pass’ privileges with regional transit agencies, including MUNI’s buses.

EZ Rider A new plastic smart card fare program that will eventually be replaced by the TransLink Phase II Program

EZ Rider Fare Card

Unlike most transit systems in the United States, BART does not have an unlimited ride pass available and riders must pay for each ride they take. The only discount provided to the public is a 6.25% discount when “high value tickets” are purchased with fare values of $48 and $64, for prices of $45 and $60 respectively. Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor & San Joaquins trains sell $10 BART tickets on-board in the caf cars for only $8, resulting in a 20% discount. A 62.5% discount is provided to seniors, the disabled, and children age 5 to 12. Middle and high school students 13 to 18 may obtain a 50% discount if their school participates in the BART program; however, these tickets are intended to be used only between the students’ home station and the school’s station and for transportation to and from school events. However, these intended limitations are not enforced in any way and students are expected to behave on the honor system. The tickets are only usable on weekdays, a restriction that is enforced by the fare gates. BART Plus tickets enjoy a last-ride bonus where if the remaining value is greater than $.05, the ticket can be used one last time for a trip of any distance. Most special discounted tickets must be purchased at selected vendors and not at ticket machines. The Bart Plus tickets can be purchased at the ticket machines. In particular, the middle and high school tickets are usually sold at the schools themselves.

Family members of BART employees receive special BART passes and can ride free-of-charge upon showing their pass and photo identification to the BART station attendant. Employees of airlines that take BART to work at San Francisco International Airport receive a fare discount of 25%, but non-airline employees who do the same receive no discount.

Ticket gates with the orange triangular doors retracted for a Spare the Air Day

Fares are enforced by the station agent, who monitors activity at the fare gates adjacent to the window and at other fare gates through closed circuit television and faregate status screens located in the agent’s booth. All stations are staffed with at least one agent at all times. Despite this, fare fraud occasionally occurs, usually as a result of people entering and exiting through the emergency exit gate, which are permitted for non-emergency use by passengers with bikes, in wheelchairs, and carrying luggage. It also occurs using elevators, which in some stations lead from the ticketed area to the unticketed area.

There is little fare coordination between BART and surrounding agencies. Some agencies accept the BART Plus pass, which at a fee of between $38 and $71 per month, permits pass holders to use BART and connecting buses. Most notably, AC Transit dropped out of the program due to the small amount of reimbursement they received from BART. Another fare coordination program permits adult monthly pass holders of the San Francisco Municipal Railway to ride BART trains within the city of San Francisco for free (with no credit applied to trips outside the city). The city of San Francisco pays BART $.87 for each trip taken under this arrangement. For riders who do not hold such passes, there is generally only a token discount ($.25 to $.50) provided to passengers transferring to and from trains to other transit modes. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority does honor BART transfers for a local fare credit ($.50 to $1.75) towards the 120, 140, 180 and 181 trans-county express lines departing the Fremont BART station, but all riders are required to disembark in Santa Clara County. There is no credit applied when traveling towards the Fremont BART Station.

Proposals to simplify the fare structure abound. At one extreme, a flat fare that disregards distance has been proposed by BART director Joel Keller. The lesser extreme involves the implementation of a simplified structure that would create fare bands or zones. The implementation of either scheme would demote the use of distance-based fares and shift the fare-box recovery burden to the urban riders in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley and away from the suburban riders of East Contra Costa, Southern Alameda, and San Mateo Counties, where density is lowest, and consequently, operational cost is highest.

Connecting services

AC Transit bus stop at Bay Fair Station

BART has direct connections to two regional rail services Caltrain, which provides service between San Francisco, San Jose, and Gilroy, at the Millbrae Station, and Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor, which runs from Sacramento to San Jose, at the Richmond and Coliseum/Oakland Airport stations. A third Capitol Corridor connection at the Union City station is planned as part of a larger Dumbarton Rail Corridor Project to connect Union City, Fremont, and Newark to various peninsula destinations via the Dumbarton rail bridge. BART is the managing agency for the Capitol Corridor until 2010.

BART connects to San Francisco’s local light rail system, the Muni Metro. The upper track level of BART’s Market Street subway, originally designed for the lines to Marin County,[citation needed] was turned over to Muni and both agencies share the Embarcadero, Montgomery Street, Powell and Civic Center stations. Some Muni Metro lines connect with (or pass nearby) the BART system at the Balboa Park and Glen Park stations.

Other services connect to BART including the Emery Go Round (Emeryville), WestCAT (north-western Contra Costa County), Benicia Transit (Benicia), Union City Transit (Union City), and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA, in Silicon Valley).

BART hosts carsharing locations at many stations, a program pioneered by City CarShare. Riders can transfer from BART and complete their journeys by car. BART has started to offer long-term airport parking through a third-party vendor at most East Bay stations. Travelers must make an on-line reservation in advance and pay the daily fee of $5 before they can leave their cars at the BART parking lot.

Casual carpools have formed at North Berkeley station and the area around El Cerrito Del Norte station. The lots are convenient since most carpoolers use public transit back to their final destination. However, because of how BART charges for parking, passengers cannot park at most BART lots without paying a fare.

Connecting services via bus

A number of bus transit services connect to BART, which, while managed by separate agencies, are integral to the successful functioning of the system. The primary providers include the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (AC Transit), San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans), Central Contra Costa Transit Authority (County Connection), and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District (Golden Gate Transit). Until 1997, BART ran its own “BART Express” connector buses, which ran to eastern Alameda County and far eastern and western areas of Contra Costa County; these routes were later devolved to sub-regional transit agencies such as Tri-Delta Transit and the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (WHEELS) or, in the case of Dublin/Pleasanton service, replaced by a full BART extension.

BART is connected to Oakland International Airport via AirBART shuttle buses, which bring travelers to and from the Coliseum/Oakland Airport BART station. These buses are operated by BART and accept exact-change BART fare cards in addition to exact change. BART also connects to the San Francisco International Airport, though in this case the train actually enters the airport directly and no shuttle is necessary, although connections are available to AirTrain for those not departing or arriving from the international terminal.

The bus service connecting the University of California, Berkeley to the Berkeley BART station was once called Humphrey Go-BART, a spoonerism of the famous actor and director Humphrey Bogart. It has since been replaced by a number of regular AC Transit bus routes and shuttle bus routes operated by the university.

Organization and management

Governance

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a special governmental agency created by the State of California consisting of Alameda County, Contra Costa County, and the City and County of San Francisco. San Mateo County, which hosts six BART stations, is not part of the BART District. It is governed by an elected Board of Directors with each of the nine directors representing a specific geographic area within the BART district. BART has its own police force.

While the district includes all of the cities and communities in its jurisdiction, some of these cities do not have stations on the BART system. This has caused tensions among property owners in cities like Livermore who pay BART taxes but must travel outside the city to receive BART service. In areas like Fremont, the majority of commuters do not commute in the direction that BART would take them (many Fremonters commute to San Jose, where there is currently no BART service). This would be alleviated with the completion of a BART-to-San Jose extension project.

However, some cities and towns are near enough to cities with BART stations that residents commute via a bus or car to the nearest BART station. Emeryville, for instance, has no BART service, but has a free shuttle service, the Emery-Go-Round, that takes passengers to the nearby MacArthur station in Oakland. Similarly, Albany does not have a BART station of its own. The city’s residents can go to either North Berkeley (in Alameda County) or El Cerrito Plaza (in Contra Costa County) stations for services. For those wishing to drive their cars to the stations instead, many BART stations offer many kinds of parking options.

Budget

In 2005, BART required nearly $300 million in funds after fares. About 37% of the costs went to maintenance, 29% to actual transportation operations, 24% to general administration, 8% to police services, and 4% to construction and engineering. In 2005, 53% of the budget was derived from fares, 32% from taxes, and 15% from other sources, including advertising, station retail space leasing, and parking fees. BART’s farebox recovery ratio of 53% is relatively high for a U.S. public transit agency operating over such long distances with high frequency (for comparison, see the article on farebox recovery).

General Manager

196? – 1975

Billy Stokes

1975 – 1978

Frank C. Herringer

1979 – 1988

Keith Bernard

1989 – 1994

Frank Wilson

1994 – 1996

Richard A. White

1996 – 2007

Tom Margro

2007 – Present

Dorothy Dugger

Chief Spokesperson

1972 – 2004

Mike Healy

2004 – present

Linton Johnson

Rolling stock

A refurbished A car interior with carpeted flooring.

Interior of a C1 car with an upgraded spray-on composite flooring.

The interior of a C2 car with carpeted flooring. A flip-up seat is visible on the left.

A Demonstration Car (modified C2 car) interior with blue vinyl flooring. This car has a designated Bike Space in the area normally reserved for passengers in wheelchairs; the front-facing seat on the left-hand side of the car has been removed to accommodate passengers with bicycles, in turn, the aisle-facing seat on the right-hand side near the operator’s cab has been removed to accommodate passengers in wheelchairs. This car also has hand straps, unlike the other BART train cars.

BART operates four types of cars, built from three separate orders, totaling 669 cars.

To run a typical peak morning commute, BART requires 579 cars. Of those, 541 are scheduled to be in active service; the other 38 are used to build up four spare trains (essential for maintaining on-time service). At any one time, the remaining 90 cars are in for repair, maintenance, or some type of planned modification work.

The A cars and the B cars were built from 1968 to 1971 by Rohr Industries, an aerospace manufacturing company which had only recently made its foray into mass-transit equipment manufacturing, touting yet untested space-age design techniques. The A cars were designed as leading or trailing cars only, with a fiberglass operator’s cab housing train control equipment and BART’s two-way communication system. The A cars are distinguished by their aerodynamic leading edge extending 5 feet (1.52 m) longer than their B- and C-car siblings. A cars can comfortably seat 72 passengers, and under crush load, 150 passengers. B cars have no operator’s cab and are used in the middle of trains to carry passengers only; B cars have the same passenger capacity as A cars. Currently, BART operates 59 A cars and 380 B cars. BART’s livery has remained effectively unchanged throughout its history.

The C cars were built by Alstom between 1987 and 1989. The C cars have a similar fiberglass operator’s cab and control and communications equipment as the A cars, but unlike A cars, do not have the aerodynamic nose design, thus allowing them to be used as middle cars as well. The dual purpose of the C cars allows faster train-size changes without having to move the train to a switching yard. C cars can comfortably seat 64 (4 seats were lost compared to the A/B cars by eliminating one row of seats to accommodate the operator cab and 4 additional seats were lost by eliminating one pair of seats next to the left-side forward door on each side to provide space for wheelchairs) and under crush load accommodate 150 passengers. The latest order, from Morrison-Knudsen (now Washington Group International), was for C2 cars, which are essentially the same as C cars, but feature an updated, third-generation interior with a blue/gray motif, in contrast to the previous blue and brown colors. The CCTV cameras on C2 cars are also triangular in shape when compared to the rectangular shape of the camera on a C1 car. C2 cars have flip-up seats near the left-side forward door to accommodate passengers in wheelchairs, and red lights on posts near the door to warn the hearing-impaired when the doors are about to close. C2 cars can comfortably seat 68 passengers (including the flip-up seats), and under crush load can carry 150 passengers. Since the purchase of C2s, the original C cars are also referred to as C1 cars. Currently, BART operates 150 C1 cars and 80 C2 cars.

In 1995, BART contracted with ADtranz (acquired by Bombardier Transportation in 2001) to refurbish and overhaul the 439 original Rohr A- and B-cars, updating the old vintage brown fabric seats to the less-toxic and easier-to-clean, light-blue polyurethane seats in use today and bringing the cars in general to the same level of interior amenities as the C2 fleet. The Rohr cars were also rebuilt with ADtranz 3-phase Alternating Current (AC) traction motors with IGBT inverters, model 1507C. The seven-year project was completed in 2002. All BART cars have upholstered seats and nearly all cars have carpeting except for some C1 and/or C2 cars. Because one of the original design goals was for all BART riders to be seated, the older cars have fewer provisions such as grab bars for standing passengers. Flip-up seats (found in C2 cars) were excluded from the refurbishment (reducing seating capacity from 72 to 68), in order to provide designated areas for luggage, wheelchairs and bicycles. Consequently, the original C (or C1) cars have the oldest interior design, as they have not been refurbished and were not purchased recently enough to have the “newer” convenience features; for example, they lack vertical grab bars in the middle of the car and do not have the in-post red lights to warn of closing doors. However, the carpeted flooring in most of the C1 cars was replaced with an experimental spray-on composite flooring after passengers complained that the cars were unclean.

The A, B, and C cars were all given 3-digit numbers originally, but when refurbished 1000 was added to the number of each individual A/B car (e.g. car 633 would become 1633). The C2 cars are numbered in the 2500 series; the C/C1 cars still have 3-digit numbers.

Prior to rebuilding, the Direct Current (DC) traction motors used on the 439 Rohr BART cars were built by Westinghouse, the same company that also built the automatic train control system for BART. The Westinghouse traction motors are model 1463 with chopper controls. The Westinghouse DC motors are still in use on the Alstom C (C1) and Morrison-Knudsen C2 cars. The motors that were pulled from the Rohr cars during rehabilitation were retained as spare motors for use on the C1 and C2 cars. Other undercar systems also built by Westinghouse on the 439 Rohr BART cars before rehabilitation were the auxiliary power box, the hydraulic pumps for the brakes, the air suspension, and the brake control systems (which were part of the propulsion logic cradle that was mounted in the chopper control semiconductor box). The HVAC system on the Rohr BART cars before rehabilitation were built by Thermo King, when it was a subsidiary of Westinghouse (Thermo King is now a subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand). The current HVAC systems on the rehabbed Rohr-built Gen 1 cars were built by Westcode.

Comparison with other rail transit systems

Main article: Rapid Transit

BART, like other transit systems of the same era, endeavored to connect outlying suburbs with job centers in Oakland and San Francisco by building out lines that paralleled established commute routes of the region’s freeway system. The majority of BART’s service area, as measured by percentage of system length, consists of low-density suburbs. Unlike the New York City Subway or the London Underground, individual BART lines were not designed to provide frequent local service, as evidenced by the system’s current maximum achievable headway of 13.33 minutes per line through the quadruple interlined section. Muni provides local light-rail and subway service within San Francisco city limits and runs with smaller headways than does BART. BART could in many ways be characterized as a “commuter subway,” since it has many characteristics of a commuter rail system, including lengthy lines that extend to the far reaches of suburbia with significant distances between most adjacent stations. However, in the urban areas of San Francisco and downtown Oakland, multiple lines converge, and BART takes on the characteristics of an urban subway, including short headways and transfer opportunities to other lines.

BART could be considered to be more similar to a regional commuter rail service, such as the Berlin S-Bahn or the Paris RER. However, BART also possesses all the qualities and services of a metro system, including electrified third-rail propulsion, exclusive grade-separated right-of-way, frequent headways in its urban service areas, and pre-paid fare card access. Urban stations are as close as one-half mile (800 m) apart and have combined two and one-half to five-minute service intervals at peak times. These factors contribute to the consideration of BART as a hybrid metro-commuter system, functioning as a metrorail system in the central business districts of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, and as commuter rail in the region’s suburban areas.

Future stock

A computer graphics rendering of what the new BART car will look like.

To speed up service, BART is preparing to introduce new, three-door cars. BART plans to start purchasing new cars in 2010, when it will have paid off other capital debt for track and car work, with the first 10 pilot cars arriving for testing in 2014. The order will consist of 200 base cars with two additional option orders of 250 cars each for a total of 700 cars to completely replace the original fleet. All 700 cars are to arrive by 2024. There are also two additional options, one for general fleet expansion, and the other for the San Jose extension, with 150 cars each. If all options are exercised, the total number of new BART cars will be 1000 cars.

Future expansion and extension

Main article: Bay Area Rapid Transit expansion

Expansion projects for the Bay Area Rapid Transit have existed ever since the opening of the project. These projects include the Warm Springs extension, the San Jose extension, the Oakland Airport Connector, eBART, ‘tBART’: I-580/Tri-Valley Corridor, ‘wBART’: I-80/West Contra Costa Corridor, and numerous infill stations along the route.

See also

San Francisco Bay Area portal

List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations

List of rapid transit systems

List of United States rapid transit systems by ridership

List of California railroads

Notes

^ a b “Quarterly Weekday Average Exits” (PDF). San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District. http://www.bart.gov/docs/station_exits_quarterly.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-05. 

^ a b “History of BART (1946-1972)”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/about/history/history_1.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ See BART Composite Report, prepared by Parsons Brinkerhof Tutor Bechtel, 1962

^ “BART- Not a Moment Too Soon”. Los Angeles Times. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/684558862.html?dids=684558862:684558862&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Sep+13,+1972&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=BART—Not+a+Moment+Too+Soon&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 

^ “BART First in Operation: 2nd great subway boom under way in many cities”. The Bulletin. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3qgSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=g_cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3354,4929895&dq=bart. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “Safe Automated BART Train Controls Doubted”. Los Angeles Times. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/660715472.html?dids=660715472:660715472&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Nov+15,+1972&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Safe+Automated+BART+Train+Controls+Doubted&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART Manager Denies System Was Overcharged by Designers”. Los Angeles Times. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/660721622.html?dids=660721622:660721622&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Nov+16,+1972&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=BART+Manager+Denies+System+Was+Overcharged+by+Designers&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 

^ “BART Earthquake Safety Program”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/about/projects/earthquakesafety.asp. Retrieved 2006-05-08. 

^ Michael Cabanatuan (November 19, 2005). “Underground, but not unconnected — BART offers wireless service to riders”. San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/19/MNGF2FR6C11.DTL. Retrieved 2007-01-22. 

^ Underground cell phone coverage on BART expands, BART, July 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-18.

^ BART expands wireless access to Transbay Tube, BART, December 21, 2009. Retrieved 2009-12-21.

^ WiFi Rail Inc. to provide wifi access on BART system. BART. February 2009. http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2009/news20090202.aspx. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 

^ WiFi Rail Tube Access. KRON 4. June 2009. http://www.wifirail.net/clips/kron4.com_061809.mov. Retrieved 2009-06-18. 

^ “BART bond might make ballot in fall”. Oakland Tribunal. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=OKTB&p_theme=oktb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F99357E1F56EF7F&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ Gordon, Rachel (2007-04-11). “Head of BART plans to resign”. San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/11/BAGKMP6G331.DTL. Retrieved 2007-10-26. 

^ Cuff, Denis (2007-05-29). “BART board wants to lessen waits”. Contra Costa Times. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/35220. Retrieved 2007-10-26. 

^ “Good move by BART”. Contra Costa Times. 2007-10-01. http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_7051537. Retrieved 2007-10-26. 

^ Metz, Adam (2007-06-19). “BART’s “customer response” to Blogger Emails doesn’t answer ?’s”. The Oakland Review. http://oaklandreview.vox.com/library/post/barts-customer-response-to-blogger-emails-doesnt-answer-s.html. Retrieved 2007-10-26. 

^ “MTC — Services — Translink”. MTC Website. 2007-09-14. http://www.mtc.ca.gov/services/translink/. Retrieved 2008-01-16. 

^ “TransLink passes all BART tests, ready for summertime launch”. BART website. 2009-05-08. http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2009/news20090325.aspx. Retrieved 2010-01-31. 

^ Cabanatuan, Michael (2007-06-22). “BART’S New Vision: More, Bigger, Faster”. San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/22/MNGJQQJVSD1.DTL. Retrieved 2007-10-26. 

^ a b BART goes solar at Orinda station, by Dennis Cuff, Contra Costa Times, July 10, 2008, access date July 13, 2008

^ “BART System Facts”. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District. http://www.bart.gov/about/history/systemFacts.asp. Retrieved 2008-04-23. 

^ “BART Train length”. Google Groups: ba.transportation. July 3, 2000. http://groups.google.com/group/ba.transportation/browse_frm/thread/2b50a587214ace23/5be1c19d04ad4b06. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ Paul Garbutt (1997). “Facts and Figures”. World Metro Systems. Capital Transport. pp. 130131. ISBN 1854141910. 

^ “BART – Car types”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/about/history/cars.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART: Passenger Panic Worsened Tunnel Fire”. CBS. http://cbs5.com/local/BART.evacuation.fire.2.441245.html. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ a b Pride parade helps set BART ridership records, BART News, July 1, 2008 access date August 18, 2008

^ a b 09.09.2008 BART sets ridership record with Monday’s sports events

^ 11.01.2009 BART customers continue to set ridership records

^ a b c Pilot program approved for Segway use on BART, BART News, August 15, 2008, accessed August 18, 2008

^ “BART to run on Sunday schedule Christmas Day”. BART. December 21, 2006. http://www.bart.gov/news/press/news20061221a.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-22. 

^ “Why doesn’t BART run 24 hours?”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART – Overview”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/guide/index.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART Service Hours, Holiday Schedule”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/guide/overview/hours.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “All Nighter Bus Service”. 511 SF Bay Area Travel Guide. http://transit.511.org/providers/night.asp. Retrieved 2007-05-17. 

^ “BART Unveils Modern Fare Gates and New Ticket Vending Machines”. Business Wire. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/BART+Unveils+Modern+Fare+Gates+and+New+Ticket+Vending+Machines-a092914818. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART ticket refunds and exchanges”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/tickets/sales/refunds.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-22. [

^ Jon Carroll (December 6, 2000). “Tiny Tickets Ha Ha Ha Ha”. The San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/12/06/DD140623.DTL. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “TransLink on BART”. TransLink. http://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/bart/index.do;jsessionid=xiN0e+gtNElOU777mW-I2Q**. Retrieved 2009-12-18. 

^ Andrew F. Hamm (January 6, 2006). “TransLink program again tries to unify Bay Area transit fares”. Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/othercities/sanjose/stories/2006/01/09/story6.html. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “TransLink where can I use TransLink?”. TransLink. http://www.translink.org/whereCanIuseTranslink.do. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “Press Release: Cubic Receives $7 Million Contract to Link BART To San Francisco Bay Area’s Regional Smart Card Program”. Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc. 2004-02-24. http://www.cubic.com/cts/PressReleases/Feb24-2004.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-16. 

^ “BART Translink Transition Plan”. BART. 2009-08-12. http://apps.mtc.ca.gov/meeting_packet_documents/agenda_1342/BART_TL_Transition_Plan.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-18. 

^ “QuickPlanner >> Results between Downtown Berkeley and North Berkeley”. BART. http://bart.gov/stations/quickplanner/schedule.asp?origin=BRK&format=quick&destination=NBRK&trip_mode=undefined&time_mode=departs&depart_month=6&depart_date=12&return_page=/index.asp&depart_time=2:30+PM&new=yes&dhtml=true. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “QuickPlanner >> Results between Pittsburg/Bay Point and SFO”. BART. http://bart.gov/stations/quickplanner/schedule.asp?origin=BAYPT&format=quick&destination=SFIA&trip_mode=undefined&time_mode=departs&depart_month=12&depart_date=5&return_page=/index.asp&depart_time=2:30+PM&new=yes&dhtml=true. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “BART Ticket Types”. BART. http://bart.gov/tickets/types/types.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ (PDF) Capitol Corridor Ride Guide. The Capitol Corridor. http://www.capitolcorridor.org/included/docs/ccjpa/ride_guide.pdf. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “The Capitol Corridor: BART Connections”. The Capitol Corridor. http://www.capitolcorridor.org/schedules/transit_connections/BART_connections.php. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ (PDF) Short range transit plan & capital improvement program (FY06 through FY15). BART. November 2005. http://www.bart.gov/docs/Draft_FY06_SRTP_CIP.pdf. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “Today free lecture: fare idea falls flat”. Inside Bay Area. September 19, 2006. http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/09/19/todays-free-lecture-fare-idea-falls-flat. Retrieved 2007-01-22. 

^ “Dumbarton Rail Corridor”. San Mateo County Transit Authority. http://www.smcta.com/Dumbarton_Rail/information.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “BART again selected as managing agency for Capitol Corridor”. BART. February 28, 2005. http://www.bart.gov/news/press/news20050228.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “Long-Term Parking for Travelers”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/guide/parking/longterm.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “Bart Express Connecting Bus Service”. ALL-Transit.com. http://www.all-transit.com/rosters/bart-r-2.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “BART Board Acts On Oakland Airport Connector”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2009/news20090427.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “Myths, gods, and titanic disasters: How servers really get their names”. IT World. http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/63716/myths-gods-and-titanic-disasters-how-servers-really-get-their-names?page=0,3. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART Police”. BART. http://www.bart.gov/about/police/. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART’s Livermore role reviewed”. Contra Costa Times. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CC&s_site=contracostatimes&p_multi=CC&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=1064A15771213A81&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART parking overview”. BART. http://bart.gov/guide/parking/overview.asp. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ (PDF) BART 2005 Annual Report. http://www.bart.gov/docs/AR2005.pdf.  (TXT) BART 2005 Annual Report. BART.gov. http://www.bart.gov/docs/AR2005.txt. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 

^ “”Why can’t the trains be longer?” Some background to explain”. BART. 2008-09-25. http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2008/news20080924a.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “FY08 Short Range Transit Plan and Capital Improvement Program” (PDF). BART. September 2007. http://www.bart.gov/docs/FINAL_FY08_SRTP_CIP.pdf. Retrieved 2007-11-11. 

^ “BART Car ills”. San Jose Mercury News. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SJ&s_site=mercurynews&p_multi=SJ&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB731C25CCAA9D1&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “BART Renovation Program Nearing Completion”. Business Wire. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-26087660_ITM. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ Westcode

^ W. S. Homburger. “The impact of a new rapid transit system on traffic on parallel highway facilities”. 1029-0354, Volume 4, Issue 3 (Transportation Planning and Technology). http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface?content=a773502237&rt=0&format=pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-24. 

^ “Glossary of Transit Terminology”. American Public Transportation Association. http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/glossary.cfm. Retrieved 2008-02-27. 

^ “Passenger Rail Issues”. East Bay Bicycle Coalition. http://www.ebbc.org/rail/sjx.html. Retrieved 2007-01-22. 

^ “Rapid transit”. Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rapid transit. Retrieved 2008-02-27. ; “Metro”. International Association of Public Transport. http://www.uitp.org/Public-Transport/metro/index.cfm. Retrieved 2008-02-27. 

^ “BART plans on $3.4B for new cars”. ABC News. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=resources/traffic&id=6800819. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “Official BART information on new car purchase project”. BART. http://bart.gov/about/projects/cars/index.aspx. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

^ “Green Beat: BART Cars To Receive Overdue Upgrade”. CBS. http://cbs5.com/environment/bart.future.upgrade.2.774054.html. Retrieved 2009-08-21. 

^ “BART opens bids on project, moves a step closer to Silicon Valley”. Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2009/03/09/newscolumn1.html?b=1236571200^1789847. Retrieved 2009-08-23. 

References

BART: a study of problems of rail transit. California. Legislature. Assembly. Committee on Transportation. 1973. 

Richard Grefe (1976). A history of the key decisions in the development of Bay Area Rapid Transit. National Technical Information Service. 

E. Gareth Hoachlander (1976). Bay Area Rapid Transit: who pays and who benefits?. University of California. 

Further reading

Owen, Wilfred (1966). The metropolitan transportation problem. Anchor Books. 

Cervero, Robert (1998). The transit metropolis: a global inquiry. Island Press. ISBN 1559635916. 

University of California (1966). The San Francisco Bay area: its problems and future, Volume 2. University of California. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: BART

BART – official website

Engineering Geology of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) System, 1964-75

BART Map/Schedule Map/Schedule using Google Maps API

BART widget, a self-contained trip planner for Mac OS X Dashboard

BARTsmart Another BART Widget, featuring BART schedules and news

Map of BART and rail network in simplified diagrammatic, rather than geographically accurate

iSubwayMaps.com iPod, alternative predating official BART offering (map only)

Typographica BART Wayfinding October 8, 2005 article about typography of BART signage

Shuttles serving BART stations at 511.org

Pictures of BART on world.nycsubway.org

Network map (real-distance)

 

Links to related articles

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Board of Directors

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I have some old vinyl (about 10) records. Where can i find a pricing guide that wont cost me?

William Blake

Early life

The archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in Blake’s work. Here, the demiurgic figure Urizen prays before the world he has forged. The Song of Los is the third in a series of illuminated books painted by Blake and his wife, collectively known as the Continental Prophecies.

William Blake was born in 28 Broad Street, London, England on 28 November 1757, to a middle-class family. He was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake’s father, James, was a hosier. William never attended school, and was educated at home by his mother Catherine Wright Armitage Blake. The Blakes were Dissenters, and are believed to have belonged to the Moravian Church. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life.

Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, a practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Marten Heemskerk and Albrecht Drer. His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson and Edmund Spenser.

Apprenticeship to Basire

On 4 August 1772, Blake became apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, for the term of seven years. At the end of this period, at the age of 21, he was to become a professional engraver. No record survives of any serious disagreement or conflict between the two during the period of Blake’s apprenticeship. However, Peter Ackroyd’s biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire’s name to a list of artistic adversariesnd then cross it out. This aside, Basire’s style of engraving was of a kind held to be old-fashioned at the time, and Blake’s instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life.

After two years Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (it is possible that this task was set in order to break up a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice), and his experiences in Westminster Abbey contributed to the formation of his artistic style and ideas; the Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Ackroyd notes that “the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour”. In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally interrupted by the boys of Westminster School, one of whom “tormented” Blake so much one afternoon that he knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, “upon which he fell with terrific Violence”. Blake beheld more visions in the Abbey, of a great procession of monks and priests, while he heard “the chant of plain-song and chorale”.

The Royal Academy

On 8 October 1779, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens, championed by the school’s first president, Joshua Reynolds. Over time, Blake came to detest Reynolds’ attitude towards art, especially his pursuit of “general truth” and “general beauty”. Reynolds wrote in his Discourses that the “disposition to abstractions, to generalizing and classification, is the great glory of the human mind”; Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that “To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit”. Blake also disliked Reynolds’ apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynolds’ fashionable oil painting, Blake preferred the Classical precision of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Gordon Riots

Blake’s first biographer Alexander Gilchrist records that in June 1780, Blake was walking towards Basire’s shop in Great Queen Street when he was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison in London. They attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front rank of the mob during this attack. These riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, later came to be known as the Gordon Riots. They provoked a flurry of legislation from the government of George III, as well as the creation of the first police force.

Despite Gilchrist’s insistence that Blake was “forced” to accompany the crowd, some biographers have argued that he accompanied it impulsively, or supported it as a revolutionary act. In contrast, Jerome McGann argues that the riots were reactionary, and that events would have provoked “disgust” in Blake.

Marriage and early career

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)

In 1782, Blake met John Flaxman, who was to become his patron, and Catherine Boucher, who was to become his wife. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine, “Do you pity me?” When she responded affirmatively, he declared, “Then I love you.” Blake married Catherine who was five years his junior on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary’s Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an ‘X’. The original wedding certificate may still be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.

At this time George Cumberland, one of the founders of the National Gallery, became an admirer of Blake’s work. Blake’s first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published circa 1783 . After his father’s death, William and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Johnson’s house was a meeting-place for some of the leading English intellectual dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley, philosopher Richard Price, artist John Henry Fuseli early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and American revolutionary Thomas Paine. Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin, Blake had great hopes for the French and American revolutions and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in France. In 1784 Blake also composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon.

Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (1788; 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. They seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and the institution of marriage, but there is no evidence proving without doubt that they actually met. In 1793′s Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfillment.

Relief etching

In 1788, at the age of 31, Blake began to experiment with relief etching, a method he would use to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and, of course, his poems, including his longer ‘prophecies’ and his masterpiece the “Bible.” The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid in order to dissolve away the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name).

This is a reversal of the normal method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching, which Blake invented, later became an important commercial printing method. The pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-coloured in water colours and stitched together to make up a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem.

Engravings

A study in 2005 of Blake’s surviving plates showed that he made frequent use of a technique known as “repoussage” which is a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. This discovery puts strain on Blake’s own assessment of his abilities as well of those of admirers and may also help to explain why some of Blake’s work took so long to complete.

Later life and career

Blake’s marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. Blake taught Catherine to write, and she helped him to colour his printed poems. Gilchrist refers to “stormy times” in the early years of the marriage. Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society, but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture. William and Catherine’s first daughter and last child might be Thel described in The Book of Thel who was conceived as dead.

Felpham

Hecate, 1795. Blake’s vision of Hecate, Greek goddess of black magic and the underworld

In 1800, Blake moved to a cottage at Felpham in Sussex (now West Sussex) to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley, a minor poet. It was in this cottage that Blake wrote Milton: a Poem (published between 1805 and 1808). The preface to this work includes a poem beginning “And did those feet in ancient time”, which became the words for the anthem, “Jerusalem”. Over time, Blake came to resent his new patron, coming to believe that Hayley was uninterested in true artistry, and preoccupied with “the meer drudgery of business”. Blake’s disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem, in which Blake wrote that “Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies” (3:26).

Blake’s trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier called John Schofield. Blake was charged not only with assault, but also with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed, “Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves.” Blake would be cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. According to a report in the Sussex county paper, “The invented character of [the evidence] was … so obvious that an acquittal resulted.” Schofield was later depicted wearing “mind forged manacles” in an illustration to Jerusalem.

Return to London

Blake’s The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805) is one of a series of illustrations of Revelation 12.

Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (18041820), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Blake approached the dealer Robert Cromek, with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing that Blake was too eccentric to produce a popular work, Cromek promptly commissioned Thomas Stothard, a friend of Blake’s, to execute the concept. When Blake learned that he had been cheated, he broke off contact with Stothard. He also set up an independent exhibition in his brother’s haberdashery shop at 27 Broad Street in the Soho district of London. The exhibition was designed to market his own version of the Canterbury illustration (titled The Canterbury Pilgrims), along with other works. As a result he wrote his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt has called a “brilliant analysis” of Chaucer. It is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism. It also contained detailed explanations of his other paintings.

The exhibition itself, however, was very poorly attended, selling none of the temperas or watercolours. Its only review, in The Examiner, was hostile.

He was introduced by George Cumberland to a young artist named John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer, who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the Shoreham Ancients. This group shared Blake’s rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. At the age of 65 Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job. These works were later admired by Ruskin, who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt, and by Vaughan Williams, who based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on a selection of the illustrations.

Later in his life Blake began to sell a great number of his works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts, a patron who saw Blake more as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions held of Blake throughout his life.

Dante’s Divine Comedy

The commission for Dante’s Divine Comedy came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the ultimate aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake’s death in 1827 would cut short the enterprise, and only a handful of the watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have evoked praise:

‘[T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake’s richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating the atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem’.

Blake’s The Lovers’ Whirlwind illustrates Hell in Canto V of Dante’s Inferno

Blake’s illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text.

Because the project was never completed, Blake’s intent may itself be obscured. Some indicators, however, bolster the impression that Blake’s illustrations in their totality would themselves take issue with the text they accompany: In the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions, Blake notes, “Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost.” Blake seems to dissent from Dante’s admiration of the poetic works of the ancient Greeks, and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by the grim humour of the cantos).

At the same time, Blake shared Dante’s distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante’s work pictorially. Even as he seemed to near death, Blake’s central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante’s Inferno; he is said to have spent one of the very last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.

Death

Monument near Blake’s unmarked grave in London

On the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, “Stay Kate! Keep just as you are I will draw your portrait for you have ever been an angel to me.” Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the same house, present at his expiration, said, “I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.”

George Richmond gives the following account of Blake’s death in a letter to Samuel Palmer:

He died … in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten’d and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.

Catherine paid for Blake’s funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. He was buried five days after his death on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary at the Dissenter’s burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Tatham and John Linnell. Following Blake’s death, Catherine moved into Tatham’s house as a housekeeper. During this period, she believed she was regularly visited by Blake’s spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first “consulting Mr. Blake”. On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him “as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now”.

On her death, Blake’s manuscripts were inherited by Frederick Tatham, who burned several of those which he deemed heretical or too politically radical. Tatham had become an Irvingite, one of the many fundamentalist movements of the 19th century, and was severely opposed to any work that “smacked of blasphemy”. Sexual imagery in a number of Blake’s drawings was also erased by John Linnell.

Since 1965, the exact location of William Blake’s grave had been lost and forgotten, while gravestones were taken away to create a new lawn. Nowadays, Blake grave is commemorated by a stone that reads “Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757-1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762-1831″. This memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres away from the actual spot of Blake grave, which is not marked. However, members of the group Friends of William Blake have rediscovered the location of Blake’s grave and intend to place a permanent memorial at the site.

Blake is now recognised as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949. In 1957 a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey, in memory of him and his wife.

Development of Blake’s Views

Because Blake’s later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work has been less published than his earlier more accessible work. The recent Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith focuses heavily on the earlier work, as do many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham.

The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character, and can be seen as a protestation against dogmatic religion. This is especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which Satan is virtually the hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In the later works such as Milton and Jerusalem, Blake carves a distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgiveness, while retaining his earlier negative attitude towards the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake’s earlier and later works.

Psychoanalyst June Singer has written that Blake’s late work displayed a development of the ideas that were first introduced in his earlier works, namely, the humanitarian goal of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit. The final section of the expanded edition of her Blake study The Unholy Bible suggests that the later works are in fact the “Bible of Hell” promised in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Regarding Blake’s final poem “Jerusalem”, she writes:

[T]he promise of the divine in man, made in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, is at last fulfilled.

However, John Middleton Murry notes discontinuity between Marriage and the late works, in that while the early Blake focused on a “sheer negative opposition between Energy and Reason”, the later Blake emphasized the notions of self-sacrifice and forgiveness as the road to interior wholeness. This renunciation of the sharper dualism of Marriage of Heaven and Hell is evidenced in particular by the humanization of the character of Urizen in the later works. Middleton characterizes the later Blake as having found “mutual understanding” and “mutual forgiveness”.

Religious views

Blake’s Ancient of Days. The “Ancient of Days” is described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel.

Although Blake’s attacks on conventional religion were shocking in his own day, his rejection of religiosity was not a rejection of religion per se. His view of orthodoxy is evident in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a series of texts written in imitation of Biblical prophecy. Therein, Blake lists several Proverbs of Hell, amongst which are the following:

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

In The Everlasting Gospel, Blake does not present Jesus as a philosopher or traditional messianic figure but as a supremely creative being, above dogma, logic and even morality:

If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,

He’d have done anything to please us:

Gone sneaking into the Synagogues

And not used the Elders & Priests like Dogs,

But humble as a Lamb or an Ass,

Obey himself to Caiaphas.

God wants not man to humble himself

Jesus, for Blake, symbolises the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity: “[A]ll had originally one language and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus.”

Blake designed his own mythology, which appears largely in his prophetic books. Within these Blake describes a number of characters, including ‘Urizen’, ‘Enitharmon’, ‘Bromion’ and ‘Luvah’. This mythology seems to have a basis in the Bible and in Greek mythology, and it accompanies his ideas about the everlasting Gospel.

“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.”

Words uttered by Los in Blake’s Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion.

One of Blake’s strongest objections to orthodox Christianity is that he felt it encouraged the suppression of natural desires and discouraged earthly joy. In A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake says that:

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern’d their Passions or have No Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion, but Realities of Intellect, from which all the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory.

One may also note his words concerning religion in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.

2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.

3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, c. 1825. Watercolour on wood.

Blake does not subscribe to the notion of a distinct body from the soul, and which must submit to the rule of soul, but rather sees body as an extension of soul derived from the ‘discernment’ of the senses. Thus, the emphasis orthodoxy places upon the denial of bodily urges is a dualistic error born of misapprehension of the relationship between body and soul; elsewhere, he describes Satan as the ‘State of Error’, and as being beyond salvation.

Blake opposed the sophistry of theological thought that excuses pain, admits evil and apologises for injustice. He abhorred self-denial, which he associated with religious repression and particularly with sexual repression: “Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. / He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.” He saw the concept of ‘sin’ as a trap to bind men desires (the briars of Garden of Love), and believed that restraint in obedience to a moral code imposed from the outside was against the spirit of life:

Abstinence sows sand all over

The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,

But Desire Gratified

Plants fruits & beauty there.

He did not hold with the doctrine of God as Lord, an entity separate from and superior to mankind; this is shown clearly in his words about Jesus Christ: “He is the only God … and so am I, and so are you.” A telling phrase in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is “men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast”. This is very much in line with his belief in liberty and equality in society and between the sexes.

Blake and Enlightenment Philosophy

Blake had a complex relationship with Enlightenment philosophy. Due to his visionary religious beliefs, Blake opposed the Newtonian view of the universe. This mindset is reflected in an excerpt from Blake’s Jerusalem:

Blake’s Newton (1795) demonstrates his opposition to the “single-vision” of scientific materialism: Newton fixes his eye on a compass (recalling Proverbs 8:27, an important passage for Milton) to write upon a scroll which seems to project from his own head.

I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe

And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden: which Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.

Blake also believed that the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which depict the naturalistic fall of light upon objects, were products entirely of the “vegetative eye”, and he saw Locke and Newton as “the true progenitors of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ aesthetic”. The popular taste in the England of that time for such paintings was satisfied with mezzotints, prints produced by a process that created an image from thousands of tiny dots upon the page. Blake saw an analogy between this and Newton’s particle theory of light. Accordingly, Blake never used the technique, opting rather to develop a method of engraving purely in fluid line, insisting that

a Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its

Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job.

Despite his opposition to Enlightenment principles, Blake thus arrived at a linear aesthetic that was in many ways more similar to the Neoclassical engravings of John Flaxman than to the works of the Romantics, with whom he is often classified.

Therefore Blake has also been viewed as an enlightenment poet and artist, in the sense that he was in accord with that movement’s rejection of received ideas, systems, authorities and traditions. On the other hand, he was critical of what he perceived as the elevation of reason to the status of an oppressive authority. In his criticism of reason, law and uniformity Blake has been taken to be opposed to the enlightenment, but it has also been argued that, in a dialectical sense, he used the enlightenment spirit of rejection of external authority to criticize narrow conceptions of the enlightenment.

Assessment

Creative mindset

Northrop Frye, commenting on Blake’s consistency in strongly held views, notes that Blake “himself says that his notes on [Joshua] Reynolds, written at fifty, are ‘exactly Similar’ to those on Locke and Bacon, written when he was ‘very Young’. Even phrases and lines of verse will reappear as much as forty years later. Consistency in maintaining what he believed to be true was itself one of his leading principles … Consistency, then, foolish or otherwise, is one of Blake’s chief preoccupations, just as ‘self-contradiction’ is always one of his most contemptuous comments”.

Blake’s “A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows”, an illustration to J. G. Stedman’s Narrative, of a Five Years’ Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).

Blake abhorred slavery and believed in racial and sexual equality. Several of his poems and paintings express a notion of universal humanity: “As all men are alike (tho’ infinitely various)”. In one poem, narrated by a black child, white and black bodies alike are described as shaded groves or clouds, which exist only until one learns “to bear the beams of love”:

When I from black, and he from white cloud free,

And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear

To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;

And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,

And be like him, and he will then love me.

In one poem, The Book of Thel, Blake questioned the necessity of life which is believed to be an elegy to his dead newborn daughter.

‘O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?

Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile & fall?

Blake retained an active interest in social and political events for all his life, and social and political statements are often present in his mystical symbolism. His views on what he saw as oppression and restriction of rightful freedom extended to the Church. His spiritual beliefs are evidenced in Songs of Experience (1794), in which he distinguishes between the Old Testament God, whose restrictions he rejected, and the New Testament God (Jesus Christ in Trinitarianism), whom he saw as a positive influence.

Visions

From a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The first of these visions may have occurred as early as the age of four when, according to one anecdote, the young artist “saw God” when God “put his head to the window”, causing Blake to break into screaming. At the age of eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, Blake claimed to have seen “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” According to Blake’s Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home and reported this vision, and he only escaped being thrashed by his father for telling a lie through the intervention of his mother. Though all evidence suggests that his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially so, and several of Blake’s early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber. On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them.

The Ghost of a Flea, 1819-1820. Having informed painter-astrologer John Varley of his visions of apparitions, Blake was subsequently persuaded to paint one of them. Varley’s anecdote of Blake and his vision of the flea’s ghost became well-known.

Blake claimed to experience visions throughout his life. They were often associated with beautiful religious themes and imagery, and therefore may have inspired him further with spiritual works and pursuits. Certainly, religious concepts and imagery figure centrally in Blake’s works. God and Christianity constituted the intellectual centre of his writings, from which he drew inspiration. In addition, Blake believed that he was personally instructed and encouraged by Archangels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by those same Archangels. In a letter to William Hayley, dated May 6, 1800, Blake writes:

I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate.

In a letter to John Flaxman, dated September 21, 1800, Blake writes:

[The town of] Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their forms more distinctly seen; & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses. My Wife & Sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace… I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my Brain are studies & Chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; & those works are the delight & Study of Archangels.

In a letter to Thomas Butts, dated April 25, 1803, Blake writes:

Now I may say to you, what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else: That I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoy’d, & that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams & prophecy & speak Parables unobserv’d & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals; perhaps Doubts proceeding from Kindness, but Doubts are always pernicious, Especially when we Doubt our Friends.

In A Vision of the Last Judgement Blake writes:

Error is Created. Truth is Eternal. Error, or Creation, will be Burned up, & then, & not till Then, Truth or Eternity will appear. It is Burnt up the Moment Men cease to behold it. I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the Dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. “What,” it will be Question’d, “When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?” Oh no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty.’ I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning Sight. I look thro’ it & not with it.

William Wordsworth remarked, “There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.”

D.C.Williams (1899-1983) said that Blake was a romantic with a critical view on the world, he maintained that Blake’s Songs of Innocence were made as a view of an ideal, somewhat Utopian view whereas he used the Songs of Experience in order to show the suffering and loss posed by the nature of society and the world of his time.

General cultural influence

Main article: William Blake in popular culture

Blake’s work was neglected for almost a century after his death, but his reputation gained momentum in the 20th century, both from being rehabilitated by critics such as John Middleton Murry and Northrop Frye, but also due to an increasing number of classical composers such as Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams adapting his works.

Many such as June Singer have argued that Blake’s thoughts on human nature greatly anticipate and parallel the thinking of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, although Jung dismissed Blake’s works as “an artistic production rather than an authentic representation of unconscious processes.”

Blake had an enormous influence on the beat poets of the 1950s and the counterculture of the 1960s, frequently being cited by such seminal figures as beat poet Allen Ginsberg and songwriter Bob Dylan. Much of the central ideas from Phillip Pullman’s famous fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are rooted in the world of Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

In wider culture Blake’s poetry has been set to music by popular composers. It has been especially popular with musicians since the 1960s. Blake’s engravings have also had significant influence on the modern graphic novel.

Bibliography

Illuminated books

William Blake’s portrait in profile, from Songs of Innocence and Experience, published 1794

c.1788: All Religions Are One

There Is No Natural Religion

1789: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

The Book of Thel

17901793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

1793-1795: Continental prophecies

1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion

America a Prophecy

1794: Europe a Prophecy

The First Book of Urizen

Songs of Experience

1795: The Book of Los

The Song of Los

The Book of Ahania

c.1804.1811: Milton a Poem

18041820: Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion

Non-Illuminated

1783: Poetical Sketches

1784-5: An Island in the Moon

1789: Tiriel

1791: The French Revolution

1797: The Four Zoas

Illustrated by Blake

1791: Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life

1797: Edward Young, Night Thoughts

1805-1808: Robert Blair, The Grave

1808: John Milton, Paradise Lost

1819-1820: John Varley, Visionary Heads

1821: R.J. Thornton, Virgil

1823-1826: The Book of Job

1825-1827: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Blake died in 1827 with these watercolours still unfinished)

On Blake

Peter Ackroyd (1995). Blake. Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-278-4.

Donald Ault (1974). Visionary Physics: Blake’s Response to Newton. University of Chicago. ISBN 0-226-03225-6.

(1987). Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake’s The Four Zoas. Station Hill Press. ISBN 1886449759.

G.E. Bentley Jr. (2001). The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08939-2.

Harold Bloom (1963). Blake Apocalypse. Doubleday.

Jacob Bronowski (1972). William Blake and the Age of Revolution. Routledge and K. Paul. ISBN 0-7100-7277-5 (hardcover) ISBN 0-7100-7278-3 (pbk.)

(1967). William Blake, 1757-1827; a man without a mask. Haskell House Publishers.

G. K. Chesterton (1920s). William Blake. House of Stratus ISBN 0-7551-0032-8.

S. Foster Damon (1979). A Blake Dictionary. Shambhala. ISBN 0-394-73688-5.

David V. Erdman (1977). Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet’s Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-486-26719-9.

Irving Fiske (1951). “Bernard Shaw’s Debt to William Blake.” (Shaw Society)

Northrop Frye (1947). Fearful Symmetry. Princeton Univ Press. ISBN 0-691-06165-3.

Alexander Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake, (second edition, London, 1880) (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781108013697)

James King (1991). William Blake: His Life. St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0-312-07572-3.

Benjamin Heath Malkin (1806). A Father’s Memoirs of his Child.

Peter Marshall (1988). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist ISBN 0-900384-77-8

Blake, William, William Blake’s Works in Conventional Typography, ed. by G. E. Bentley, Jr., 1984. Facsimile ed., Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 9780820113883.

W.J.T. Mitchell (1978). Blake’s Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-691-01402-7.

Victor N. Paananen (1996). William Blake. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7053-4.

George Anthony Rosso Jr. (1993). Blake’s Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8387-5240-3.

G. R. Sabri-Tabrizi (1973). The eaven and ell of William Blake, (New York, International Publishers)

June Singer, The Unholy Bible: Blake, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious (SIGO Press, 1986)

Sheila A. Spector (2001). “Wonders Divine”: the development of Blake’s Kabbalistic myth, (Bucknell UP)

Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Blake: A Critical Essay, (London, 1868)

E.P. Thompson (1993). Witness Against the Beast. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22515-9.

W. M. Rossetti (editor), The Poetical Works of William Blake, (London, 1874)

A. G. B. Russell (1912). Engravings of William Blake.

Basil de Slincourt, William Blake, (London, 1909)

Joseph Viscomi (1993). Blake and the Idea of the Book, (Princeton UP). ISBN 0-691-06962-X.

David Weir (2003). Brahma in the West: William Blake and the Oriental Renaissance, (SUNY Press)

Jason Whittaker (1999). William Blake and the Myths of Britain, (Macmillan)

William Butler Yeats (1903). Ideas of Good and Evil. Contains essays.

References

^ Frye, Northrop and Denham, Robert D. Collected Works of Northrop Frye. 2006, pp 11-12.

^ Jones, Jonathan (2005-04-25). “Blake’s heaven”. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,1469584,00.html. 

^ Thomas, Edward. A Literary Pilgrim in England. 1917, p. 3.

^ Yeats, W. B. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. 2007, p. 85.

^ Wilson, Mona. The Life of William Blake. The Nonesuch Press, 1927. p.167.

^ The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge. 2004, p. 351.

^ Blake, William. Blake’s “America, a Prophecy” ; And, “Europe, a Prophecy”. 1984, p. 2.

^ Kazin, Alfred (1997). “An Introduction to William Blake”. http://www.multimedialibrary.com/Articles/kazin/alfredblake.asp. Retrieved 2006-09-23. 

^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, p. xi.

^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, p. xiii.

^ Marshall, Peter (January 1, 1994). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist (Revised Edition ed.). Freedom Press. ISBN 0900384778. 

^ poets.org/William Blake, retrieved online June 13, 2008

^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 34-5.

^ a b Raine, Kathleen (1970). World of Art: William Blake. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20107-2. 

^ 43, Blake, Peter Ackroyd, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995

^ Blake, William. The Poems of William Blake. 1893, page xix.

^ 44, Blake, Ackroyd

^ Blake, William and Tatham, Frederick. The Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life. 1906, page 7.

^ Erdman, David V. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (2nd edition ed.). p. 641. ISBN 0-385-15213-2. 

^ Gilchrist, A, The Life of William Blake, London, 1842, p. 30

^ Erdman, David, Prophet Against Empire, p. 9

^ McGann, J. “Did Blake Betray the French Revolution”, Presenting Poetry: Composition, Publication, Reception, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.128

^ “St. Mary’s Church Parish website”. http://home.clara.net/pkennington/VirtualTour/windows_modern.htm#Blake. “St Mary’s Modern Stained Glass” 

^ Reproduction of 1783 edition: Tate Publishing, London, ISBN 978 185437 768 5

^ Biographies of William Blake and Henry Fuseli, retrieved on May 31st 2007.

^ Kennedy, Mave, Art historian dents image of William Blake, engraver – 2005-4-18. Retrieved 2009-7-6.

^ Bentley, G. E, Blake Records, p 341

^ Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, 1863, p. 316

^ Schuchard, MK, Why Mrs Blake Cried, Century, 2006, p. 3

^ Ackroyd, Peter, Blake, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995, p. 82

^ Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary

^ a b Blake, William. Milton a Poem, and the Final Illuminated Works. 1998, page 14-5.

^ Wright, Thomas. Life of William Blake. 2003, page 131.

^ The Gothic Life of William Blake: 1757-1827

^ Lucas, E.V. (1904). Highways and byways in Sussex. Macmillan. ASIN B-0008-5GBS-C. 

^ Peterfreund, Stuart, The Din of the City in Blake’s Prophetic Books, ELH – Volume 64, Number 1, Spring 1997, pp. 99-130

^ Blunt, Anthony, The Art of William Blake, p 77

^ Peter Ackroyd, “Genius spurned: Blake’s doomed exhibition is back”, The Times Saturday Review, 4 April 2009

^ Bindman, David. “Blake as a Painter” in The Cambridge Companion to William Blake, Morris Eaves (ed.), Cambridge, 2003, p. 106

^ Blake Records, p. 341

^ Ackroyd, Blake, 389

^ Gilchrist, The Life of William Blake, London, 1863, 405

^ Grigson, Samuel Palmer, p. 38

^ Ackroyd, Blake, 390

^ Blake Records, p. 410

^ Ackroyd, Blake, p. 391

^ Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision, pp. 1-20

^ “Friends of Blake homepage”. Friends of Blake. http://www.friendsofblake.org/home.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-31. 

^ “Coming up – William Blake”. BBC Inside Out. 2007-02-09. http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/london/series11/week5_healthy_living_working.shtml. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 

^ Tate UK. “William Blake’s London”. http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/learnonline/blakeinteractive/lambeth/london_05.html. Retrieved 2006-08-26. 

^ The Unholy Bible, June Singer, p. 229.

^ William Blake, Murry, p. 168.

^ “a personal mythology parallel to the Old Testament and Greek mythology”; Bonnefoy, Yves. Roman and European Mythologies. 1992, page 265.

^ Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary (Revised Edition). Brown University Press. p. 358. ISBN 0874514363. 

^ Makdisi, Saree. William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s. 2003, page 226-7.

^ Altizer, Thomas J.J. The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake. 2000, page 18.

^ Blake, William. Proverbs of Hell, via The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. 1982, page 35.

^ Blake, Gerald Eades Bentley (1975). William Blake: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & K. Paul. p. 30. ISBN 0710082347. 

^ Baker-Smith, Dominic. Between Dream and Nature: Essays on Utopia and Dystopia. 1987, page 163.

^ Kaiser, Christopher B. Creational Theology and the History of Physical Science. 1997, page 328.

^ Jerusalem Plate 15, lines 14-20 Complete Works of William Blake Online

^ *Ackroyd, Peter (1995). Blake. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. p. 285. ISBN 1-85619-278-4. 

^ Essick, Robert N. (1980). William Blake, Printmaker. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 248. 

^ Letter to George Cumberland, 12 April 1827 Complete Works of William Blake Online Blake is referring to his Illustrations of the Book of Job, often considered his artistic masterpiece.

^ Colebrook, C. Blake 1: The Enlightenment William Blake Retrieved on October 1st 2008

^ Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, 1947, Princeton University Press

^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, page 81-2.

^ A Blake Dictionary, Samuel Foster Damon

^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 36-7.

^ a b Langridge, Irene. William Blake: A Study of His Life and Art Work. 1904, page 48-9.

^ Blake, William. Complete Writings with Variant Readings. 1969, page 617.

^ John Ezard (2004-07-06). “Blake’s vision on show”. The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1254856,00.html#article_continue. Retrieved 2008-03-24. 

^ Letter to Nanavutty, 11 Nov 1948, quoted by Hiles, David. Jung, William Blake and our answer to Job 2001. http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/pdf’s/Microsoft Word – Jung paper.web.pdf, retrieved 13 December 2009

Secondary sources

External links

Poems by William Blake at Poetry Archive

William Blake on BBC Poetry Season

Works by or about William Blake in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Works by William Blake at Project Gutenberg

An Archive of an Exhibit of his Work at the National Gallery of Victoria

Ch’an Buddhism and the Prophetic Poems of William Blake

Contents, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake edited by David V. Erdman

See Blake’s notebook online using the British Library’s Turning the Pages system (requires Shockwave).

Tate’s online resource on William Blake with notes for teachers

The recent re-discovery of the location of William Blake’s grave

www.William-Blake.org 128 works by William Blake

The William Blake Archive, a hypermedia archive sponsored by the Library of Congress and supported by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The William Blake Archive’s searchable edition of Erdman’s The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake

William Blake and Visual Culture: A special issue of the journal ImageText

William Blake Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Free scores by William Blake in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Index entry for William Blake at Poet’s Corner

Archive of William Blake exhibit, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

v  d  e

Romanticism

Culture

Bohemianism  Ossian  Romantic nationalism  Wallenrodism

Literature

Almeida Garrett  Andersen  Blake  Bryant  Burns  Byron  Chateaubriand  Coleridge  Cooper  Eichendorff  Espronceda  Foscolo  Goethe  Grimm Brothers  Hawthorne  Heine  Hoffmann  Hlderlin  Hugo  Irving  Jean Paul  Keats  Kleist  Krasiski  Lamartine  Larra  Leopardi  Lermontov  Malczewski  Manzoni  Mickiewicz  Musset  Nerval  Norwid  Novalis  Oehlenschlger  Poe  Pushkin  Schiller  Scott  M. Shelley  P.B. Shelley  Shevchenko  Sowacki  Madame de Stal  Stendhal  Tieck  Wordsworth  Zhukovsky  Zorilla

Music

Alkan  Auber  Beethoven  Bellini  Berlioz  Berwald  Chopin  Flicien David  Ferdinand David  Donizetti  Field  Franck  Glinka  Halvy  Kalkbrenner  Liszt  Loewe  Marschner  Mhul  Mendelssohn  Meyerbeer  Moscheles  Paganini  Rossini  Schubert  Schumann  Thalberg  Verdi  Wagner  Weber

Philosophy and aesthetics

Coleridge  Feuerbach  Fichte  Goethe  Mller  Schiller  A. Schlegel  F. Schlegel  Schleiermacher  Tieck  Wackenroder

Art

Blake  Briullov  Constable  Corot  Dahl  Delacroix  Dsseldorf School  Friedrich  Fuseli  Gricault  Goya  Hudson River School  Leutze  Martin  Michaowski   Nazarene movement  Palmer  Runge  Turner  Ward  Wiertz

Architecture

Gothic Revival  National Romantic style

  Age of Enlightenment

Realism  

v  d  e

William Blake

 

Literary works

Early writings

Poetical Sketches   An Island in the Moon

Songs of Innocence

and Experience

Unique to

Songs of Innocence

Introduction   The Shepherd   The Ecchoing Green   The Little Black Boy   The Blossom  Laughing Song   A Cradle Song   Night   Spring  A Dream   On Anothers Sorrow

Unique to

Songs of Experience

Introduction   Earth’s Answer   The Clod and the Pebble   The Sick Rose   The Fly   The Angel   My Pretty Rose Tree   Ah! Sun-Flower   The Lilly   The Garden of Love   The Little Vagabond   London   A Poison Tree   A Little Girl Lost   To Tirzah   The School Boy   The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Paired poems

Nurse’s Song   Infant Joy   The Lamb  Holy Thursday   Holy Thursday   The Chimney Sweeper   The Little Boy lost   The Little Boy Found   The Divine Image  The Little Girl Lost   The Little Girl Found  The Tyger   The Human Abstract   Infant Sorrow

Prophetic

Books

The continental

prophecies

Europe a Prophecy   America a Prophecy   The Song of Los

Other

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell  The Book of Thel  The Book of Ahania  The Book of Urizen  Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion  Milton a Poem   The Book of Los   The Four Zoas   Visions of the Daughters of Albion   The French Revolution

The Pickering

Manuscript

Auguries of Innocence   The Mental Traveler   The Crystal Cabinet

 

Mythology

Ahania   Albion   Bromion  Enion   Enitharmon  Fuzon  Grodna   Har  Hela  Leutha   Los  Luvah   Orc   Spectre  Tharmas  Thiriel  Tiriel   Urizen  Urthona  Utha  Vala

 

Art

Paintings and prints

Relief etching  Nebuchadnezzar  Descriptive Catalogue  The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne  The Ghost of a Flea  The Great Red Dragon Paintings  Illustrations of Paradise Lost   Illustrations of the Book of Job  Illustrations of The Divine Comedy   The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides   Illustrations of On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity   A Vision of the Last Judgment   Newton   Original Stories from Real Life   The Ancient of Days
The Ancients

Samuel Palmer  Edward Calvert  Frederick Tatham  George Richmond  John Linnell

 

Criticism and scholarship

Scholars and critics

Peter Ackroyd  Donald Ault  Harold Bloom  S. Foster Damon  David V. Erdman  Northrop Frye  Alexander Gilchrist  Geoffrey Keynes  E. P. Thompson

Scholarly works

Life of William Blake  Fearful Symmetry  Blake: Prophet Against Empire  Witness Against the Beast

 

Wikimedia

 Blake at Wiktionary    Blake at Wikibooks    Blake at Wikiquote    Blake at Wikisource    Blake at Commons    Blake at Wikinews

Persondata

NAME

Blake, William

ALTERNATIVE NAMES

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Poet, Painter, Printmaker

DATE OF BIRTH

28 November 1757

PLACE OF BIRTH

London, England

DATE OF DEATH

12 August 1827

PLACE OF DEATH

London, England

Categories: William Blake | 1757 births | 1827 deaths | Artist authors | British vegetarians | English anarchists | English painters | English poets | English printmakers | English Swedenborgians | Christian mystics | Mythopoeic writers | People from Soho | Prophets | Romantic artists | Romantic poets | Writers who illustrated their own writing | English DissentersHidden categories: Wikipedia semi-protected pages | Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Residual Income Home Business – The Pillars in Network Marketing (MLM)

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How Do You Know If A Vinyl Is A First Pressing Etc.?

My mom recently got her record collection down from the loft and i was looking in the record price guide book to value them and one of them is worth quite a bit if it’s a first pressing but how can i check this??

where would i get a price guide for antique vinyl records?