CSX Headquarters to get New Signage
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/946804539_Vb2gE-M.jpg)
CSX is seeking final approval to add the new CSX corporate brand logo to Jacksonville's skyline. The proposed design has been developed in conjunction with CSX and their architect to ensure both aesthetic and structural compatibility with the 16-story CSX headquarters, which will be celebrating the building's 50th Anniversary in September of this year.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jul-csx-headquarters-to-get-new-signage
I hope that everything goes through as planned with the new signage. It looks nice esp. at nighttime. It has a visual look of the boxcar coming around the trackbend.
Good. Use the entire board for the singage, all 1,824 SF! I remember when this building was blue in color; love the new black blends within the beige concrete. How tomorrow moves! CSX.
"HU"
This is an outrage! How can we allow a greedy corporation to destroy our beautiful city with this disgusting visual pollution?
Oh, wait...that's right..I LOVE advertising. Never mind. :D
I hope this gets approved. CSX has been and will continue to be an important business within our community. Does anyone know what happened to Bank of America's signage request? If I remember correctly the board was making a big fuss about it not being within the guidelines. Nothing has happened yet and it would be great to get the BOA tower lit up too.
It looks tacky with the railroad car.
I am with TheProf, that looks AWFUL.
I wish it were a huge LED digitial sign with moving trains!
I think it's tacky. I prefer the current logo.
Is this the first time a skyscraper in Jax has had a corporate slogan on top?
Quote from: fsujax on July 26, 2010, 11:38:43 AM
I wish it were a huge LED digitial sign with moving trains!
+2
Great idea!
I like it, certainly a face lift of the place will be nice.
If the company is headquartered there, why cant they post as big of a sign as then can on the building! P Now for buildings that don;t have any major companies headquartered there then I say no to a sign.
And NO LED SIGN on the top of the building, it would be much better at street level pointing towards Waters Street.
Quote from: hightowerlover on July 26, 2010, 12:01:58 PM
Is this the first time a skyscraper in Jax has had a corporate slogan on top?
I had the same question when I saw the pictures. I am not too sure if I am crazy about putting the slogan on the building...
P.S. - Are there any examples of companies that successfully put their corporate logo AND slogan onto their urban structures?
It looks more like a billboard than proper signage.
I join the tacky look crowd. The current CSX looks bold and classy, dignified and to the point.
The new sign looks like a giant billboard. I get the CSX rail car but I don't think it ranks among the most elegant logos among major corporations. Regardless, I do think it would look a lot better on the building sans the slogan.
What could be more tacky, a BOA sign on their nice tower. I'd rather have it as is w/o lighting than their ugly signage.
It looks ok, but CSX is trying to market itself better.
Honestly, with the rate that companies are leaving downtown, I really don't care if they put a billboard with 1-800 ASK GARY on it if it makes them embrace downtown.
Quote from: Steve on July 26, 2010, 09:37:12 PM
Honestly, with the rate that companies are leaving downtown, I really don't care if they put a billboard with 1-800 ASK GARY on it if it makes them embrace downtown.
Only if Raz is on it!
Quote from: Mattius92 on July 26, 2010, 02:43:48 PM.........I like it, certainly a face lift of the place will be nice. ........
They spend a lot of money wrapping the building in new curtainwall to cover the 1960s blue tile and window exterior and you don't see a face lift till they change the sign? Face lift has been in work for a few years now.
Quote from: Steve on July 26, 2010, 09:37:12 PM
Honestly, with the rate that companies are leaving downtown, I really don't care if they put a billboard with 1-800 ASK GARY on it if it makes them embrace downtown.
no worries Steve...that's just the ampitheater in Tampa :)
Love the sign, love the slogan; 'How Tomorrow Moves'. Awsome!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1TPBR6rSSg&feature=related
lol I think the box car is a lil backwood and unsexy....I say nay. Now is they had those jumbo tron screens they have in times square up there, they could put what they want up there and change it when ready...A Go JAGS on saturday nite during football season would be dope.
I think it's a good idea.....it would be nice if others would lite-up their buildings as well. Whaterver happened to the little red caboose at the end of it's trains...fuel cost couldn't be that high!! I saw a caboose on the back of a Norfolk Southern train in Virginia the other day....do they take safety to a higher standard then CSX?
QuoteThe Chamber of Commerce prepared a two-color brochure to attract the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad to move its headquarters to Jacksonville. ACL directors had recently indicated they would move the company offices from Wilmington, N. C., to a location more central to the railroad's trackage.
Florida Times-Union - Dec. 21, 1955
Quote from: dlemore on July 28, 2010, 11:00:54 AM
I think it's a good idea.....it would be nice if others would lite-up their buildings as well. Whaterver happened to the little red caboose at the end of it's trains...fuel cost couldn't be that high!! I saw a caboose on the back of a Norfolk Southern train in Virginia the other day....do they take safety to a higher standard then CSX?
The short answer is no. Cabooses are a victim of several things, but mostly the automated electronic railroad of today. There is just no need for a guy to be riding the dusty end of the train to watch brake pressure, hot bearings, and other operational hazards when digital tools can do the same job better. Moreover the caboose is a great place to suffer a serious accident. Have you ever seen and heard the slack run out of a trains couplers? Those 5-12" inches that suddenly snap taut x however many freight cars are in the train can be devastating. An engineer who does not start a long freight by slowly pulling out that slack could actually whip the caboose from 0-10 mph or more in an instant. Needless to say, if you somehow missed the clatter of the slack coming toward you it could literally knock you off your feet and out the back door into the track!
Cabooses are still used in some cases and on certain trains because of tricky movements and provide a "safe" platform for personnel working the cars. OCKLAWAHA
Yup, see "FRED" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashing_rear-end_device). The ones CSX uses are pretty neat.
Well, I lived in Jacksonville for a time, and I have seen the CSX building with it's CSX signage. I even photographed it. You can see the sign at 1:05 into this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_ztPckuYU
Now, I like the sign, and I think it's a good idea to convert to LED lighting, but there's one thing I don't like about the boxcar logo... The boxcar logo is more "computer" theme than "railroad" theme. Anyone with a computer can make the CSX boxcar logo by using the brackets and dot (period) keys on their computer. I'll do it right now to show you:
[..CSX..]
That's the CSX "boxcar" logo. It's really small, and doesn't need much bandwidth. The problem I see is that it's meant to be small, and it doesn't make sense to blow it up to 1,200 square feet.
It's cute to make a CSX freight train in an email, like this:
[..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..][..CSX..]
But it does not translate into a large bill board on top of a building.
I agree with what fsujax said:
"I wish it were a huge LED digitial sign with moving trains!"
Think about what fsujax said- it would be better with the LED lights moving, so it looks like a long, continuous , moving freight train, and not a single , lone, parked boxcar.
Get the picture?
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1011633938_LHXSt-M.jpg)
Railroads. 200 year old technology making a big comeback thanks to the great minds in government. ;)
Saw it lit up this morning. I like it.
It looks a lot better lit up at night than it does during the day.
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on September 30, 2010, 05:28:27 PM
Railroads. 200 year old technology making a big comeback thanks to the great minds in government. ;)
You've obviously never been on one of the Asian or European high-speed trains. The base technology might be 200 years old, but it's sort of like saying the internet is nothing but the telegraph 200 years later.
Here is an interview with Michael Ward, CEO of CSX:
http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=531892
Quotethe internet is nothing but the telegraph 200 years later.
- .... . .. -. - . .-. -. . - .. ... -. --- - .... .. -. --. -... ..- - - .... . - . .-.. . --. .-. .- .--. .... ..--- ----- ----- -.-- . .- .-. ... .-.. .- - . .-. .-.-.-
:)
http://www.onlineconversion.com/morse_code.htm
How in the world did you find that web site? I've seen translation web sites before, but Morse Code - English! Neat! Useless, but neat.
Aint Google great? :D
I have forgotten most, maybe even all of my "Flashing Light" & Morse Code........dih dot! That would be "R" for roger! Your right BridgeTroll...........beats the hell out of trying to look something up from a book and one heck of alot quicker! As long as you get the Search Work/Phrase correct!
Enough of beating around the bush; when is CSX going to build that new 901 foot, 70 story building downtown? They have lots of money, they're doing extremely well, and, they've got to be tired of the present corporate home office building they are now in on the river!
^They'll move to the Southside before they build a new tower downtown. If anything, it seems the days of consolidating all of your corporate operations into a single site are over. Technology is evolving to the point to where many people don't even have to go into the office on a daily basis anymore.
Quote from: thelakelander on October 02, 2010, 01:42:49 AM
^They'll move to the Southside before they build a new tower downtown. If anything, it seems the days of consolidating all of your corporate operations into a single site are over. Technology is evolving to the point to where many people don't even have to go into the office on a daily basis anymore.
Yeah, I know; but it sure would be nice. I guess residential towers, consolidated with hotels and even offices in them are the next tower trends in urban cores.
"HU"
CSX already has a large presence in Southpoint. They occupy two buildings.
Maybe they will move the HQ to McDuff and Beaver where they have their "roundhouse" control center.
Now that would be impressive! :D
Quote from: Dog Walker on October 01, 2010, 12:22:47 PM
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on September 30, 2010, 05:28:27 PM
Railroads. 200 year old technology making a big comeback thanks to the great minds in government. ;)
You've obviously never been on one of the Asian or European high-speed trains. The base technology might be 200 years old, but it's sort of like saying the internet is nothing but the telegraph 200 years later.
I rode the train round trip from Rome to Florence about 5 years ago. It was nice and convenient but isn't the future of inter-city travel over 200 miles going to be by air? It may not be as pleasant but I'll bet it will be faster and cheaper (for passengers and taxpayers). Rail requires so much more infrastructure.
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 03, 2010, 07:34:01 AM
I rode the train round trip from Rome to Florence about 5 years ago. It was nice and convenient but isn't the future of inter-city travel over 200 miles going to be by air? It may not be as pleasant but I'll bet it will be faster and cheaper (for passengers and taxpayers). Rail requires so much more infrastructure.
not sure I agree...how much do airports cost these days? I mean, Atlanta just spent over $1 billion building their 5th runway!
How much of that is paid for by landing fees charged by the airport authority and added to passenger ticket prices? I believe it's most if not all of it. Those are user fees not taxpayer subsidies. Do Amtrak passengers pay their share of the infrastructure costs in the ticket price?
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 03, 2010, 11:07:16 AM
How much of that is paid for by landing fees charged by the airport authority and added to passenger ticket prices? I believe it's most if not all of it. Those are user fees not taxpayer subsidies. Do Amtrak passengers pay their share of the infrastructure costs in the ticket price?
Good question. But based on what many on this board say, I think you're way off. Air travel is heavily subsidized by the govt through airports, air traffic control and security infrastructure, etc. But I'd like to see the numbers presented with a legitimate source before I assume any further :)
QuoteI rode the train round trip from Rome to Florence about 5 years ago. It was nice and convenient but isn't the future of inter-city travel over 200 miles going to be by air? It may not be as pleasant but I'll bet it will be faster and cheaper (for passengers and taxpayers). Rail requires so much more infrastructure.
In Europe, air travel between destinations less than 500 miles apart has almost stopped. Paris to London, center of city to center of city is three hours. Fly the same route. Thirty-five minutes by taxi to Paris-DeGaulle having to arrive one hour early for security. Gate to gate time to Heathrow, ninety minutes. Wait for luggage, thirty minutes. Wait for bus or train to get to central London -thirty minutes. Train trip to central London - one hour. And this is if everything goes perfectly.
Which would you want to do.
Distance from Paris to Lyons is almost exactly the same distance as Miami - Jacksonville. Trip on the high speed train takes 2 hours fifteen minutes from city center to city center.
Travel over 200 miles by air is not the future, but the past.
From USAToday:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-10-02-otoole01_ST_N.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-10-02-otoole01_ST_N.htm)
QuoteWe can't afford the luxury of high-speed rail
USA TODAY OPINION
By Randal O'Toole
This past Tuesday, Amtrak proposed to spend more than $100 billion increasing the top speeds of trains in its Boston-to-Washington corridor from 150 to 220 miles per hour. In August, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood estimated that President Obama's proposal to extend high-speed rail to other parts of the country will cost at least $500 billion.
No one knows where this money will come from, but President Obama argues that we need to spend it because high-speed rail will have a "transformative effect" on the American economy. In fact, all it will do is drag the economy down.
The history of transportation shows that we adopt new technologies when they are faster, more convenient, and less expensive than the technologies they replace. High-speed rail is slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and far more expensive than either one. As a result, it will never serve more than a few marginal travelers.
New transportation technologies have a truly transformative effect when they not only replace older technologies but also increase total mobility. Intercity passenger trains, electric streetcars, and mass-produced automobiles offered their customers thousands of miles per year of new mobility. This gave people access to jobs, resources, and opportunities that were previously unavailable.
The numbers
At an inflation-adjusted cost of about $450 billion paid out of highway user fees, the Interstate Highway System, to which high-speed rail is sometimes compared, provides more than 4,000 miles of passenger travel for every American, miles that Americans were not traveling before the system was built. By comparison, a $600 billion expenditure on high-speed rail will provide, at best, around 300 miles of travel per person.
More to the point, most of that travel will not be new travel, but merely a substitute for driving, flying, or other existing forms of travel. The California High-Speed Rail Authority predicts that 98% of its customers will shift from driving or flying. Florida predicts that 96% of the people using its high-speed train will switch from driving.
Almost no new travel means almost no transformative effect. Few people will use high-speed rail or urban rail transit to access new markets, resources, or jobs. Merely substituting rail for other modes will be extremely expensive.
Amtrak brags that its high-speed Acela between Boston and Washington covers its operating costs, though not its capital costs. It does so, however, only by collecting fares of about 75 cents per passenger mile. By comparison, airline fares average only 13 cents a passenger mile, and intercity buses (which, Amtrak doesn't want you to know, carry about three times as many passengers between Boston and Washington as the Acela) are even less expensive.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Americans spent about $950 billion on driving in 2008. This allowed us to travel, says the Federal Highway Administration, more than 2.7 trillion vehicle miles, for an average cost of about 35 cents per vehicle mile. Since the California High-Speed Rail Authority estimates cars in intercity travel carry an average of 2.4 people, the average cost is less than 15 cents a passenger mile.
Subsidizing the urban elite
In short, high-speed rail is more than five times more expensive than any of the alternatives. Since most high-speed rail stations will be in downtowns, the main users will be downtown workers such as lawyers, bankers, and government officials. Yet less than 8% of American jobs are in central city downtowns, meaning all Americans will subsidize trains used by only a small urban elite.
High-speed trains in Europe and Asia may be a boon to American tourists, but they haven't proved transformational in those regions either. France and Japan have the world's most extensive high-speed rail networks, yet their average residents ride the high-speed trains less than 400 miles a year.
Personally, I love trains and it would be nice to think we were rich enough to build a high-speed rail network that few people will ever use. But we are not. The Obama administration would do better by making our existing transportation systems safer and more effective.
Randal O'Toole (rot@cato.org) is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of Gridlock: Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.
Funny how every country in Europe and Asia is able to do what O'Toole says can't be done.
And how far does the average American fly every year? The trains in Europe are packed all the time and wildly popular. Spain has just completed its high speed system and already there are complaints that they are not running enough trains.
He is also conflating commuter rail with long distance, high speed rail.
Very weak article. Cato usually does much better.
high speed rail is fairly expensive....but upgrading existing rail service to run 90-100mph isn't...for trips under 200 miles, the extra time for rail is offset by the need top be at the airport 1 hour before flight...and then there are the likely delays.
Quote from: Dog Walker on October 03, 2010, 01:03:41 PM
He is also conflating commuter rail with long distance, high speed rail.
Very weak article. Cato usually does much better.
It's Randal O'Toole. He's a long time critic of any kind of rail so this article written by him is not suprising.
Quote from: tufsu1 on October 03, 2010, 07:47:54 PM
high speed rail is fairly expensive....but upgrading existing rail service to run 90-100mph isn't...for trips under 200 miles, the extra time for rail is offset by the need top be at the airport 1 hour before flight...and then there are the likely delays.
We should absolutely be upgrading our existing rail system now and I think 200 miles is probably on the low side.
Has anyone flown to Miami from Jax recently? How long did it take overall?
What about the comparison of cost per passenger mile (15 cents for auto, 13 cents for air and 75+ cents for rail) that he quotes? Even if his figures are way off does anyone think that rail is cheaper? If not, why should taxpayer support be used to make it happen?
those aren't costs per mile....that is per passenger revenue (or fares) per mile
http://www.dot.gov/budget/2010/bib2010.htm
Quote from: tufsu1 on October 03, 2010, 07:47:54 PM
high speed rail is fairly expensive....but upgrading existing rail service to run 90-100mph isn't...for trips under 200 miles, the extra time for rail is offset by the need top be at the airport 1 hour before flight...and then there are the likely delays.
+1
Last time I flew to Virginia the check in and security lines at MCO were ridiculous (2+ hours) and then the plane was delayed 3 or 4 times for at least an hour each time. Then when I finally got to IAD, there was some issue with the baggage and it took me an hour to get out of the airport. Another 30 or 40 minutes involved in riding a shuttle to Hertz and getting the rental car, and then I still had an hourlong drive to Warrenton. No kidding, by the time I finally arrived I could have just driven the entire trip, saved myself at least $600 in the process, and would have actually arrived earlier than I did going by air.
Air travel isn't what it used to be, speed and convenience wise.
Quote from: tufsu1 on October 03, 2010, 09:49:18 AM
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 03, 2010, 07:34:01 AM
I rode the train round trip from Rome to Florence about 5 years ago. It was nice and convenient but isn't the future of inter-city travel over 200 miles going to be by air? It may not be as pleasant but I'll bet it will be faster and cheaper (for passengers and taxpayers). Rail requires so much more infrastructure.
not sure I agree...how much do airports cost these days? I mean, Atlanta just spent over $1 billion building their 5th runway!
huh?? When?
Quote from: Dog Walker on October 04, 2010, 10:26:39 AM
Quote from: tufsu1 on October 03, 2010, 07:47:54 PM
high speed rail is fairly expensive....but upgrading existing rail service to run 90-100mph isn't...for trips under 200 miles, the extra time for rail is offset by the need top be at the airport 1 hour before flight...and then there are the likely delays.
We should absolutely be upgrading our existing rail system now and I think 200 miles is probably on the low side.
Has anyone flown to Miami from Jax recently? How long did it take overall?
I did in June. 1 hr 40 MIN from take off to touch down
Quote from: Coolyfett on October 05, 2010, 10:48:05 AM
Quote from: tufsu1 on October 03, 2010, 09:49:18 AM
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 03, 2010, 07:34:01 AM
I rode the train round trip from Rome to Florence about 5 years ago. It was nice and convenient but isn't the future of inter-city travel over 200 miles going to be by air? It may not be as pleasant but I'll bet it will be faster and cheaper (for passengers and taxpayers). Rail requires so much more infrastructure.
not sure I agree...how much do airports cost these days? I mean, Atlanta just spent over $1 billion building their 5th runway!
huh?? When?
about 2 years ago...it is the runway that spans I-285