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Some of the most remarkable photography ever: O Winston Link's flash photography of the waning days of Norfolk and Western steam...
Impressed yet? Know anything about flash photography? Have you begun to realize, yet, how many flash bulbs each of those photos represents..?
They weren't at all sure the screen would be bright enough to show up. And they sure didn't know they'd get an airplane on the screen. These photos weren't tripped by the cameraman. The locomotive itself set off everything.
Though the speed of light in the atmosphere is so fast that even the fastest camera shutter is slow in comparison, he actually had to use slow-blo fusible links to set stuff off in order to synchronise everything. After all, the light might reach the camera in a tiny fraction of a second, but the electricity on the way to the flash bulbs was moving through copper wire, and therefore moving relatively slowly.
The Buick in the foreground is Link's (the couple is his assistant and the latter's wife), and the equipment for this photography filled its cavernous trunk and much of the back seat.
Men, listen, I had a shipmate send this to me for Christmas:
http://www.amazon.com/O-Winston-Link....+Winston+Link
It is a fantastic book of Link's photography, and railroad information.
I, in turn, sent one to my brother, who enjoyed it just as much.
Highly recommended for the rail fan or historian.
Five Stars.
Somewhat related Suburban communism
worldoftommy.com/?p=118
Here I was being charitable and not commenting on that abject silliness in your thread. Now you want to bring it into my thread.
So, cars are more communist as privately owned vehicles on public roadways than commuter trains, which are, in cases, publicly owned vehicles on privately owned rails. Even though, when those rails are privately owned, the community forces the private entity to allow them to be run on their track. And even though a great many commuter routes are, these days, owned by the communities.
Sounds like a logical extension of the ever-prevalent modern argument that capitalism is as bad as communism, because what we have is communism, but we call it capitalism, and being communism, it fails as completely as communism even when it's called capitalism.
More modern miseducation hogwash. Suburbia is going totalitarian more quickly than rural areas, but not as quickly as cities. And arguing that the fact that our Dear Leaders refuse to call our totalitarianism what it is, and the fact that we're in denial about the fact that it's totalitarianism and call it freedom, doesn't mean that freedom (the real thing) is as bad as totalitarianism.
Call a turd a rose and it will still smell like $#@!. Be stupid enough to believe a turd is a rose and you'll be afraid to enjoy a real rose when you encounter one. They have a name for that. It's called being a loser.
Go away and come back if you actually find another interesting article like the one about the FRA.
More rants on the FRA
http://pedestrianobservations.wordpr...-a-revolution/
I digress the main barrier to entry for improved passenger rail and mass transit is suburbia in my opinion and even if it was really created by market forces it is still worth criticizing (which it clearly wasn't). People like Wendell Cox, Randal O'toole, reason magazine have gone as far as to say new urbanism and smart growth are communist which is ridiculous and I wanted to point out the communistic features of suburbia. Sorry if I added an off topic thing. I also added a new article on what to be done about the FRA hint: get rid of them.
Something you, Levy and I can be in complete agreement on. Though I'm not in 100% agreement with Levy. He thinks the FRA should be given one more chance to prove themselves worthy of existing. I think the agency should follow the ICC to the dustbin of history with neither discretion nor delay.
Uh, guys. Making rail passenger cars so heavy that passenger trains, like freight trains, slide for three miles between when their brakes are applied and when they stop isn't exactly an effective method of collision avoidance...Originally Posted by The FRA
Seems to me any city with a lick of sense would go out of their way to make their commuter trains do double duty as 'tourist railroads', and thus get themselves a fat, much-needed exemption from a whole bunch of FRA crap. And it could certainly be done. Can't help but imagine buying this brand of power would be sufficient...
It wouldn't be that difficult to disguise these as historic American locomotives. They could be modified to look quite convincing.
It would still look fine. But American historic tourist railroads tend to emphasize American railroad history. And there would be functional advantages as well. A taller cab would look better with American coaches and provide better visibility, a bigger tender would extend range, a larger steam dome and sandbox just make operation easier, a taller stack aids the flue and adds efficiency, and a higher headlight and an American pilot ('cowcatcher' if you prefer) would be an aid to safety. There's a reason American locomotives had their unique look--those features that made them unique aid operations under American conditions.
Would it look better? Debatable. As is, that's one clean-lined engine, and its proportions sure emphasize those tall driving wheels. But it would still look awfully good.
Yes, it would be a shame to use shorter driving wheels. But commuter trains don't need to be capable of 125 mph, and those tall drivers are no aid to traction. Otherwise, and aside from the pilot and the headlight placement, the changes are things the British would have done themselves if they had the higher bridges and taller tunnels that we have.
Here's another engine with a 'modern', high pressure boiler of about the right size for a light Pacific type that would be perfect for modern commuter service.
If we still have blueprints for them, and were to revise the frame with more drive wheels of a smaller diameter and a more conventional smokebox, that would be a never-before-seen yet proven light Pacific. I'm not sure steam power would automatically qualify any commuter run as a 'tourist railroad' under FRA regulations, but if it does, that and the way steam draws passengers like a magnet could make steam far and away the most efficient passenger power American railroads could possibly hope to run. And you can run them on anything that burns--including abundant coal or all manner of 'green' fuels.
This sure would be a fun conversation to have with a liberal. You want passenger trains in the U.S? Forget high-speed rail. Federal regulations make that impossible. Your best bet is steam. That would qualify it as a tourist railroad and exempt it from regulations that would otherwise require the coaches weigh twice as much or more. So, anything but steam would make it too inefficient to operate. Only the federal government--Only the federal government--could possibly make a train as fuel-inefficient as a few jetliners or a fleet of automobiles. And you wonder why we libertarians are against Washington, District of Calamity regulations.
Washington doesn't keep us safe. It keeps us stupid.
The FRA changed some regulations
http://1.usa.gov/ZI561V
Wireless Electricity Transmission Being Deployed to Power Korean Mass Transit
February 15th, 2013 | by Michael Keller
Korean trams and buses are moving away from overhead power wires and high-voltage third rails—literally.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have made major advances in wireless power transfer for mass transit systems. The fruits of their labor, systems called On-line Electric Vehicles (OLEV), are already being road tested around Korea.
At it’s heart, the technology uses inductive coupling to wirelessly transmit electricity from power cables embedded in roadways to pick-up coils installed under the floor of electric vehicles.
The work was hailed as one of the year’s top 10 emerging technologies by the World Economic Forum this week.
Engineers say the transmitting technology supplies 180 kW of stable, constant power at 60 kHz to passing vehicles that are equipped with receivers. The initial OLEV models above received 100 kW of power at 20 kHz through an almost eight-inch air gap. They have recorded 85 percent transmission efficiency through testing so far.
The wireless electricity that powers the vehicle’s motors and systems is also used to charge an on-board battery that supplies energy to the vehicle when it is away from the power line.
KAIST plans to start deploying the OLEV technology to tramlines in May and high-speed trains in September.
“We have greatly improved the OLEV technology from the early development stage by increasing its power transmission density by more than three times,” said Dong-Ho Cho, the director of KAIST’s Center for Wireless Power Transfer Technology Business Development, in a release. “The size and weight of the power pickup modules have been reduced as well. We were able to cut down the production costs for major OLEV components, the power supply, and the pickup system, and in turn, OLEV is one step closer to being commercialized.”
The institute announced that buses equipped with the wireless power transfer technology are already used daily by students on the KAIST campus in Daejeon, while others are undergoing road tests in Seoul. Two more OLEV buses will begin trial operations in the city of Gumi in July.
Proponents say that the technology banishes overhead power lines and rails for electric trams and buses, dramatically lowers the costs of railway wear and tear and allows smaller tunnels to be built for electric vehicle infrastructure, lowering construction costs.
http://txchnologist.com/post/4316035...ng-deployed-to
Don't know if I posted this or not, great old New Haven corporate film.
They had it figured out 60 years ago.
The last ten minutes.
This was the Pacific Electric
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiLGui8fxiw
too bad it had to go now commute times have quadrupled and polution has become a major problem. Damn LA government for killing the great free market technologies.
Actually, that looks like a pretty laughable piece of propaganda. To say that the PE was directly responsible for the spread of LA today, or to intimate that Los Angeles invented the suburb, is ridiculous. Even so, there's just enough good footage in there that it deserves to be embedded.
A rail system is generally like a tree. It has its branches. And, obviously, suburbia in the days before the Model T clung to those branches. The sprawl that is modern Los Angeles didn't really even begin to come to fruition until about the time the PE went the way of all flesh. I don't blame you for falling for this. You don't seem to be from this nation, and it's only understandable that you don't understand how Los Angeles (unlike the centuries-old metropoli of the Old World) sprang out of the basin in a matter of months during a price war between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe.
No, the rise of LA has more to do with a pair of steam-powered transcontinentals than the PE, the sprawling nature of LA has as much to do with the rise of the affordable automobile as with the Pacific Electric, and the death of the Red Cars is attributable to just what Alfred Perlman was talking about in the New York Central promotional film AF posted on the previous page--GM, Firestone and the oil companies promoted a regulatory culture in the U.S. that supported and encouraged the automobile and the road-going bus (and, on a broader scale, air travel) over the greater efficiencies of rail.
Nice clip, though, and fodder for good discussion. Thanks.
I am from this country. The Pacific electric was near where I lived. The Red Cars made Socal what it is. NCL had little to with Los Angeles. NCL owned the yellow cars not the red cars contrary to popular belief. SP bought the red cars as a way of eliminating competition because the Red Cars were competition to conventional passenger routes. The System was itself eliminated to make way for freeways and what remains of it is in the form freight routes owned by UP and light rail owned by Metro. The people behind the elimination were AAA who thought getting rid of them would improve traffic but this made things worse. Most of the communities that exist today are descendants of the ones built by PE. PE was used as a way to stirring development. They shouldn't call LA suburbia but streetcar suburbs which predate the auto suburbs. Newport Beach, Santa Monica, Huntington Beach and other communities were created by the Red Cars. The Balboa Pavilion was where the system ended. Obviously LA didn't originate from the Red Cars but the development and housing are a result of the Red Cars of course the freeways completely follow the Red Car routes.
So "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was partially true?
Whodathunkit?
Pacific Electric at the Balboa Pavilion
At the pavilion there was the Balboa Fun Zone which today is currently in a state of depression and decline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OquSczOMkO4
my god it will be beautiful.
I'd just like to point out that Southern California isn't the only place where cool interurbans encouraged the development of suburbia, or where ill-conceived and ill-executed government policies drove them out.
But as long as Southern California is being discussed, how about a quick glimpse of what the San Diegan looked like before the federal ICC forced (literally and despite the fact that the ATSF didn't want to go) American railroads out of the passenger train business?
The Red Cars were a loss. But the Silver Cars and the Red-Nosed Diesels were a greater loss.
Well the difference is that service is still here. I can take the metrolink and commute to work or go from LA to SD via the surfliner. The Red Cars are pretty much all gone will the San Diegan still exists just not in its original form.
The government's passenger trains don't look too bad
There have been other changes besides the looks. For instance, the fastest running time today harkens back to the 1938 introduction of the service, when it ran in two hours and forty five minutes. But in 1957, for example, there was a two and a half hour service available...
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