#railroad-track-equipment

[edwincannan]

Chooisng Efficient & Reliable Railway Track Maintenance Equipment

Vancer is your trusted partner in ensuring smooth and efficient rail operations with our cutting-edge railroad track equipment. Our comprehensive range of advanced tools and machinery is specifically designed to enhance productivity, safety, and reliability in the rail industry. From innovative track maintenance solutions to state-of-the-art inspection equipment, we provide the tools you need to optimize your rail operations. For more information, visit Vancer.com.

[trainz99]

Found these in a junkyard once a few years ago! They don't seem to exist online, and unfortunately playing them through an 8-track yielded nothing.

Cool stuff nonetheless!

[badolmen]

Marijuana Walter White where are you…

[ltwilliammowett]

Old naval slang

A small collection of terms from the 18th - early 20th century that were and probably still are known among sailors.

Admiralty Ham - Royal Navy canned fish Batten your hatch - shut up Beachcomber - a good-for-nothing Cape Horn Fever - feigned illness Cheeseparer - a cheat Claw off - to avoid an embarrassing question or argument Cockbilled - drunk Cumshaw - small craft - Chinese version of scrimshaw Dead Marine - empty liquor bottle Donkey's Breakfast - mattress filled with straw Dunnage - personal equipment of a sailor Flying Fish sailor - sailor stationed in Asian waters Galley yarn - rumour, story Hog yoke- sextant Holy Joe - ship's chaplain Irish hurricane- dead calm Irish pennant - frayed line or piece of clothing Jamaican discipline - unruly behaviour Knock galley west - to knock a person out Leatherneck - a marine Limey - a British sailor Liverpool pennant - a piece of string used to replace a lost button Loaded to the guards - drunk Old Man - captain of the ship One and only - the sailor's best girl On the beach - ashore without a berth Pale Ale - drinking water Quarterdeck voice - the voice of authority Railroad Pants - uniform trousers with braid on the outer leg seam Railway tracks - badge of a first lieutenant Round bottomed chest - sea bag Schooner on the rocks - roast beef and roast potatoes Show a leg - rise and shine Sling it over - pass it to me Slip his cable - die Sundowner - unreasonable tough officer Swallow the anchor - retire Sweat the glass - shake the hour glass to make the time on watch pass quickly - strictly forbidden ! Tops'l buster - strong gale Trim the dish - balance the ship so that it sails on an even keel Turnpike sailor - beggar ashore, a landlubber claiming to be an old sailor in distress Water bewitched - weak tea White rat - sailor who curries favor with the officers

Sailors' Language, by W. Clark Russell, 1883 Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases. Edward Fraser and John Gibbons, 1925 Sea Slang, by Frank C. Bowen, 1929 Royal Navalese, by Commander John Irving, 1946 Sea Slang of the 20th century, by Wilfried Granville, 1949 The Sailor's Word Book, by Admiral W.H. Smyth, 1967

[bluebellowl]

Made this back when I just posted my submas fnaf crossover art and yall started making headcanons and I got inspired again

You know, I almost thought I was slowly catching up but nooo, this was shortly after New Years. There's so much to come!

Anyway here‘s the context:

The twins run a railroad going through the Pizzaplex. The player has to defeat them by breaking through the instabile floor, ripping a hole into the tracks, and letting the twins, who are on board the train, fall and crash down said hole. During the landing impact, Emmet only gets damaged, but Ingo gets impales, destroying his memory card (a reference to his pla era amnesia).

Later when the player themselves gets dragged down the trash compactor by Chica and wanders the underground to find a way up, they stumble upon the ruins of the totaled train carts. The carts are so broken that the Subway Bosses are trapped inside, and Emmet can be heard and seen trying to claw his way out but failing. Here, the player can make a choice. Do they leave the twins down there to rot, or do they open the door with their conveniently equipped Fazwatch, risking being killed but also having the chance to make allies?

Time laps under the cut:

[seat-safety-switch]

You might think that buying a train is expensive. They're made of a lot of metal, after all, and scrap prices are quite healthy at the moment. Not only that, but the railroads own all the rails, and those greedy monopolists don't want you to bring your free-enterprise, private individual train on them. There is another option.

You see, railways have these special little trucks, called hi-rails. They're basically strangely narrow pickup trucks, with a little train part on their front and rear, used to maintain the railway (trains are too bourgeois to do their own maintenance, and leave it to "lesser" vehicles.) When these hi-rails get on the tracks, they can turn into trains. Rail cops hassling you? Pop off and drive away like a regular old pickup truck.

Here's the real secret: these things are super cheap at auction. And why wouldn't they be? The only folks who can use them are railways, who already have trucks of their own. Sure, they take the train parts off the truck to make sure you don't do exactly what I'm doing, but any idiot can take a tape measure to some train tracks, and figure out how to cut through the fence at the locomotive maintenance yard to get some wheels. Now, I'm commuting to work using efficient public transit – but doing so with heated seats, cupholders, and satellite radio.

Sure, there are some downsides. Most of my city's transit network is underground, so I spend a lot of time reversing really fast out of tunnels. Years of railway maintenance engineers jumping in and out of it have worn the seat bolsters down quite a bit. And it doesn't go "choo-choo," or even feature a train horn, which was a major disappointment the first time I got on it. Overall, though, I can strongly recommend picking up disused rail-maintenance equipment and committing several federal crimes. Getting to skip the long red light between the Home Depot and my house by jumping into a subway tunnel has paid for itself in, like, a weekend.

[buff-electra-truther]

My concept for an Americanized reimagining/revival of Starlight Express, based on actual US passenger rail history painfully relevant to the entire region around Broadway (the northeastern US)

ft. sacrilegious things like totally rewriting Starlight Sequence, roleswapping major characters, and cutting Rusty entirely (while also bringing Trucker Caboose and a heavily modified OLC Belle back) 

(long post btw)

I already made a whole long post about how a lot of “stupid and unrealistic” things about Electra (and Rusty) unintentionally take on a very different, deeper meaning in the context of US railroad conditions (and politics) of the 70s-80s.  But tl;dr, applying US rail context to the show bizarrely turns it into a colossal “immer pünktlich” sweater that you’ve snagged your nail on and the whole thing unravels into a weirdly specific and compelling allegory for US politics and railroads of the era in a way it was never intended to.  

Electra reads as a bizarrely specific conservative slander of Amtrak and the liberal policies that benefit it. And there’s weirdly convenient parallels for the social themes the original show tried to do. Electrified rail isn’t futuristic and bashing it isn’t punching up in the US, it’s actually been around since the turn of the century and perhaps the most visible and vulnerable symbol of how rail has been disadvantaged and “left behind” by the government in the US for DECADES.  And there’s actually a number of other things the show has attempted to do that click into place really nicely when you put them in this context.  Like Greaseball’s “coach sexism”- US railroads’ relationship with passenger services pre-Amtrak actually make a pretty good allegory for how “women’s work” is treated.  It had become monstrously expensive to run them without government subsidies and railroads tried to cut or downgrade them wherever possible- which is a solid parallel for how the likes of childcare and teaching are treated in the US.  

So you could actually do some really smart and meaningful things with an Americanized version of the show, it doesn’t have to be clunky pop culture references.  It’s almost kind of sad how well it works because most of the concepts are only relevant in the US, which has never taken to the show as much as the UK/Germany. 

While this is presented as an early 80s-era period piece, you only need to change some references to Control’s Grandpa and a few characters’ basis (Greaseball, Pearl, and Electra’s parental figure) to make it close to modern-day because 40+ year old rail equipment is so common in the US and a lot of the same problems exist on the modern rail system.  

If the theater is anywhere near NYC, there’s a high chance visitors will firsthand experience how old and ROUGH the surrounding rail infrastructure is and it doesn’t get more immersive than that.  There’s a major chance they ride in on a subway or NJT train old enough to have remembered the original Broadway Starlight run, and a considerable chance they deal with delays or cancellations due to aging infrastructure issues.  It’s like how Ruhrgold being “always timely!” is hilarious to anyone who sees the show in Bochum because they probably had an ICE run late just trying to get there, even if they’re a tourist.  

-Control is now used as a stand-in for the government/other rail authorities, whose complaints and praise about their toy trains mirror real-life sentiment.  Their “grandpa’s old trains and tracks” represent the oooold equipment and infrastructure Amtrak inherited/acquired at the beginning.  

-Greaseball is… unchanged lol he’s a solid representation of the conservative establishment hostile to rail investment and electrification.  Him being abusive to the coaches parallels US railroads’ mass downgrading and dropping of passenger services after WWII until Amtrak came in.  Him pulling passenger trains with UP’s livery in the 80s actually works out if you make him one of the corporate E9As in the Heritage Fleet.  Alternatively, just pretend Amtrak’s Rainbow Era (where everything had their chaotic original liveries) took a decade longer to end… it’s less anachronistic than literally everything about Rusty anyways.  

-Electra is now an actual threat to him he has actual reason to play dirty against.  As opposed to a switcher/shunter that would have a completely opposite skillset as him (engines like Greaseball went out of favor on US freight railroads specifically because they have no rear visibility for switching).  Not to mention the political divides associated with dieselization/electrification in the US and associated rural/urban divide. He should also be more deliberately group-oriented with his Gang- the first gen carbody diesel engines he’s based on were designed to run as several units attached together (and that’s still how diesel locomotives are used now). 

-Momma (now maybe just McCoy) is now the high-maintenance celebrity (Poppa would also work but I’m in favor of giving older women more roles). THAT is spot-on to the actual role steam engines had in the US (and UK) in the 80s, and still do today. She’s there to race to find out just what she’s truly capable of, since the real top speed of a lot of big late-era steam engines was never officially verified. She is not malicious, just accidentally causes constant confusion and delay based on actual mainline steam excursions’ issues in the 70s-80s US that led to them being heavily restricted (though you can probably use a lot of stuff from more recent ones elsewhere because it still happens a lot).  She can even get chased by paparazzi because people getting on the tracks to photograph famous engines has caused all kinds of problems!  Turn the components into the entourage railtours would have (head end power car/engine, various old coaches).  Give her Engine of Love. 

-She’s “Grandpa’s old choo choo and friends… ugh come on, you guys used to be great!  You were my favorite!  Why do you keep derailing and messing stuff up!”.  

-She’s far less politically written vs Electra and Greaseball, and mostly railfanservice, which fits how steam was pretty much off in its own preservation world by the 80s and not relevant in the much more bitter mainline revenue train politics.  Greaseball could be moderately hostile towards her to represent railroads becoming fed up with excursion incidents, but it’s for pretty legitimate reasons.  Electra probably just doesn’t care about her presence either way, unless she gets in the way.  As additional historical context for why Electra is steam neutral- the Pennsylvania Railroad, who built 41% of surviving electric lines today, phased out steam engines from the newly electrified southern Northeast Corridor in a relatively peaceful way, just moving them to other lines and not replacing them with more.  It’s a way more pleasant scenario than most irl jobs that have been outmoded and faced with mass layoffs.  And basically the hard opposite of what British Rail did in the 50s-60s (which is substantially featured in the Railway Series and probably where the original show got the “steam oppression” idea from… but it just was NOT that way by the 80s and when it did happen, diesel engines were a much newer and more experimental thing than electric ones… this is why I have so much beef with the original show’s premise as someone familiar with the RWS, which was generally really realistic) 

(I have my own idea of how to make a REALLY hateable Reagan figure steam engine but the above would be more palatable to a broader audience and require less modification)

-Pearl is also largely unchanged.  Make her a then-new Amfleet coach, maybe a converted Metroliner.  Now she can be both new and naive and indecisive and REALLY want to go fast.  As a bonus, the Amfleets were among the first coaches to be electric vs steam heated and she would not be directly physically compatible with steam or older diesel/electric engines without head-end power.  Perfect fit for a reverse Cinderella. 

-Since Electra isn’t a terribly romantic character, I think it’s more compelling to frame Pearl’s arc as being about discovering your real orientation after years of the media saying what you should be attracted to.  She’s had steam romanticized her whole life but it just physically isn’t compatible or appealing to her.  Tbh this is a possible reason to make McCoy male instead.  

-Bonus: style Pearl like a flight attendant and have her make passive aggressive jokes about air travel (there are no middle seats!  Please leave your tray tables down and seats in the reclined position) in reference to the Amfleets being deliberately styled after planes, and Amtrak ads of the time mocking airlines

-Dinah needs very little change herself, other than being aged up to 30s-40s to reflect being an older car.  Pearl Twirl makes a lot of sense with Pearl being clueless about the depth of such things and reflecting how older passenger cars were replaced with new Amfleets around this era.  Rather than get back with Greaseball at the end, she runs off with McCoy’s entourage in reference to old cars like her getting a second life in museum settings. 

-Lotta Locomotion is less demeaning in the context of Amtrak’s motive power crisis of the 70s-early 80s.  They had oooold stuff and struggled to get functional new engines so it really is something coaches would be concerned with.  

-Freight as an argument perfectly suits the tensions between freight and passenger service in the US since WWII (relevant in the 80s, still relevant now outside the NEC).  Tl;dr passenger trains got painfully deprioritized because freight made way more money, and freight trains becoming absurdly long and physically unable to move over and let passenger trains through has wrecked arrival times in more recent decades.  I don’t have really hard ideas of how I’d tweak most of the Freight characters, I think you could mostly carry over the originals, but you could also work in aspects of industrial decline or unions’ relationships with railroads at the time. Honestly you could do a whole separate musical about the woes of US freight rail, they go deep, just not in ways that work into the other themes in this rewrite.

-Power cut before AC/DC- Control complains that ���the new train I got for Christmas sucks!  It doesn’t even work!” and their mom interjects “No, it’s your grandpa’s tracks and wiring from the 30s causing problems, let’s try and clean them up.  Maybe you can ask for some new ones for your birthday instead of more toy cars.”

-Electra is now the new AEM-7s Amtrak ordered in the late 70s-early 80s.  Make them as aggressively small as possible for maximum realism, those things were infamously tiny (~50 feet long).  Making Electra genderblind would be very appropriate for this version.

-Rather than unconfident, Electra is incredibly defensive, yet smug about knowing what they could do in proper conditions and kind of a bitch.  Self centered and prone to changing their mood on a whim.  Actually not that far off their canon personality, but now in a light that explains just why they make such a big deal of being electric and seem so short-fused- they’re a minority that’s been overlooked and screwed over for years.  Greaseball also treats them as hysterical over any legitimate complaints and dogs them for constantly asking for money.  There’s an almost endless well of “damn liberals” jokes for him to use against Electra.  It’s a bitter, much more even rivalry compared to Greaseball vs Rusty.

-Other than making the Japanese Engine less egregiously offensive, the Nationals can be largely unchanged, I think they’re all electric models anyways and at the time, all from nationalized rail networks.  

-Have Electra fail in the first heat due to powerline failure, Greaseball’s sabotage, or McCoy’s genuine bumbling, and go full No Comeback and blame themself for it when it was due to outside factors

-How do the comparatively mediocre US engines win?  Mix of Greaseball/McCoy doing the above, and the race being on tightly curving tracks in notably bad condition that a lot of the Nationals wouldn’t run well on. Cue Control being in constant dismay at how many trains keep derailing or failing and getting mad at them too.  

-Also made a previous post about this, but in place of where Momma/Poppa usually is… bring back the general concept of OLC Belle the Sleeping Car, and turn her into Belle the GG1.  That was the nearly 50 year old electric loco class that largely ran the NEC until the AEM-7s.  The Ella Fitzgerald angle aligns perfectly with them working out of NYC starting in the late 30s and being known for a sense of effortlessness.  The “fallen star” narrative also works with their full history, they were the symbol of what US electrification was posed to become- and got cut off by WWII and the railroads’ fates afterward.  They also ran their absolute last excursions in 1984 and her blowing a transformer after her win exactly matches what happened to one of them.  In a much more morbid twist, there’s no question of her faking it, the GG1s were on their absolute last leg and so trashed physically at the end that they’re one of the least likely engines to ever run in preservation.  

-This is a BOLD choice (that would NEVER work in Bochum), but turn Dustin into a uranium flask (concept art here).  I’ve gotten the impression that Hydra wanted to be nuclear-coded because he’s alternative energy, green, and seen as scary and untrustworthy.  But while nuclear submarines and boats are long established, nuclear steam engines are far less practical on rails so you can’t really go that route… unless you make it about nuclear power plants supplying electrified lines.

-Uranium flasks are HEAVY and being quiet is a main PR policy of the nuclear industry, so Dustin’s size and shyness is a super fitting trait.  They also have a really fun history of being crash tested to play with.  They smashed a whole diesel loco into one in the UK and it was totaled but the flask was fine.  You can even give them There’s Me because “I may not be the one you want to see” and “I am always there” are a funny double entendre for nuclear power’s negative rep but constant generation.  Also free opportunity for a female or genderblind freight role if you call them Curie.  

-Slick and/or OLC style trucker Caboose would both work really well as saboteurs.  The oil industry sure doesn’t want to move away from diesel engines.  And road vehicles are the #1 enemy of ALL trains in the US.  Also, while Caboose acting like a British brake van gets laughed at, cabooses were and still are used to remote control trains irl (Locotrol), so there IS some justification for him to control an engine’s braking!  And even better/worse?  What do you get when you combine one of those with a bunch of oil tankers?  The Lac Megantic Disaster.  

-Greaseball and those two deliberately destroying powerlines and other infrastructure to sabotage Electra and basically any of the Nationals both works on a practical level and a symbol of “government not investing in things so they fail” just like irl Amtrak

-Bring back Dinah’s Disco but with lyrics explicitly revealing that the “whistle” thing Electra lacks is… steam heat to keep her warm at night because she’s an older style car!  That mismatch was a legitimate issue at the time.  An earlier passenger diesel engine like Greaseball would have a heating boiler so it’s still compatible with him not being an actual steam engine.  Slick/Caboose can still attack Electra and throw the uphill race riding with Greaseball or McCoy.  McCoy could think Slick will get her but the tanker goes after Electra instead, because she “could be converted to an oil burner… remember the Big Boy on the Union Pacific” and is therefore not her enemy.

-Right Place Right Time also works on a much deeper level when the Rockies are turned into SEPTA Silverliner I/II/III EMUs, they’re from the infamously underfunded transit system of… Philadelphia, which fits the movies.  Being mean but genuinely helpful is also kind of a Philly stereotype too.  You’d have to reshuffle the freight/components a bit for this version so eh, throwing in some quick-change costumes for this isn’t out there.  

-Yeah, the Starlight Sequence’s lyrics need a massive redo.  I go into it in the initial Electra post, but it just inherently preaches themes associated with the politics that repeatedly hampered electric rail in the US.  Make the new lyrics be about that “you alone are an engine, not a train”, joining together as a group is how you actually make systemic change, not bootstrapping and individualism,  One of the major advantages of rail IS how much you can link together and move at once.  Which is a nice segue to Electra reaching out to uranium flask Dustin for the final.  

-As a nod to Jeffrey Daniel, a shortened version of this song is a perfect Electra/Pearl duet instead of the ballads. 

-Instead of the control and conversion speech, the trains all get together as Control discusses what to ask for their birthday “Slot cars?  Tanks? Planes?” and the group together yells “TRAINS” and Control goes “yeah TRAINS!”

-Belle the GG1 miraculously comes back as Control’s mom whispers “don’t tell anyone I just stuck the old shell on a whole new motor and frames, they were beyond saving” as a snarky reference to what would be needed to actually run one again.  

-How to make Light At The End Of the Tunnel mostly work: return the duet aspect, where McCoy starts praising steam and the newly revived GG1 Belle finishes the lines to be about… steam power plants and electrification.  

[20th-century-railroading]

Penn Central ex PRR GG-1 4877 with its head end heavy eastbound passenger train crosses the former New Haven Railroad Saugatuck River Bridge at Westport, Connecticut, 1969

Penn Central ex PRR GG-1 4877 with its head end heavy eastbound passenger train crosses the former New Haven Railroad Saugatuck River Bridge at Westport, Connecticut, 1969. This train which is operating on an express track has an interesting consist in that after the first four passenger equipped boxcars, there is a coach followed by a REA-baggage car, then another coach that is followed by another REA-baggage car bringing up the end. Straight ahead after the bridge end, there is a commuter passenger station and a parking lot to the left.

[backside-into-the-heavenly]

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s steam locomotive Southern Railway 630 exits Missionary Ridge Tunnel as it approaches East Chattanooga, Tennessee with a trainload of passengers, on April 28th, 2024.

According to Wikipedia: Southern Railway 630 is a 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type steam locomotive built in February 1904 by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) of Richmond, Virginia for the Southern Railway as a member of the Ks-1 class. It is currently owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee where it resides today for use on excursion trains.

According to the Tennessee River Valley Tourism site: Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's passenger trains run on an historic route which includes Missionary Ridge Tunnel, completed in 1858 and on the National Register of Historic Places. The tunnel is the primary reason TVRM runs on the three-mile section of the former Southern Railway. As railroad equipment grew too large to pass through, the single-track tunnel became a traffic jam for an other wise double-track railroad. Southern Railway abandoned the three-mile portion of the line and built a new section around the end of Missionary Ridge, avoiding the tunnel altogether. TVRM restored rails through the tunnel in 1971 and continues to use the pre-Civil War Tunnel daily.

#trainphotography #railroadphotography #trains #railways #trainphotographer #railroadphotographer #jimpearsonphotography #PassengerTrain #TennesseeValleyRailroadMuseum #TennesseeTrains #steamtrain #tvrm

[the-outer-topic]

1930 Queen of the South - Jim Jordan

Southern Railway’s green and gold PS-4’s, “First Ladies of the Pacific,” were created in the classic tradition of standard railroading between the 1920s and the 1930s. SR’s then President Fairfax Harrison was vacationing in England in 1925 and admired the brilliantly styled designs of green with gold leaf trimming on the London and North Eastern engines. He set about immediately on his return to use a similar color scheme on these new engines. The appearance of the PS-4’s on the AGS lines (Alabama Great Southern) in the south drew great crowds and netted the SR overwhelmingly favorable publicity. The beautifully decked out Queen and Crescent engine – 6689 made her first run in May, 1929 from Cincinnati through Chattanooga, Birmingham, Meridian, and on into New Orleans. Being the typical passenger locomotive she was equipped with all of the Southern’s needs – the ability to pull up to 14 cars with a top speed of 80 miles an hour, and 80,000 miles between overhauls.

The decade between 1928 – 1938 saw the first lady PS-4′ in their glorious, most fashionable years, racing up and down the lines from Washington to New Orleans. But by the early 1940’s with the inevitable competition of diesel power, the “Ladies of the Pacific” were seeing their reign o’er the rails coming to a close. Yet shortly, the PS-4’s were about to make one last comeback. Ironically, it took a world war to extend their reign of glory. The “Queen” and others were called upon for the unprecedented passenger train miles needed for troop movement. Heavy travel made it imperative that steam – the old faithful mode of transport – be kept working to the limits of its availability.

FURNACES

The Sloss Furnaces were built in the 1880’s in Birmingham – the chief center for coal and iron in the southeastern United States. For some ninety years, Sloss was an operating industrial site. Closed in 1971 – unable to comply with pollution standards – it became a National Historic Landmark where concerts at Birmingham are coordinating archaeological and preservation work on site. Volunteers are needed to keep the machinery and grounds in top condition for future generations.

Paralleling the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, the Sloss’ silhouette looms silently, yet oddly majestic in the Birmingham sky – just another reminder of an era quietly passing, like the stately ladies of steam.

[edwincannan]

Selecting a Leading Railway Equipment Company

When it comes to selecting a leading railway equipment company, look no further than Vancer. With our unrivaled expertise and dedication to innovation, we offer a wide range of cutting-edge solutions for the rail industry. From advanced track maintenance equipment to state-of-the-art inspection tools, our products are designed to enhance efficiency, safety, and reliability in rail operations. For more information, visit Vancer.com.

[subwaytostardew]

Update: Ginger Island content

Now there's more than just the bare minimum and their bar dialogue! Kade filled out the other dialogue keys for Ginger Island! Here they are!

▲ Ingo’s Resort Dialogue ▲

 "Resort_Entering": "I have always been told I need to rest my cab! Now I get to do so! This place is breathtaking! However... I do wish the seas were less choppy... I felt as if I was being subjected to a Seismic Toss!"

  "Resort_Leaving": "Alas, I must return to the mainland and to home station. As nice as this place is... I cannot help but worry about the work that needs to get done. They say to rest and relax, but I find it quite difficult to do so. Still! It was a nice day off! I would not mind returning to this terminal! The boat, on the other hand... Oh dear."

  "Resort_Shore": "Ahh... now this is quite the sight! Oh! Perhaps I could build a sand sculpture? Oh... What do I plan to build? Why, a train of course! EHAHAHAHAHA!"

  "Resort_Chair": "(Ingo seems to be fast asleep. He is snoring quite loudly. The book on his face does little to nothing when it comes to volume control.)"

  "Resort_Umbrella": "Owch. Owch. YOWCH. Nuuugh... @... I'd hate to be a bother, but you wouldn't happen to have any sunscreen on you, would you? I'm afraid I am ill-equipped for how bright the sun is here. It appears my cab has gotten burned in the process..."

  "Resort_Wander": "Ah, this place is quite relaxing... But what of all the paperwork that sits unfinished at the station? Oh dear...

No. No. Tut. Tut. Ingo. Do not derail. You are here to relax!

AH, @! Y-you hadn't overheard me, have you? Eh... eheheha... My apologies, but I am simply trying to remind myself that work can wait. After all, I'm here to relax! I heard many good things about the island here! To think this region has so many hidden wonders beneath its prickly thorns..."

  "Resort_Bar": "Bravo! Mister Vincent was indeed correct about the delectability of Cranberry Candy! He has quite a refined palette for such a young passenger- especially when it comes to that of fruits! Perhaps I will take along some cargo for him and Miss Jas before we depart back to the valley... Surely, that will steer them away from my personal supply of sweets..."

▽ Emmet’s Resort Dialogue▽

 "Resort_Entering": "Mmm... I did not like the boat ride. Trains are better. Maybe we can make a train come here! That will be much better. Yup."

  "Resort_Leaving": "I am Emmet... I am now verrrry behind schedule. But I am well-rested and refueled. Ready to work on the railroad all the livelong day again. Yup. The beach is nice. But trains are better! Remember that! ... Stupid boat."

  "Resort_Shore": "The water is verrry wet. The sand is also verrry wet. It sticks to me like glue. I do not like that. As nice as the beach is. Tracking dirt and cleaning sand from one's cab is not fun.",

  "Resort_Chair": "(Emmet looks to be busy sorting through a photo album. It is full of pictures of the shoreline and sea creatures that are around.)"

  "Resort_Umbrella": "Ow. Ow. Ow. I am Emmet. Ow. I did not apply enough sunscreen. Ow... This sucks. Yup. I burn verrrry easily... Ingo does, too. There is a reason why we do not usually make detours from our usual tracks. I miss the subway tunnels. The sun cannot cause damage there.",

  "Resort_Wander": "I don't know why I came here. I am Emmet. I have a lot to conduct at the station.$3#$b#Is this what a vacation feels like? I do not like it. There is too much work to be done. I will be verrry behind schedule. You. Why are you here, @? Aren't you busy, as well?",

  "Resort_Bar": "The Tropical Curry is verrry good! A little... spicy... though... I had to ask for less spice. It is still spicy. Because of the peppers. But I like the pineapple bowl. They are like Pinap Berries but not spicy at all! They are verrry sweet. Pinap Berries are verrrry rare in Unova. Yup. It is a shame. They taste good. I wish I could eat them more. I could just eat a pineapple. But I like curry. It reminds me of the Galar region. I ate some with my friend- Piers- back in Pasio. It was verrry good! I missed it. He didn't make it spicy."

I made one whole island animation for the twins. Here are the frames and a gif with their towel sprites!

Of course Emmet would kick his feet around. Ingo, I was a little more inspired for. I was thinking that he would fall asleep in the position he would have as a passenger: legs crossed, one hand in his lap, the other holding a (nonexistent) handrail. He probably goes "choo choo" in his sleep. Emmet just doesn't sleep.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

[mariacallous]

Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russian schoolchildren have increasingly found themselves behind bars on charges of sabotage for allegedly damaging buildings or transportation infrastructure. At least 20 Russians between the ages of 15 and 17 are currently in prison awaiting trial or serving sentences for these offenses. Many of them are from the regions along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which Moscow uses to transport military equipment and ammunition west. In English, Meduza shares key points from a new report on these minors from the independent outlet People of Baikal.

According to data compiled by Mediazona, approximately one third of the 66 people arrested in late 2022 and early 2023 for alleged sabotage attacks on Russian railroads were minors. Sentences for this offense can range from 10 to 20 years in prison, but if there are aggravating circumstances, the penalty can be as severe as a life sentence. Typically, the details of these cases are classified or published with the defendant’s name redacted.

Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service records the names of all citizens charged with terrorism, sabotage, or extremism in its public registry of “terrorists and extremists.” The appearance of a person’s name on the registry, however, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in prison; it can also mean they’re under investigation, received a fine, or were sentenced to probation.

The “extremists” list currently contains 54 seventeen-year-olds, 21 sixteen-year-olds, and 13 fifteen-year-olds. At least 20 teenagers have been added to the list in 2024 so far. Its youngest member is Gleb Sinitsyn, a 14-year-old from the city of Ivanovo.

‘Out of desperation’

Maksim Makhnev from the town of Ust-Ilimsk turned 18 just a few weeks ago. The reason for his addition to Russia’s federal “extremists and terrorists” list is unclear. He’s one of numerous Russian teenagers who have spent their 18th birthdays in prison.

Among the others is 19-year-old Ilya Podkamenny, who managed to stop a freight train in the Irkutsk region in November 2022 by wrapping copper wire around the tracks. The train engineer found leaflets at the scene that read “Death to Russkies, freedom to Siberia” and “Putinists will hang from the trees instead of leaves, death to Putin the fascist.” According to state investigators, the engineer “became instantly vigilant and returned to the train to get a hammer to protect himself and his assistant in case of an attack.”

It took seven months for the authorities to identify Podkamenny as the perpetrator: he didn’t leave any fingerprints, there were no surveillance cameras in the area, and a police dog was unable to track him by his scent. Investigators recovered some DNA from the leaflets and wire, but it was too little to determine his identity. Eventually, they decided to search the phrases from the flyers online, which led them to a Telegram channel called “Siberian Liberation Movement — Republic of Siberia.” Podkamenny was one of the channel’s two administrators. Five days later, he was arrested.

Even after they found his Telegram channel, it’s unclear how the investigators were able to identify Podkamenny; according to him, his account was registered to an anonymous Estonian SIM card.

Podkamenny was initially put on house arrest, but after he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, he engaged in self-harm, after which he was sent to pre-trial detention. Eventually, he was charged with preparing and organizing a terrorist attack. According to investigators, he planned to commit arson twice: first at a railway relay cabinet and then at a military enlistment office. Podkamenny had twice prepared incendiary mixtures at home, but his mother found both of them and threw them away.

In the fall of 2023, Podkamenny was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to the charges against him. In a letter to Mediazona, he said his actions were motivated by desperation and a desire to fight against the “encroaching darkness.” “I think all this insanity will be over by 2025, and I’ll definitely be freed,” he added. He said his dream is to move to Texas and make a cartoon about anthropomorphic jaguars.

The other administrator of the “Siberian Liberation Movement” channel, 17-year-old Oleg Beryozin from the Zabaykalsky region, was arrested at the same time as Podkamenny and sentenced to compulsory psychiatric treatment. The case had a third defendant as well: a 20-year-old named Danil Tomshin who was subscribed to Beryozin and Podkamenny’s channel. He hanged himself before his trial.

‘For a monetary reward’

Also on the list of minors convicted for sabotage is a 15-year-old from Siberia's Tyumen region whose father fought in Ukraine. The boy lived with his mother and his stepdad; the day before his arrest, his father came back to town on leave. According to investigators, on February 23, 2023, the teenager took a Molotov cocktail and a lighter and headed toward a military enlistment office. On the way there, however, he was apprehended by FSB officers. An unnamed source alleged that the boy was offered a monetary reward for the arson attack, though he had previously expressed opposition to the war on social media. He was initially put on house arrest, but later ordered to undergo compulsory psychiatric treatment.

In November 2023, three more minors were arrested in the Tyumen region, including another 15-year-old. Investigators allege the teenagers tried to set three railway relay cabinets on fire. The two older ones were sent to remand prison while their case was being investigated, and the youngest was put in a juvenile detention center. “The arsonists acted under the orders of individuals whom they met on social media and who promised to pay them a monetary reward for committing illegal actions,” alleged the Investigative Committee.

In the spring of 2023, three teenagers were arrested in the Novosibirsk region: 18-year-old Kirill Veselov and two minors listed in open records as Pavel S. and Savely R. All three were charged with committing arson attacks on railway relay cabinets. Investigators allege that unknown individuals paid the defendants 10,000 rubles ($112) each for the attack. Around the same time, police arrested an 18-year-old from Novosibirsk named Viktor Skorobogatov for setting an Su-24 attack aircraft on fire. Eventually, investigators combined the two cases and declared the four teenagers members of an organized crime group.

In September of the same year, police in Novosibirsk arrested a 17-year-old college student for allegedly damaging one relay cabinet by force and setting another on fire the following day.

Five months earlier, a 16-year-old was arrested in the Kemerovo region on suspicion of setting two relay cabinets on fire. And that summer, three more teenagers were arrested for the same crime in the Krasnodar region.

Also in the Krasnodar region, a 17-year-old was arrested and sent to remand prison after purchasing materials for a homemade bomb online. When he went to pick them up, he found security officers waiting for him. Investigators allege that the teenager planned to set off an explosion at the city’s market. Upon searching his apartment, the authorities found multiple chemicals and smoke grenades.

Just two months ago, two teenagers in the Krasnoyarsk region were convicted of planning to set a relay cabinet on fire. They were sentenced to 4 years and 5.5 years in juvenile detention. One of them had set a cabinet on fire before.

[eltristanexplicitcontent]

Poles, as opposed to pantographs, were by far the most popular means of current collection for interurban lines in North America. The pick-up is held against the live overhead wire with about 28 points of pressure applied through a spring-load3d trolley base mounted on the roof. (This is why they are called "trolley cars" -- much to the amusement of the Brits 🛒). 2-rail DCC in HO scale may or may not have a live overhead, but getting the pole on the wire is one of the most fiddly bits of model railroading ever...

"Poling" is something else entirely, where freight cars are shunted ...with a pole! One end of the thick pole is seated in a cast iron "poling pocket" on what the Brits might call the buffer beam of the locomotive and used to push against the same poling pocket hardware located on any corner of every freight car. Tight radius, incompatible couplers, adjacent tracks -- all problems that poling solved. Obviously not OSHA compliant, but it was railroading!

Andy Gautrey has done a bangup job of modeling North American traction -- Yakima Valley Transportation Company's General Electric interurban steeplecab freight motor and other very typical equipment and operations that were archetypal of electric lines, especially those that engaged in a large amount of interchange freight business.

More vids on Andy's channel -- seems he's moved on so look for oldest vids…

[fenrislorsrai]

LASER TRAIN

LASER TRAIN

LASER TRAIN!!!

For transit agencies in the eastern portion of the U.S., the leaves falling off the trees can be a problem for their railways. Leaves have a slippery substance on them called pectin and, when crushed beneath the wheels of a passing train, said pectin can present a hazard to safety and operations by reducing friction between the wheels and rail. This condition can result in flat spots on wheels, higher maintenance costs, unsafe braking and even derailments.   Three different East Coast transit agencies -- Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) Metro-North Railroad in New York, New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) in New Jersey and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia, Pa., have recently started using new equipment to clean the tracks of pectin to ensure trains continue operating safely and reliably.  The MTA’s Metro-North Railroad uses its laser train to clean the tracks. The laser train was introduced by Long Island Rail Road in 2017 before Metro-North began using the train on a trial basis in 2022. During the pilot, Metro-North Railroad safely cleaned more than 12,000 miles of track with the laser train, which resulted in a 40 percent reduction in slip-slide events.  The train operates on the Hudson Line, the Harlem Line and the New Haven Line and can travel at speeds up to 60 mph. Two three-kilowatt lasers are mounted on each side of the train to put down an approximate 1.2-inch cleaning band.  

LASERS!!!!

also dead at the previous rail cleaner is called "Waterworld".

[darkmaga-returns]

November 18, 2024

U.S. Foreign Aid Is Embarrassing Itself

Three days ago the President of China Xi Jinping opened a Chinese financed a deep-water port in Chancay, Peru.

LIMA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a $1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. ... Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening of the Chancay port, about 80 kilometres (48 miles) north of Lima on the Pacific Ocean, and signed a deal to widen an existing free trade agreement. Xi said that Chancay, a 15-berth, deep-water port, was the successful start of a "21st century maritime Silk Road" and part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, its modern revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route.

The U.S. is, according to Newsweek, considering Peru to be in its "backyard" (for the record: the distance between Washington DC and Lima, Peru, is 5,700 kilometer):

However, a Chinese state-owned enterprise running a deepwater port so close to U.S. soil has Washington worried. The project marks another significant expansion of China's presence in a part of the world the U.S. considers its sphere of influence. "On the big geostrategic issues, the Peruvian government is not sufficiently focused on analyzing the benefits and threats to the country," an anonymous U.S. official told the Financial Times late last year. .U.S. Southern Command chief Army General Laura Richardson characterized China's infrastructure projects across the Caribbean, Central and South America as a security threat. "They're on the 20-yard line, in the red zone to our homeland," Richardson told Newsweek last year, referencing China's closer proximity.

Not to be outdone by China's generous investment the U.S. decided to publicly counter it. A day after Xi opened the port megaproject U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dropped into Lima:

Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 2:28 UTC · Nov 17, 2024 Today we announced that the United States will support the city of Lima in building a new passenger train line that will expand access to reliable and affordable transportation for over 200,000 people every single day. Embedded video

In his speech Blinken said:

“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.” Paul Simon, one of our great poets, wrote that line in one of his songs, and I think it speaks powerfully to each of us. Trains connect people. They bring communities together. They take distances down between us. And they are not just a symbol, but the practical manifestation of possibilities – the possibilities that come when we connect to each other. They’re so much a part of the national mythology of the United States, our own extraordinary construction project. And I’m so grateful today to be part of this project in helping create greater connectivity here in Peru. And so this is an exciting day in our partnership: The United States will support the City of Lima as it develops the new passenger train line that’s going to connect downtown to the eastern suburbs. The Caltrain rail system in California, as you’ve heard already, will contribute more than a hundred high-quality railcars and engines, and American companies will provide over 50 percent of the services for this project and the supplies for the project, from signaling equipment to railroad tracks to engineering and design expertise.