Baltimore Bridge Collision and Collapse

[cls]

The CEO of Southwest said he would price match the high speed rail prices from Burbank to San Francisco. No track has been laid so far and the costs are skyrocketing. It needs a dirt nap asap. We, the people are being fleeced.

Perhaps

But as soon as we cancel it, I bet fares on Southwest double

 

[Bravo52]

Yes

Wrong. You don't live here so you are not expected to know anything about it, but you could look it up

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_1A

Passed 52% to 48%. The people spoke, a plurality wanted something. Nothing to do with "politicians".

Many people voted against it, 48%. For a lot of reasons. The plan was not concrete, it was notional. I'm not writing blank checks for an unlimited project.

Among the other factors:

NIMBYs (looking at you Silicon Valley and Peninsula towns)

Geography: best would be a long the coast, flattest grades. You're not putting any rail over Tehachapis or Grapevine (hwy 5).

But no coastal communities need or want to get to SF or LA. Ok, so go north south on the east side of the central valley. Noone there wants to go to SF or LA. no one in LA or SF wants to ride that (hour plus) detour to the east.

So now we have track between Merced and Fresno and Bakersfield. But how do you run from Modesto to San Jose? Not across Patterson Pass. Not through Altamond. Ok, how about Pacheco and Gilroy? Nope, too ta ll, unstable.

Geology: multiple unknown major faults through San Luis and Tehachapis.

Would be the longest tunnel in the world, thousands of feet under and through unstable rocks.

Sounds like a textbook engineering response on why "it would never succeed". I did look it up and there are a plethora of examples that demonstrate how the politicians rammed it down the people throat. CA is not just LA and SF. Anecdotally, this is a case where a concentration of votes decided what was good for them is good for the rest of the state. All of this was pushed by politicians and there is plenty of examples that would need to be discussed in a different forum.

So yes, Merdead, Fresblo and Takersfield all have rail that goes nowhere important...according to all the people in LA.

Having discussed the finer points of CA's geological weaknesses when it comes to driving the golden spikes, perhaps we should go back to comparing the impacts of dragging anchors to faulty shipboard circuit breakers. Both of those are more germain to RoRos and cargo containers.

 

[Peartree]

Interesting side note: I saw an article today about government spending to increase Amtrak speeds for Acela in the Northeast corridor. Just the improvements to an existing and operating rail (not HSR) route are greater than what has been spent (including overruns) on HSR in California and no one on the east coast is complaining about it.

 

[Capt. Eric]

You want Government fiascos?
Three words:
The Big Dig

But there are many many examples of similarly painful projects. We'd be here for a year just listing them. But the only fair argument I can make for such government projects is that this is one of the reasons for having a government. To take on matters that are too much for local entities to handle on their own. Public infrastructure projects like these won't pay for themselves, so the government is the only one who can build them.

But that doesn't explain or justify the crazy cost overruns or inflated scope of many of these projects. I know there is often a better way, but too often politics, incompetence, or corruption play too big a role in managing them. That's the tragic part.

BTW, to say Californians voted for the rail thus politics played no role means you don't know what "politics" means. But that's not a different thread, that's a whole different forum!!!

 

[Marc_G]

Lack of rational intercity passenger rail solutions (aside from the east coast, where I grew up and had it available) drives me nuts. I live in Indianapolis area and need to go to Chicago for various reasons several times per year. There's no practical rail solution for this so I have to drive it. It's a lot of gas, time, and a fair amount of stress dealing with Chicago traffic.

I love my car, but would rather take a train for mid-distance travel like my European colleagues do all the time, enjoying a drink while reading or working on their computers or playing on their phones.

 

[NTP2]

Lack of rational intercity passenger rail solutions (aside from the east coast, where I grew up and had it available) drives me nuts. I live in Indianapolis area and need to go to Chicago for various reasons several times per year. There's no practical rail solution for this so I have to drive it. It's a lot of gas, time, and a fair amount of stress dealing with Chicago traffic.

I love my car, but would rather take a train for mid-distance travel like my European colleagues do all the time, enjoying a drink while reading or working on their computers or playing on their phones.

I took a train to DC for vacation, I agree it’s the best way for that sort of travel I’d even recommend it for cross country travel.

 

[boatgeek]

I took a train to DC for vacation, I agree it’s the best way for that sort of travel I’d even recommend it for cross country travel.

I've taken the train from Seattle to Chicago (~48 hours) or vice versa for vacation a few times. You have to be OK with reading or playing games, and it helps to have a stateroom. Until you take that trip, you have no idea just how big the Montana/North Dakota prairie is. Eastbound, you leave the Rockies just after breakfast, and the land is flat as a pancake for 24 hours. You don't start to get rolling hills until you hit Minnesota. Montana alone is a third of the trip.

 

[NTP2]

I've taken the train from Seattle to Chicago (~48 hours) or vice versa for vacation a few times. You have to be OK with reading or playing games, and it helps to have a stateroom. Until you take that trip, you have no idea just how big the Montana/North Dakota prairie is. Eastbound, you leave the Rockies just after breakfast, and the land is flat as a pancake for 24 hours. You don't start to get rolling hills until you hit Minnesota. Montana alone is a third of the trip.

Cool, I bet the best way to win I spy is to see a tree

 

[dr wogz]

I've taken the train from Seattle to Chicago (~48 hours) or vice versa for vacation a few times. You have to be OK with reading or playing games, and it helps to have a stateroom. Until you take that trip, you have no idea just how big the Montana/North Dakota prairie is. Eastbound, you leave the Rockies just after breakfast, and the land is flat as a pancake for 24 hours. You don't start to get rolling hills until you hit Minnesota. Montana alone is a third of the trip.

I've drive across my country a number of times (with some trips passing thru the US..)

Leaving Dryden / Thunder Bay [Western point of Lake Superiors], and passing thru Winnipeg I had a thought. and this thought really made me wonder when I was cruising thru Saskatchewan. And how big the prairies really are..

I thought: what did the original prairie & western settlers think when they set out to colonize this vast flat-land.. They got into their covered wagons & headed west. (and they make, what, 20-30 miles in a day..)
Day one.. still flat..
Day two, still very flat, nothing on the horizon..
Day 14: still flat, no change.. I believe we are going west still..
Day 26, still flat & no change.. How big is this continent?!?!?!?
day 46, still flat, but some hills can be seen... up ahead..
day 56, now hilly, and finally something different on the horizon!
Day 66, still hilly, and some major mountains up a head!!


.....

 

[boatgeek]

I've drive across my country a number of times (with some trips passing thru the US..)

Leaving Dryden / Thunder Bay [Western point of Lake Superiors], and passing thru Winnipeg I had a thought. and this thought really made me wonder when I was cruising thru Saskatchewan. And how big the prairies really are..

I thought: what did the original prairie & western settlers think when they set out to colonize this vast flat-land.. They got into their covered wagons & headed west. (and they make, what, 20-30 miles in a day..)
Day one.. still flat..
Day two, still very flat, nothing on the horizon..
Day 14: still flat, no change.. I believe we are going west still..
Day 26, still flat & no change.. How big is this continent?!?!?!?
day 46, still flat, but some hills can be seen... up ahead..
day 56, now hilly, and finally something different on the horizon!
Day 66, still hilly, and some major mountains up a head!!


.....

I'm reading a book right now about a person who emigrated from the Virginia hill country (Appalachia/Blue Ridge) to Nebraska in the early 1900's. They found the giant sky and lack of trees really disturbing. They were also still clearing prairie for farmland when they could easily ride the railroad to 20 miles from the homestead. On the other hand, there's a bunch of oral history that when settlers came to the coastal Pacific Northwest, they found the dark of the trees disturbing so they started clearing land.

At least the settlers heading to the prairie had a good handle on how far it was to where they were going. Unlike, say, the earliest European explorers and the earliest indigenous tribes.

 

[NTP2]

I'm reading a book right now about a person who emigrated from the Virginia hill country (Appalachia/Blue Ridge) to Nebraska in the early 1900's. They found the giant sky and lack of trees really disturbing.

I dislike it when we go to the beach, it’s disturbing for the geography you spend your entire life in just disappear like that. I guess it’s like what Homer hickam said, these old mountains become part of you.

Ps we actually made a bunch of money because all the settlers needed supplies before they crossed into the prairie and the Appalachians were the best place. Daniel boon worked at a hat shop in my town.

 

[Peartree]

I've drive across my country a number of times (with some trips passing thru the US..)

Leaving Dryden / Thunder Bay [Western point of Lake Superiors], and passing thru Winnipeg I had a thought. and this thought really made me wonder when I was cruising thru Saskatchewan. And how big the prairies really are..

I thought: what did the original prairie & western settlers think when they set out to colonize this vast flat-land.. They got into their covered wagons & headed west. (and they make, what, 20-30 miles in a day..)
Day one.. still flat..
Day two, still very flat, nothing on the horizon..
Day 14: still flat, no change.. I believe we are going west still..
Day 26, still flat & no change.. How big is this continent?!?!?!?
day 46, still flat, but some hills can be seen... up ahead..
day 56, now hilly, and finally something different on the horizon!
Day 66, still hilly, and some major mountains up a head!!


.....

I heard a comedian once that did an entire routine about (American) settlers heading West. The two jokes that I remember are these:

1) Do you know why so many ranches have broken wagon wheels at the end of the driveway? Because someone was heading west in their big Conestoga wagon, a wheel broke, the folks looked around and said, "Well, this looks like a good spot!"

2) Do you know why Denver is such a big city? Because all those wagon trains were heading for California and the west coast, they spent months crossing the plains, they get as far as Denver, take one look at those mountains, and said, "Screw that."

 

[Bravo52]

There used to be several "sayings" at Minot AFB....

"If you look to the west, you can see the back of your head."

"Minot is a great place to meet the most beautiful girls in the world. There is one behind every tree..."

"The wind doesn't blow at Minot, ND...it sucks."

The list goes on.

 

[Art Upton]

I took a train to DC for vacation, I agree it’s the best way for that sort of travel I’d even recommend it for cross country travel.

It gets tired the second day of such travel, and I only went from Toledo, Ohio to Santa Fe. Was most of it fun? Yes the first time but I would fly If I needed to go to Santa Fe again.

{and that was on the Super Chief Double Decker out of CHI, after the switch over from TOL to CHI}

 

[boatgeek]

An interesting side effect of the salvage operations. I have a customer with some projects that will be going through US Coast Guard review in a few weeks. They wanted to know if USCG could speed up the reviews to get the boat working faster. USCG replied that nope, all available manpower in that office is working the bridge salvage, so there's no extra available to speed up reviews.

 

[Last Ox]

I thought: what did the original prairie & western settlers think when they set out to colonize this vast flat-land.. They got into their covered wagons & headed west. (and they make, what, 20-30 miles in a day..)
Day one.. still flat..
Day two, still very flat, nothing on the horizon..
Day 14: still flat, no change.. I believe we are going west still..



.....

I have a pretty good idea. A couple of years ago I walked the length of the Oregon Trail. One surprise was that Kansas involved a LOT of climbing (into and out of drainages, fifty or a hundred feet at a time). Things weren't really flat until I reached the Platte River.

Most people on the Trail walked, I believe that putting one foot in front of the other nearly every day, for 2000 miles, was (and still is) a big part of the challenge. That said, thousands of 8 year-olds did it (many barefoot).



(Scott's Bluff, my covered wagon is the second in line, the little tiny one)

https://trailjournals.com/oregontrail

 

[Peartree]

View attachment 642480

(Scott's Bluff, my covered wagon is the second in line, the little tiny one)

https://trailjournals.com/oregontrail

That looks too small to sit in. Is it just a tiny wagon for gear that you're pulling behind you as you walk?

 

[Bravo52]

Pretty cool the first “big” ship passed through what’s left of the Key Bridge today. While I don’t think they gave a specific timeline, they did say “the end of April” so I think they are ahead of schedule. That’s a “W” in my book.