How Not To Save Detroit

In article >,
krp > wrote:
>
> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.

If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
be expensive.


--
It's times like these which make me glad my bank is Dial-a-Mattress

"Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
t...
> In article >,
> krp > wrote:
>>
>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>
> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
> be expensive.


Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago lasted?
Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them? I put this right
up with the claim that the electric CAR is "IMPOSSIBLE."

On 2009-06-17, krp > wrote:
>
> "Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
> t...
>> In article >,
>> krp > wrote:
>>>
>>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>>
>> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
>> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
>> be expensive.
>
>
> Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago lasted?
> Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them? I put this right
> up with the claim that the electric CAR is "IMPOSSIBLE."

It appears you are unfamiliar with the geology of both cities. Chicago
was built on a swamp. NYC is on islands. This should give you a good
idea of what the problem with tunnels is. That problem doesn't sleep.

In article >,
krp > wrote:
>
>"Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
et...
>> In article >,
>> krp > wrote:
>>>
>>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>>
>> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
>> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
>> be expensive.
>
>
> Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago lasted?
Not as long as the ones in London. Doesn't mean they don't cost money to
maintain. And they cost a lot more than that to build.

>Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them?

What do you think they spend their budget on, besides ghost jobs for
politician's friends, anyway?

--
It's times like these which make me glad my bank is Dial-a-Mattress

"Brent" > wrote in message
...

>>>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>>>
>>> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
>>> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
>>> be expensive.
>>
>>
>> Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago
>> lasted?
>> Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them? I put this
>> right
>> up with the claim that the electric CAR is "IMPOSSIBLE."
>
> It appears you are unfamiliar with the geology of both cities. Chicago
> was built on a swamp. NYC is on islands. This should give you a good
> idea of what the problem with tunnels is. That problem doesn't sleep.

So it is IMPOSSIBLE for subways to exist in Chicago and New York? Better
make an emergency call to the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) and WARN them
that the subway won't work. I was born in Chicago and visit regularly The
company I once worked for had its home office on Park Avenue in New York.
Seems to me that BOTH were working fine. And had been for almost a century.

"Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
...

>>>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>>>
>>> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
>>> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
>>> be expensive.
>>
>>
>> Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago
>> lasted?

> Not as long as the ones in London. Doesn't mean they don't cost money to
> maintain. And they cost a lot more than that to build.

Actually with today's technology they don't cost that much more,
especially IF you count ALL the operational costs. Do they have to have snow
plows in the subways? Run into many COWS on the tracks down there? Happen
often, does it?

>>Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them?

> What do you think they spend their budget on, besides ghost jobs for
> politician's friends, anyway?

Actually? What do I think they spend their money on? Besides salaries?
Booze for the office parties? Actually MOST of the maintenance is to the
carriages that riders VANDALIZE inside and out. Vey little has to be spend
on the subway tunnels themselves. Mostly vacuuming the **** thrown in them
by vagrants and vandals. Repairs are minimal.

krp > wrote:
>So it is IMPOSSIBLE for subways to exist in Chicago and New York? Better
>make an emergency call to the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) and WARN them
>that the subway won't work. I was born in Chicago and visit regularly The
>company I once worked for had its home office on Park Avenue in New York.
>Seems to me that BOTH were working fine. And had been for almost a century.

And they were both phenomenally expensive to install, even back in the days
when cheap immigrant labour and nonexistent safety laws made it much cheaper.
I can't imagine paying to build something like that today. Take a trip to
the NYC Transit Museum for a real appreciation of what went into that system
a century ago. It is an impressive accomplishment.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 2009-06-17, krp > wrote:
>
> "Brent" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>>>> It would be simpler to bury the power source and have a T shaped
>>>>>connector get the two poles.But that design has problems in the rain and
>>>>>snow. Which is why a SUBWAY system is the cheapest way to go.
>>>>
>>>> If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels.
>>>> Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to
>>>> be expensive.
>>>
>>>
>>> Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago
>>> lasted?
>>> Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them? I put this
>>> right
>>> up with the claim that the electric CAR is "IMPOSSIBLE."
>>
>> It appears you are unfamiliar with the geology of both cities. Chicago
>> was built on a swamp. NYC is on islands. This should give you a good
>> idea of what the problem with tunnels is. That problem doesn't sleep.
>
> So it is IMPOSSIBLE for subways to exist in Chicago and New York?

WTF is your major malfunction? Are you stupid? Unable to read? or just a
jackass? It's a problem that requires near constant human intervention
or the system fills up with WATER. Moron. Sealing, pumping, draining,
and so on.

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...


>>So it is IMPOSSIBLE for subways to exist in Chicago and New York? Better
>>make an emergency call to the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) and WARN
>>them
>>that the subway won't work. I was born in Chicago and visit regularly The
>>company I once worked for had its home office on Park Avenue in New York.
>>Seems to me that BOTH were working fine. And had been for almost a
>>century.

> And they were both phenomenally expensive to install, even back in the
> days
> when cheap immigrant labour and nonexistent safety laws made it much
> cheaper.

Today not substantially costlier to build a subway than tracks at grade
level. When you consider ALL costs, MUCH cheaper.

> I can't imagine paying to build something like that today. Take a trip to
> the NYC Transit Museum for a real appreciation of what went into that
> system
> a century ago. It is an impressive accomplishment.


Yeah they pretty much did it with picks and shovels. IF we did it the
same way - CONGRESS MIGHT - it'd cost hundreds of trillions. However with
modern tunnel boring machines it's pretty efficient.The things we have to
face is that air travel is pretty well saturated. We need to start thinking
of high speed rail. You just CANNOT do that at grade. (Ground level) The
cost of high speed rail at grade level would be many times more costly than
a subway rail system. You just are NOT going to get the speed out of grade
level rail. If you made the train capable of 100 MPH some CLOWN is going to
try to "RACE" it to the next crossing. People STOP on tracks all the time.
Not to mention various critters on the tracks. People absolutely MUST prove
their stupidity. It's not like you have to rebuild it every 5 years. If
you design it so you can get 300+ MPH out of the trains you can make it
competitive with air travel. Especially when you factor in weather delays
and landing and take off delays. Try to think of the poor *******s spending
8 hours roasting their asses on a plane sitting on the tarmac.

MOST of the rail system was laid OVER 100 years ago when trains could
barely best 28 MPH. they switchback around mountains instead of going
straight through them. There are some WEEKS when at grade trains cannot run
on some routes. When you get a flood on the Mississippi you're screwed.
Bitch all you want about subway high speed rail. Just as the first railroads
were an investment that paid off for more than century so a well engineered
subway high speed rail would be. If you stay up nights dreaming up
obstacles . . . well the human race would still be cowering in caves
terrified of the lions tigers and bears. Thank God technology and
engineering has advances some in the past 180 years or so. Well, for SOME
of us it has. As I recall there were people who bitched and moaned and
****ed about the London underground. The bitching mostly STOPPED when the
BLITZ started. They found they came in handy for more than just
transportation. There are ALWAYS negative people. When President Kennedy
spoke about going into space, MOST people said it was "IMPOSSIBLE!" The
only things that are impossible are the things we haven't learned to do yet!

Just like the goof-balls saying the electric car is "IMPOSSIBLE."
Somebody forgot to tell the Japanese. They BUILT SOME. Mitsubishi will have
one in the U.S. market as early as late this year. I've lived for a while. I
have heard the "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE" bull**** most of my life. 100% of the time
the people saying it were full of ****. Back in the 1960's a IBM 370
computer took up rooms as large as football fields that had to be precisely
climate controlled. Many LAPTOPS can handle computations 100 times that of
the old IBM mainframes. AND it took a whole floor of a building just to
store 100 megabytes of data. Today you can get 2 terabytes on a hard drive.
In 1965 they would have told you that it was "TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE." Yet we
have desktop systems that have the potential to do far more and far faster
than those ancient mainframes. But remember - it was IMPOSSIBLE.

In article >,
Brent > wrote:
>On 2009-06-17, krp > wrote:
>>
>>> It appears you are unfamiliar with the geology of both cities. Chicago
>>> was built on a swamp. NYC is on islands. This should give you a good
>>> idea of what the problem with tunnels is. That problem doesn't sleep.
>>
>> So it is IMPOSSIBLE for subways to exist in Chicago and New York?
>
>WTF is your major malfunction? Are you stupid? Unable to read? or just a
>jackass?

I'll split my bet between (a) and (c).
--
It's times like these which make me glad my bank is Dial-a-Mattress