HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: warrenc@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Cherie Warren)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Comparing other systems to BARTex
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:49:15 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle

11jodom@gallua.gallaudet.edu (..The Kangol Kid..) writes:

>In article <166h5uINNshh@agate.berkeley.edu>, lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) writes:
>> Is the BART fare collection system unique to the BART system? In this
>> system, you buy magnetic-coded cards that have a certain value, and
>> put the card through a reader at the beginning and the end of the
>> trip.  A value is subtracted from the card, depending on the length of
>> the trip. I know the "modern" subway approach is an honor system with
>> spot inspectors, who levy fines for fare cheaters, and the fixed-fare
>> token system is the "traditional" approach, I was wondering which
>> other systems use the BART method.
>> 
>> Also, BART manages to collect a little more than half of its operating
>> cost through the farebox; how does this compare with other systems
>> around the country? Locally, this percentage is high compared with
>> other transit systems around the bay ...
>> 	

>Washington DC's Metrorail system uses a farecard system, too.   

>Two years ago (I think), Washington's Metro and San Francisco's BART had
>a contest in which DC's riders try to win a trip to San Francisco and free
>ridership on the BART system by putting their name and address on their
>farecards and the DC system will pick the winning used farecard in a lottery
>type drawing.

>Weird huh?

Hong Kong and Singapore both use magnetic fare cards, paid for with cash in
the subway station.  Both systems sell multi-ride tickets also ("stored-
value" cards).  Admittedly not comparable in terms of "around the country,"
but "around the world has its validity.  Don't know if HK or S'pore fare-
cards would work in SF or DC's systems - they don't work in each other's.
HK's system is like BART in one other aspect - it goes across Victoria
Harbour via an underwater tunnel.  However, it costs more than a Star Ferry
ticket (like triple the price) and it's much more predictable and dull,
especially on windy days ;-).

BTW, Tokyo is slowly abandoning the "traditional" approach, much like
London, and converting lines to run on automated ticketing systems - the
tickets are much like the BART/DC/HK/S'pore cards, with magnetic encoding,
but much smaller in size.  JR is also planning on more upgrades to its
systems which will use magnetic cards and electronic pass-gates, especially
for commuter runs.

--
Don
dgs1300@aw2.fsl.ca.boeing.com (guest on this account)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
From: elw4@po.CWRU.Edu (Evan L. Werkema)
Subject: A few interurban questions
Reply-To: elw4@po.CWRU.Edu (Evan L. Werkema)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 18:27:17 GMT


  Last summer, on my way back to New Mexico, I drove through the town of
Gwynneville, IN, on the ex-B&O line east of Indianapolis.  I got off the  
highway and drove into town to see if CSX had left the depot intact there.
They had not, but about 50 feet north of the main track, I ran across the 
concrete foundation of a very small depot that appeared to be in line with an 
abandoned right-of-way paralleling the B&O.  To the east, there was a small
2-story brick building with all the salient characteristics of a interurban
substation.  Does anybody know the name of the interurban line that used to 
run through Gwynneville, IN?
  Later in the trip, I visited Cudahy, WI, south of Milwaukee, and just north 
of the C&NW depot was another brick building resembling a substation/interurban
station.  Any ideas on who that might have belonged too?
  Thanks in advance.

-- 
 o__II___---__---__---___I~~~|~______________    |~~~~~~|~~|~~~~~~| |~~~~~~|~~|
 _|______________________|___|_|     3000    `\  |      |  |      | |      |  |
/ o~~O-O-O-O-O~~O-O-O-O-O~~o~~~~o-o-o~~~~o-o-o~~~~o--o~~~~~~~~o--o~~~o--o~~~~~~
Evan Werkema---------------------------------------------------elw4@po.cwru.edu
Xref: sparky rec.railroad:6475 ba.transportation:1976 talk.politics.misc:39604 talk.environment:3247
From: jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,ba.transportation,talk.politics.misc,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Cost of transit systems vs highways
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:41:59 GMT
Followup-To: rec.railroad
Organization: Investment Management Services Inc., NYC

Ted Koppel <tkoppel@cassandra.cair.du.edu> writes:

	MARTA tried to expand into Gwinnett County (NE Atlanta) but was
	voted down twice by the somewhat wealthier (and signifcantly
	higher Caucasian percentage) population of Gwinnett County.

This is a typical short-sighted response to transit -- "It will make it
easy for (insert member of community most feared by community) to get
to our homes" ... usually this means "racial minority" or "poor
would-be theives" and at a macro level, this is even what has stopped
the Chunnel from being what it could be.

Don't build that tunnel, because it will make it easy for those
{French,British} to invade!

	MARTA will eventually move into Cobb, Gwinnett, and other
	Atlanta counties, but it won't be easy.  It may take another
	fuel crisis, or some other cathartic event .... but eventually
	it will happen.

Sounds to me like the "event" will be the deaths of all the scared
people in Gwinnett County ...

/jordan
Xref: sparky rec.railroad:6758 rec.models.railroad:1676
From: dawdy@tellabs.com (Dan Dawdy)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,rec.models.railroad
Subject: Opps...Link GIF's posted to a.b.p.m.
Date: 20 Aug 92 13:22:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: tellab5.1992Aug20.132233.8607
Organization: Tellabs, Inc., Lisle, IL
Originator: dawdy@sunk13

I forgot to say that these were posted to
alt.binaries.pictures.misc. , just in case
we have some newer viewers out there...

Dan
From: dtyler%jt_home.uucp@amber.athena.lkg.dec.com (David Tyler)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Last post.
Summary: last post
Keywords: Last post
Date: 16 Aug 92 02:26:49 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Totally Disorganized..

Sorry for the last post, it was missing alot of facts. Sometimes I blunder,
sometimes I don't.

Can anybody please clarify the current status of the Amsterdam street-car
system? Brussels converted a few years back from street-cars to a metro
system. Is Amsterdam doing the same thing?. By the way, each time I post
here I get no infomation whatsoever.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

David M. Tyler  Student end user.  (Murdock High) GO BLUE DEVILS!!!



-------------------------------------------------------------------
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                                                                    \
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00-00                00-00                                       00-00----    
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(An atempt to draw a french TGV.)        
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
From: william@bnr.ca (William Moss)
Subject: Re: VIA's excellent, Amtrak sticks bigtime
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 21:56:39 GMT

In article <14346@mindlink.bc.ca>, Steve_Hooper@mindlink.bc.ca (Steve Hooper) writes:

|> One nice surprise for me last month was when I travelled to Ottawa from
|> Toronto.  The ticket price (about $55 I think)
Full undiscounted one-way coach fare is $65 Ottawa-Toronto, plus GST.
Discounts between 10% and 50% are available.

|> included snacks (peanuts etc),
|> free coffee, tea, pop etc, and a full lunch including the above sandwich, a
|> sclie of cheddar cheese, crackers, pop etc for free.  This is a nice touch as
|> in the past this was charged for.

There's usually (but not always) a choice of sandwiches, including, usually,
ham&cheese, salmon or tuna, and egg salad. All look fairly substantial.
Note that the free pop is anything you want, as long as it's pepsi or 7up (:-).
The orange and tomato juices you see on the cart are available only to purchasers
of mixed drinks.

If you order at least 48 hours in advance, special meals, including kosher, are
available. 

In VIA I (1st class) more substantial meals with wine are offered. For those 
ordering kosher meals in advance, there's a choice of beef or chicken.
-- 
===========================================================================
William G. Moss                      disclaimer: not the views of BNR or NT
Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa  +1 613 763 8108 WILLIAM@BNR.CA  
===========================================================================
From: wb8foz@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (David Lesher)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Note on Newport News Wreck
Date: 16 Aug 92 16:35:55 GMT
Reply-To: wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu (David Lesher)
Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers - Beltway Annex

Others said
# Not only that, they also fudged a signal a mile or so away that would
# have given indications of the switch..

The Post reports the switch was thrown AFTER the head end passed
this signal.........

--
A host is a host from coast to coast..wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
From: sfsmith@pennsas.upenn.edu (Sandy F. Smith, Jr.)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: NYCTA - to JFK (was Re: From Penn Station to JFK)
Date: 13 Aug 92 15:24:43 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Aug13.005927.21287@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>,
wb8foz@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (David Lesher) writes:
> 
[re: my earlier post on Robert Moses' road-building practices:]
> 
> This sounds like Cleveland. The {long gone now} County Engineer, also
> the Party Chairman, would not HEAR of a wide medium when I-90 was being
> planned & built. Some might say that was due to his relationship with
> the contractors building the roads, and developers that just happened
> to own the land........
> 
> I hope they have to pave his gravesite for a parking lot.

This now begs a question.

We now have evidence from at least three large cities (New York, Cleveland,
Los Angeles) that the highway folks saw to it that their tunnel vision (pun
intended) on transportation would guide future development in their cities.

Howcum the folks in Chicago managed to see the logic of building freeways
_and_ rapid transit _together_ in the 1950's, when just about everyone else
in power missed it?
___________________
Sandy F. Smith, Jr.
Graduate Division, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
16 College Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6378.  (Opinions mine, not Penn's)
Internet: sfsmith@pennsas.upenn.edu
 
"The God I serve don't make no trash!" -- Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, Mayor, City
of Kansas City, Mo.
Xref: sparky rec.railroad:6505 ba.transportation:1996 talk.politics.misc:39835 talk.environment:3263
From: romeo@niagara.Tymnet.COM (Michael Stimac)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,ba.transportation,talk.politics.misc,talk.environment
Subject: RR bridges, was Cost of transit systems vs highways
Date: 15 Aug 92 02:04:18 GMT
Followup-To: rec.railroad
Distribution: na
Organization: BT North America (Tymnet)

In article <1992Aug15.011032.16062@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:

>were also slated to be BART counties. But Marin County pulled out
>after arguments over whether or not it would be safe to send BART
>trains over the Golden Gate Bridge. San Mateo County pulled out, after

This is interesting; I've read that it is a general principle of
civil engineering that a suspension bridge is not a suitable choice
for a railroad bridge. The Golden Gate bridge is of the suspension
type.

All of the railroad bridges I know of are designs other than
suspension.

I know that there was planned and built a railroad suspension
bridge over Niagara Falls (in which project John Roebling of the
cable company came to fame). It didn't remain in use very long.

Does anyone know of any railroad suspension bridges in use today?

Michael Stimac
-- 
Michael Stimac
(415) 355-8889
romeo@tymnet.com
These opinions are not necessarily anyone's but my own.
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
From: bjork@telebit.com (Steven Bjork)
Subject: Talking detectors (Draggin' Ladies :) was Re: NEC detectors, (CalTrain, too?)
Organization: Telebit Corporation; Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 16:26:16 GMT

In article <7731@public.BTR.COM> rah@public.BTR.COM (Richard A Hyde  rah@btr.com) writes:
>This sounds like an interesting aspect of railroad operation!?
>
>Can anyone tell me the locations and frequencys of such detectors on
>the San Francisco Peninsula CalTrain commuter run?  Thanks!

There's one at "Milepost zero two eight point two," about
Atherton or thereabouts. You can hear her on 160.32 (SP road #2).

--Steven
Xref: sparky rec.railroad:6539 ba.transportation:2013
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,ba.transportation
Subject: Re: RR bridges, was Cost of transit systems vs highways
Date: 17 Aug 92 06:01:52 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL

In article <16n75bINNhj2@agate.berkeley.edu> forags@nature.Berkeley.EDU (Al Stangenberger) writes:
>In article <1992Aug15.181817.2358@news.columbia.edu> brennan@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug15.051323.19656@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I.
>>Petrich) writes:

:::I haven't yet seen any proposals for light-rail
:::service across the Golden Gate bridge, however.

:Since the original concrete deck of the Golden Gate bridge was replaced with
:a new lightweight steel deck, engineers now feel that there is enough safety
:margin to allow a second deck with either a couple of bus lanes or railroad
:tracks underneath the main deck.  This wouldn't alter the appearance of the
:bridge since the decks would be hidden in the bracing under the roadway.

:Whether it is fiscally possible, or 
:politically possible is another question -- many prominent environmentalists
:in Marin County feel that any mass-transit improvements will induce too much
:growth and destroy the quality of life.

	And so that's why Marinites will have to be stuck with riding
the bus as the only alternative to the car -- they can't even have
passenger rail service on their old Northwest Pacific rail line,
although it would be a nice thing to restart.

	Light rail would be the cheapest option, since typical
light-rail lines will go right in the middle of streets. But its
capacity is not terribly high, and LRV's are typically relatively
slow. I remember riding a Santa Clara County LRV along its entire
route, and I remember a southward section that was parallel to a
freeway. The cars on it were clearly faster. When I rode a BART train
on its Concord line, there was also a freeway along the route, and I
noticed the BART train being as fast as the cars along it.

	BART would be good if one wanted good competition with the
car, since it is relatively fast. But it would be difficult to justify
unless there was a high commute volume, since it is designed for
relatively high user populations. Another down side is that its track
must be separated virtually _everywhere_, though if Hwy. 101's median
is big enough, a BART line can fit inside without too much trouble.
However, it is designed to move relatively quickly through an urban
area, something hard to do with an LRV.

	I guess it's one of those dilemmas: small, slow, and cheap, or
big, fast, and expensive.

/Loren
From: btarbox@sw.stratus.com (Brian Tarbox)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: My Amtrak Vacation
Date: 18 Aug 92 12:03:27 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.

Len Bachelder writes: 

>Your experience provides yet another instance of the truth of the well-known
>axiom, "Late trains get later".   This type of experience, though, in the
>opinion of both the Mrs. and me, just adds to the "fun" of train travel, and
>would in no way inhibit our desire to do it again!

While this experience may be 'fun' for railfans, it just confirms the
impression of Amtrak as not being a legitimate 'travel' alternative.  I'd
take a steamboat ride for the adventure, once, and not again if the ride
was uncomfortable, expensive, rude, and incrediably late...expecially if
what I really wanted to do was get to some destination.
From: clive@x.co.uk (Clive Feather)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Rail Access to Airports
Date: 20 Aug 92 07:55:10 GMT
Organization: IXI Limited, Cambridge, UK

In article <714115794snx@warren.demon.co.uk> leveret@warren.demon.co.uk (Nick Leverton) writes:
> London Stanstead

London Stansted

> Main line express service to London Liverpool Street (don't know
> the frequency) and to the Midlands and North of England.

Twice an hour to London. Once or twice an hour to the Midlands and
North.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather     | IXI Limited         | If you lie to the compiler,
clive@x.co.uk          | 62-74 Burleigh St.  | it will get its revenge.
Phone: +44 223 462 131 | Cambridge   CB1 1OJ |   - Henry Spencer
Fax:   +44 223 462 132 | United Kingdom      |
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
From: jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re:  High Speed Rail in Southern California
Date: 19 Aug 92 03:53:24 GMT
Organization: Investment Management Services Inc., NYC

So, I finally dragged out my maps of Southern California, which show
major rail lines (and power lines!) to look at the situation for
transiting from Northern to Southern California over existing ROW.
Someone mentioned the SP lines through Saugus, so that was my first
stop.  Saugus is where Magic Mountain is, near the intersection of
CA/126 and I-5.  This is basically the sounthern end of the Grapevine.
The line runs west along (roughly) CA/126 through Fillmore, Santa
Paula, finally joining the coast (and main SP coast line) at Ventura.
It's about 35 miles from Ventura to Saugus.

From Saugus, there's a line south through what looks like a long
tunnel at the San Fernando Pass, and then a straight shot into Burbank
(providing good access to the Hollywood-Burbank airport), where it
meets up with the current Amtrak line again.  From Saugus, the line
runs east along (mostly) Soledad Canyon Road, through some pretty
winding areas, eventually spilling out at Palmdale, an often-metioned
site for a replacement for LAX.  From there it's a straight shot in the
desert past Edwards Air Force base to Mojave.  The main line from here
goes further east and north finally linking up along I-395.

So far we have a probable route (with some upgrades) of the existing
Amtrak line from Los Angeles north to Burbank, switching to the current
freight line to Saugus, winding through Soledad Canyon Road, to
Palmdale, then north to Mojave.  The fun part begins when you try to
get back from Mojave to the main line down the Central Valley (CA/99).
Travelling due west for about 20 miles, you get to the small town of
Tehachapi (still with me?).  The track then follows CA/58 for about 12
miles and just pas the smaller town of Marcel, the track *does a
circle*, I presume to make it up some weird grade.  Then it does a flat
S and shimmies it's way northwest.  It doubles back on itself several
times past Bear Mtn., and has one more big difficulty right at Caliente
until it can finally make a bee-line to Bakersfield, at Kern Junction.

Whew!  Does anyone know what this particular stretch of roadbed
looks like?

/jordan
From: james@cats.ucsc.edu (James C. Bohem)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: DC fare collection method (was: Others vs BART)
Date: 15 Aug 92 00:20:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu


msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:
>> One is the fact that if your ticket doesn't have enough value left to get
>> you out at your destination, you have to bring it up to *exactly* the right
>> amount, using a special "Addfare" vending machine.  I think it would have
>> been far better if they just let you add arbitrary value to the ticket ...

Some ticket vending machines in the DC Metro (and I believe BART as
well) will allow you to add value to an existing ticket - it swallows
the old ticket and credits the amount to the display that indicates how
much money you've fed it. When you've added the desired combination
of low valued toickets and cash, you punch the big button to issue
the ticket, and you've got a fresh new one. So you can add $$ and keep 
riding, and avoid the addfare machines inside the gates.

-- 

James C. Bohem          +1 408 458 5358          fax: +1 408 423 6519
james@cats.ucsc.edu   (or preferably)  james@holycow.santa-cruz.ca.us
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: RR bridges, was Cost of transit systems vs highways
Date: 19 Aug 92 00:21:31 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL


	It was commented that the real problem for a suspension bridge
was not weight per axle but the total weight and how it is spread out.
By that criterion, I presume that the safest load is one that is
spread over the entire bridge, as is the case for a lot of cars on the
bridge. LRV service is probably OK since an LRV is probably not too
different from a truck in what load it presents. Urban-transit heavy
rail, like the NY subways or BART, is probably a little worse, but its
load/unit area does not increase too much. Intercity heavy rail, like
an Amtrak train pulled by an F40 or similar locomotive, is probably
worse, since an F40 weighs about 80 tons over the same wheelbase as a
BART car (only 32 tons). I'm not sure how much Amtrak's passenger cars
weigh, however, but they probably do not weigh much more than a BART
car (I'm pretty sure of that for one-level cars, but not so sure about
double-deckers like the Superliners). Freight trains are definitely
the worst of all -- they are VERY heavy. A large freight locomotive
will weigh about 200 tons, with not much more wheelbase than the other
rolling stock mentioned, with there being usually two or three per
train (I've seen six on one train); a fully loaded freight car will
weigh 80 or 100 tons, at much the same wheelbase.

	So a typical freight train will be much worse than just about
anything else.
From: gnn@wsl.dec.com (George Neville-Neil)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Comparing other systems to BART
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:48:35 GMT
Reply-To: gnn@wsl.dec.com (George Neville-Neil)
Distribution: na
Organization: DEC Western Software Lab

In article <1992Aug12.095750.998@msus1.msus.edu>, schumann@msus1.msus.edu writes:
|> In fact, I seem to recall that both systems were designed by the same
|> company.  I believe that this company did both the fare collection systems
|> and the rolling stock, which would explain the similarities.
|> 

The fare collection systems were done by different companies.  I believe
that IBM did the DC Metro.  I can check when I get home.  I know that
the collection system is one place where Metro didn't learn from
BART and therefore repeated some mistakes which BART had fixed
before Metro was built.

Later,
George

-- 
If you believe that there is a god, a god that made your body, and yet
you think that you can do anything with that body that's dirty, then the
fault lies with the manufacturer.
					Lenny Bruce
Newsgroups: rec.railroad