Friday, December 14, 2007

Local News | New streetcar suffers power glitch | Seattle Times Newspaper

First ball-bearings and now glitches!

Local News | New streetcar suffers power glitch | Seattle Times Newspaper

Someday we'll all look back at this and laugh...
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 15, 2007 at 12:07 AM

    Uhm...so some kid wanted to see a rail car flatten a ball bearing. Big deal.

    Our Bushsit Driven phoebia looks at this as sabotage! In the name of "who" or "what?" Oh no, NOT the Spotted Owl! Bin Laden? Did HE know this line was coming on line?

    As a kid, I scacrificed pennies, dimes and nickles on the CNR to see how they got flattened. Never recovered them, as they zinged somewhere into the landscape!

    Having lived through two fixed rail systems, I would NEVER endorse another. BART in San Fancisco, which I spent hours watching them march up Market Street during construction, and in later years, rode on them, STILL required feeders - private vehicles or rubber tired busses - to GET - are you listening - GET to the FIXED system.

    I lived in Vanccuver, WA., for 24 years, and observed FIRST HAND the Portland mickey-mouse TRI-MET fixed rail system that was SUCESSFUL in A) dividing communities with a steel, concrete, and fenced barier,

    and B) providing a gang-related pipe-line across Portland.

    AND it was an embarrasing failure everytime we had an Ice Storm, a common winter occurance at the throat of the Columbia River.

    And every year, an embarrased City Council would dispatch a delegation to Montreal and other eastern Canadian routes, to find out HOW they managed to keep an overhead canternary system running in winter!

    For gawds sake, even the Fallen Flag Milwaukee Road kept up with the winter over the Passes they had to content with.

    FIXED systems, read rail, are an exercise in faulty reasoning.

    On the the OTHER HAND, a rubber tire system is FLEXIBLE, and can be IMMEDIATELY manipulated to meet traffic demands.

    But once a concrete and rail system is planted, it is planted.

    I just returned from a weekend with an old HS girfriend, who is unfortunate enough to live on the multi-year MESS in South Seattle.

    She is alreay experiecing the divisivness of a steel and concrete rail line, and I endured the dumb-ass detours just to get back to the ferry terminal!

    So while the little CHEK built trains are cute, riding around on their closed circuits, just like a tinplate around a Christmas tree, they are INFLEXIBLE, and soon wear out their attractiveness.

    It has already taken place in Portland. I tired this line once, and gave up! I could walk faster back to my van than this "Toonerville Trolley" could ever accomplish!

    I remember as a kid, growing up in Seattle, seeing the transition from diesel to electic. And find it interesting how the overhead electice busses were a lot more flexible than an CONCRETE an STEEL fixed line.

    To validate my comments, read up on BART and Portland Oregon TRI-MET.

    Yikes! Have a nice day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 15, 2007 at 8:06 AM

    My question would be, "if fixed-rail systems are so crummy then why is there an uptick in system build-outs around the U.S.?" As for any presumed phobia, I would contend that any attention given to a new system like this one would be a blend of security and public relations. First, who wants a huge ball bearing - baseball sized by some accounts - to get pinched and thrown by a train wheel? That could take off someone's face. Second, the City of Seattle doesn't want a new Streetcar to be sidelined just after it began. If I can offer a third point, it would be that the media is picking up stories about the Streetcar because it's new and exciting to some. Naturally something that might be considered minimal in nature would be reported if there is a lot of buzz surrounding it. Personally, I would prefer to read an article of this nature than one about Paris Hilton's latest purse-shopping trip.

    I think relating this to the Spotted Owl or Bin Laden is...well...overboard. It's a streetcar, and there was a public safety response to an incident. It didn't rob work from an entire culture, as with the Spotted Owl, or provide the conduit of hate for disaffected fanatics to practice their anger on other people around the world, as with Bin Laden. As corny as it may sound, "Better safe than sorry."

    Thanks for the comments.

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