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I don't think one should have to run transit in a dumb way just because some individual doesn't understand it. Especially if said individual cannot be brought around to be supportive, no matter what you do. The tail shouldn't have to wag the dog. Police and fire services are also "public welfare".

I think cases where the cost of collecting the fare quantitively exceeds the fare collected are more the exception than the rule and may reflect some inefficiency or some inappropriate choice of over-costly technology. This can be fixed and should not be accepted as inevitable. A transit system...

Personally I think such setups are often counter-productive. It can be quite a challenge to arrive in a new city and have to figure out how the fare system works. In some cities you pay the driver and in others the driver gets angry if you think you can try that. Some cities have ticket...

I did destructive testing too in an earlier job many decades ago. We had an underground bunker in which we sent surge currents of more than 10x spec through electrical components (not systems) and filmed their destruction with high speed cameras. Our variability was often in excess of 10% and...

One would have to know whether the margin is already stacked inside the requirement or whether you are double stacking margins. In other words, let's assume for the argument that somebody decided based on whatever considerations that we do not know, that actually 720k would be good enough but...

I understand Luxemburg for example has free city transit. They still have huge congestion problems, which i guess sort of proves that cost is not the issue. Several cities may offer free transit on certain days, such as weekends of pre Christmas shopping, when they expect congestion to be very...

True of course. Although one might have hoped that if there was one place in the world where the value of a place to chill might override such pedantries of logic and reality, it might be in California 🤣

I agree with this. Also, at least within cities anyway, transit is already far far cheaper than driving. I do not think that costs are the factor that are keeping people away from transit. If there are special groups who maybe do have problems affording it, then that should be addressed on that...

and this is precisely the reason they can't keep on repairing the existing SLs to last for 70+ years as maybe a tourist or heritage railroad could. The cars do not fulfill modern day crash requirements. Any life extension can a best be a temporary fix. Imagine there being a major accident with...

I had a work colleague once from Algeria who was the younger brother of a political dissident who the Algerian government thus classified as a terrorist (even though he totally opposed violence, his only crime being to have written pamphlets critical of the government). My colleague had several...

That photo has so many fine details. From that elegant young lady and her high fashion attire to timeless country folk in berets, all attentively observing the entry of a train. We see early attempts at modernization such as cast concrete platform faces and the backlit blue typeface that could...

You can turn this argument both ways. You can say that if a private enterprise goes bankrupt, it is ultimately at the expense of its shareholders and creditors and of nobody else, whereas if Amtrak runs a greater deficit than allowed, it may get a stern rap on the fingers but will probably get...

Just checked Google maps and no, this was definitely a different location. I think it was a few blocks south of the Old Capitol, or at least in that general sort of direction. I haven't been to Montgomery yet, but it's certainly on my to do list.

I spent a few days there in 2018 or 2019. We were on an Amtrak trip, coming down from Chicago on the CONO and spent a few days here before catching the bus to Shreveport (where we did another day), and then to Dallas. In Jackson we went on a guided tour of the State Capitol, an amazing...

As in moving locomotives from workshops to the cities where they will work (or vice versa), or reshuffling equipment to cover seasonally changing demand and schedules.

I understand what you mean. I think your reply relates more to switching and train formation operations, whereas my enquiry was more related to long distance positioning moves which might lead to trains being double headed (or alternately the second loco hauled as a dead load) even when from the...

Does Indian Railways not when needed attach a second loco for purposes of positioning moves, in the way railroads in many other countries do, even Amtrak at times. A non-revenue loco-only move would require an additional engineer as well as planning and coordination of a path for the move, and...

If I recall correctly, that was a section where the HSR would have run parallel to an existing freight railroad for considerable length. Placing the HSR on an elevated alignment while leaving the freight at ground level would have created an insurmountable barrier, as any future attempts to...

I understand the problem is being aggravated by some of the regular sidings being out of use at the moment due to construction work. The underlying problem appears to be lack of redundancy in the system, with all infrastructure having been honed back to the bare minimum to save on maintenance...

The video says the new coaches were taken for night-time dynamic testing on Brightline. I wonder if this implies that they were run as a single consist, which would make it the longest Brightline consist to date.