MetaFilter posts tagged with trains

We go from the ground to the mountain, baby! Without walking!

wintersweet — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:29:37 -0800

The funicular railway is a kind of cable-based railway that gives me great joy because of its peculiar shape and its uselessness for doing anything other than what it does. A funicular carriage is generally stairstepped or terraced, so you can't repurpose these cars for other uses. They generally work in a particular way, too, as pairs: one goes up the mountain, one comes down the mountain! Maybe this kind of glee is why they seem to be especially popular in Japan today, where they can be taken to many popular sightseeing areas--but a fair number of funicular railway riders are probably there for the journey, not the destination. You can go on a pilgrimage to the numinous group of peaks called Kōyasan (here's a video of the trip there) via the Kōyasan Cable, which even accepts payment by smart card. You can take the Mitake Tozan Mountain Railway not too far from Tokyo and do some fine hiking in the Chichibu Tama Kai National Park (video trip). In the famous sightseeing region of Hakone, you can start your journey on the modern-looking Hakone Tozan Cable Car, defying the generally old-fashioned vibe (you complete your trip up to Lake Ashi on a ropeway, and once you get to the lake you can hop on a replica of the HMS Victory or 17th-century French warship Soleil Royal no I am not even kidding). Then there's the Kintetsu Ikoma Cable Line. The dog car, named Bull, and the cat car, named Mike, are on the Hōzanji line to the Buddhist temple Hōzanji. (Another Flickr user notes that some people use these trains as part of their normal commute.) The music-themed Do-Re-Mi car and the cake-themed Sweet car go to the amusement park Skyland Ikoma on the Ikoma line. Compared to these four, the two cars on Hōzanji Line 2 look positively normal. There are probably a couple dozen funiculars in Japan, so...more where those came from! (They even have cool looking tickets--more here.) In the videos above you can see the "passing track" style, where a single track is used for most of the course but there's a kind of "mouth" area where the two cars pass each other on two tracks. Other systems may use parallel tracks. For zillions more strangely hypnotic Japanese funicular railway videos, see this Youtube search results page. (Yes, those katakana spell "cable car", basically. Although they're two somewhat different things in English, they're the same thing in Japanese. There's a note about this on the Japanese Wikipedia entry, and another link is provided for San Francisco cable car seekers.) There's not enough space to address funiculars all over the world, but I'll add a few general notes: The name comes from Latin for "rope." Many of the now-closed ones in the US (where they're often called inclines or incline railroads) and elsewhere were used to get into mines, but they've also been used to move ships. The steepest passenger railway in the world, the Katoomba Scenic Railway in Blue Mountains, Australia, is a funicular railway, as is supposedly-the-shortest and supposedly-soon-to-return-to-operation, Angels Flight in Los Angeles, USA. There's also a funicular that may be the oldest railway in the world, the Reiszug in Austria, which dates to the 1500s and is now run by motor--a lot older than this 1920s one from Japan! They're found in many other places in the world. There are many in South America (most notably Valparaiso, Chile), some in other parts of Asia (though not Korea for some reason, as far as I can tell), and particularly in Switzerland, Italy, and other hilly and mountainous areas of Europe, where Michel has blogged his photos for you. Apparently they were pretty popular in the Soviet Union, too. For details on how they operate, you can read the nitty-gritty of funicular function at the Sweden-based funiculars.net. You may even know a song about funiculars! The 1880 song "Funiculì, Funiculà," is about the opening of the funicular on Mount Vesuvius (no, really!) which had to be shut down in 1944 after repeated eruptions caused problems. And yes, that's where the headline on this post comes from. Here, for no apparent reason, is a children's chorus, Luciano Pavarotti, and Aqua (yes, THAT Aqua) performing "Funiculì, Funiculà."

Alright! Let's go on a journey — through time and space! There are 95 Pokemon stamps! Let's get all of them!

silby — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:08:37 -0800

"And much like Christmas, originally about the birth of a religious savior-figure named Jesus, is now about buying things for people and hoping that they buy more things for you, much how Easter, originally about the death of a religious savior-figure named Jesus, is now about receiving rabbit- or egg-shaped chocolates, now and forever Obon is about collecting all of the Pokemon." Japan, trains, marketing, pachinko, hordes of stamp-seeking children.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

gman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:33:44 -0800

Beautiful train stations that fell to the wrecking ball.

High Speed Trains in California

dhruva — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:04:58 -0800

Getting up to speed : "If it can get started, the California high-speed train would almost certainly be the most expensive single infrastructure project in United States history. Judging by the experiences of Japan and France, both of which have mature high-speed rail systems, it would end the expansion of regional airline traffic as in-state travelers increasingly ride the fast trains. And it would surely slow the growth of highway traffic."

I thought the Train would never come -- How slow the whistle sang --

ocherdraco — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:38:29 -0800

"There is at least one technology in America, however, that is worse now than it was in the early 20th century: the train." Why trains run slower now than they did in the 1920s.

On the Run from Everything but Each Other

infinitywaltz — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:58:52 -0800

We've covered hobo culture before, both historic and modern, but as the story of Smashley and Stogie reveals, the lifestyle of the railway traveler still exists not only for weekend adventurers but as a means of escape for troubled souls. (via)

I like trains

winna — Sat, 09 May 2009 23:20:54 -0800

Paintings of trains. I like the energy of this one, but there are enough for everyone to have a favorite. Have you ever wondered how diesel locomotives work? Want to read an essay about the role of railways in music? Or maybe you just want to curl up with your laptop to read an entertaining book about trains. Or, if the paintings and the book aren't your thing, how about the Library of Congress? They have lots of train pictures. I like this one. Today is the 140th anniversary of the completion* of the North American transcontinental railroad! Hurrah for trains! * see previously for why this isn't a wholly accurate statement.

Karma police, arrest this man

cashman — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:59:49 -0800

GM is struggling to survive, announcing today tens of thousands of layoffs and plant closings by next year, and eliminating the Pontiac Brand. Meanwhile just a few weeks ago, the president announced a high speed rail plan [pdf] between many major cities. An interesting turn of events since the documentary Taken For a Ride uses interviews and public records to argue that GM deliberately killed off transportation via rail.

The Forbidden Railway - a train trip to Pyongyang

dunkadunc — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:56:35 -0800

In September of 2008, two Austrians traveled 13,000km by rail from Vienna to Pyongyang - without asking permission and going through the official Koran travel agency. Travelling via Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia, they chatted up North Korean border officials, were invited to eat lunch by North Koreans on the train, spent 36 hours without a guide, reaching areas not normally accessible to tourists. Travelogue with photos: Vienna-Moscow : Moscow-Barnaul : Barnaul-Irkutsk : Irkutsk-Skovorodino Skovorodino-Khabarovsk : Russia-DPRK : Tumangan Kilchu-Pyongyang 1 : Kilchu-Pyongyang 2 : Pyongyang & Mt. Myohyang Arirang Games, &c. : The Demilitarized Zone

Cincinnati's Union Terminal is falling apart

Mick — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:35:45 -0800

Cincinnati's Union Terminal has been named one of the top 50 architecturally significant buildings in America by the AIA. It was a major train station, abandoned, turned into a shopping mall, and now it currently houses the city's Museum Center. One problem, it's falling apart.

For all your infrastructure news needs

Horace Rumpole — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:34:20 -0800

Infrastructurist. Although the blog is only a few days old, they've already debunked some of the myths of 24, interviewed Michael Dukakis, and grappled with Amtrak economics.

The Lackawanna Cut-Off

parudox — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:35:36 -0800

A glance will show / Why Phoebe Snow / Prefers this route / To Buffalo.
And Phoebe's right / No route is quite / As short as Road / of Anthracite.

In 1908 the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad began work on the New Jersey Cut-Off to make its New York to Buffalo mainline (the Road of Anthracite so liked by Phoebe Snow) even shorter and faster. It was to have no grade crossings, and was to be as straight and level as possible — through hilly terrain. The 28-mile Lackawanna Cut-Off, as it is now known, was built over three years, cost $11 million, and was an engineering marvel of massive reinforced concrete bridges, enormous cuts, and the largest railroad embankment in the world. All of this has been abandoned for years, though there are plans afoot to restore the Cut-Off for commuter rail. All 73 bridges and culverts on the Lackawanna Cut-Off were made entirely of concrete. The route shaved 11 miles off the New York City to Buffalo trip, with a maximum grade of 0.6% and total height fluctuation of only 11 feet. The two big bridges: Delaware Viaduct and Paulin's Kill Viaduct. Can you spot the Cut-Off on a terrain map? (That's Pequest Fill.) The DL&W followed up with the Summit Cut-Off in Pennsylvania, building two more huge concrete bridges — the Martin's Creek Viaduct and the rather more impressive Tunkhannock Viaduct, which is possibly the largest one to date. The New York Times ran stories on the completions of the two cut-offs. There is some more information about the construction here. You can also read a bit about working on the Lackawanna Railroad. The beginning of the end for the DL&W was the destruction unleashed by Hurricane Diane in 1955. The rails on the Lackawanna Cut-Off were removed in the 1980s; the Summit Cut-Off still survives with one track in service. Naturally people explore the abandoned Paulin's Kill Viaduct and other portions. If you're ever in northwest New Jersey, you can tour the Lackawanna Cut-Off. As for the Summit Cut-Off, you can see much of it from U.S. 11 north of Scranton, which follows the old alignment. See also Steamtown in Scranton.

Thomas' Pixelated Pickle: Or The Year in Thomas

Artw — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:51:02 -0800

Just over sixty years ago the Reverend W. V. Awdry told his sick son a series of stories based on real life incidents with trains, which he later wrote up as the Railway Series. Now Thomas the Tank Engine and the other engines of the Isle of Sodor (somewhere between Barrow-in-Furness and the Isle of Man) are a global phenomena, with toys, books and of course the TV series - filmed using model trains on more than 70 1:32 scale 16-by-20-foot sets, and voiced by the likes of Ringo Starr and Alec Baldwin. 2008 has been a rough year for Thomas: George Carlin, who voiced the series in the US up until 1998, passed away (previously), as did David Mitton, who had written and directed over 180 episodes (and who has previously worked on the special effects for Thunderbirds). There's changes ahead for Thomas as well - this year saw the faces of the engines, which had previously been cast in silicone and attached with double sided tape, replaced by CGI faces, and from 2009 onwards Nitrogen studios in Canada will be taking over production with an entirely CGI Thomas. Meanwhile a group of British students continues the tradition of model engine-based storytelling with their YouTube based British Railway Series.

NY Subway 1905

terranova — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:29:23 -0800

Interior New York Subway, 14th St. to 42nd St. (1905) (sound added). In June, 1905, G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, D.W. Griffith's cinematographer, mounted a camera at the front of a train and shot 6 1/2 minutes of footage from 14th Street (Union Square) to the old Grand Central Depot, built by Cornelius Vanderbilt and architect John Snook in 1871. At the time of filming, the subway was only seven months old, having opened in October 1904. Two weeks after completing "Interior New York Subway," Bitzer shot "2 AM in the Subway," a comic short about late-night cavorting in an underground station. In March, 1905, Ray Stannard Baker (author of "What is a Lynching") called New York's new subway "a confusion of wonders" -- "the next step in the evolution of a Modern City." It would have its challenges.

Geared Steam

Artw — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:41:33 -0800

On a traditional steam locomotive the pistons drive the wheels directly via cranks. An unusual looking series of variants, the geared locomotives, took a different approach - using gears and driveshafts, giving them an advantage in traction at the cost of speed, making them ideal for steap grades and tight curves of logging railroads. The most common was the Shay Locomotive (video), with it's vertical pistons. Other variant included the Climax (video, seen at the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad) and the Heisler, which had it's pistons in a V-formation (video). Many examples of the geared locomotive can be found at the Northwest Railway Museum.

ferroequinology, the study of iron horses

nickyskye — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:14:20 -0800

Trains of Russia, photos from Pavoroz.com, a site about the railways of Russia, the Baltics and the C.I.S. (Commonwealth of Independent States). More than 50 000 pictures of steam, diesel, and electric locomotives, EMU and DMU trains, draisines, stations, tracks, etc. The collection is updated daily. The Turkestan-Siberian railway. American Railway Slang Russian, CIS and Baltic Railway Map. A variety of train maps of that area, including subways and trolleys. More details of the Trans-Siberian Railway including images of tickets etc. World Railways, As Seen By Russians Yahoo translator

The Lost Engines of Roanoke

Kattullus — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:18:54 -0800

"Looking for all the world like an engine abandoned in the Amazon jungle, M2 class 4-8-0 number 1118 lies forlorn and forgotten at the Virginia Scrap Iron and Metal yard in Roanoke, VA." The Lost Engines of Roanoke website chronicles the history of four steam locomotives that were sold in the 50's to a scrapyard in Roanoke, Virginia. There are plenty of photos of the engines and other train equipment and information on two other lost engines. The news section has been busy of late since one of the engines has been sold to a railroad themed restaurant in Bellville, Ohio. The move was photodocumented.

Train in Vain

40 Watt — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:46:46 -0800

"This could take exactly 77 hours and 15 minutes, if the trains keep to schedule. Most likely, they won’t." GOOD Magazine takes a cross-country train ride to examine exactly why America's rail system sucks so badly, and where we go (slowly) from here.

Choo Choo Boo Boo

cashman — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:48:14 -0800

The first National Train Day is this coming Saturday. There will be events all over, and concerts, special guests and lots of train related attractions in four main cities, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. The day is May 10th to commemorate May 10th, 1869 when the “golden spike” was driven into the final tie in Promontory Summit, Utah. It joined two major railways, ceremonially creating the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. Except that it really didn't. That did not actually happen until August 15th, 1870, near Strasburg, CO. Colorado State officials list it (pdf) as Comanche Crossing, saying "An unpretentious white monument marks the spot". The "drab concrete pylon" was moved from the actual site and now sits in Lions Park. Next to the monkey bars.

All Aboard a Train Blog

cashman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:27:22 -0800

Dogcaught, a group blog about trains and the train experience. Some of the pictures are nice enough that they almost look tiltshifted. Others are beautiful and alluring. Hang around long enough and you might turn into a foamer. Their friends help out with neat pictures too.

This enormous red circular carriage will never fit onto the tracks!

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:57:51 -0800

Train tracker.

The Great Indian Railways

hadjiboy — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:37:09 -0800

Mumbai CST (then and now) | Cuttack Railway Station | Howrah (1927) | Gorakhpur Railway Station (then and now) | Chennai Central Station (day) | Trivandrum Central {via} What’s in store… More Photographs You Tube !!!

Virgin? I don't think so, you saucy little wench... oh, that's the spot I like, right there.

parmanparman — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:33:32 -0800

Virgin Trains embarks on a new campaign. Richard Branson takes a new direction in getting people to think about global warming and using British rail. More here.

Manifold Menus

c0nsumer — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:06:36 -0800

Manufold Menus [4.4MB PDF - mirror]: Cooking on train motors, including recipes, cooking vessels (really, plastic bags and Gladware) pictures of where to stash the food, and resulting dishes.

Yasujiro Ozu on trains & automobiles

hama7 — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:57:01 -0800

Yasujiro Ozu on trains & automobiles