The Random Post Thread

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
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Toronto, ON
Toronto added the UP express a while back. 20 minutes from downtown to
Airport. Works great if one is starting or ending downtown.


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scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
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Vacationland
That would be great if the railroad tracks go to the airport and there are a bunch of people unable or just too lazy to walk from the train to the airplane. Houston doesn't have any railroad tracks going to the airport, but I know a bunch of European and northeast US cities do. Houston has one passenger train each day. One day it heads east, the next it heads west. If you need to go a specific direction on it you might have to wait an entire day.
I assume it would be like those local subways or monorails they have in many cities, that take you from the parking lot or rental to the airport. Or it can be part of the mass transit system (subway) that major cities have. Houston must have a subway system, no?

The Boston MBTA (the T) is part subterranean and part surface rail. There are a whole bunch of them. Of course, the idea of one of them getting loaded with passengers, going to the airport, and then taking-off, seems ridiculous for a variety of reasons. But I'm not the one who hatched this crazy concept.
 
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memebag

Top Brass, ADVP
Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
I assume it would be like those local subways or monorails they have in many cities, that take you from the parking lot or rental to the airport. Or it can be part of the mass transit system (subway) that major cities have. Houston must have a subway system, no?

No, Houston does not have a subway. Houston is built on alluvial flood plain gumbo. Subways aren't practical here. We don't even have basements. On top of that, Houston has no commuter rail, very little light rail and a pretty poor bus coverage. Houston is built on oil. It is our duty to sit alone in traffic in our automobiles.

If these train cars leave the tracks and fly to some other city, do they become part of that city's rolling stock? Or do they turn around and come back to the first city? I haven't bothered to read the article so I don't know if that is answered there.
 
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HecticArt

Administrator
Oct 19, 2008
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Toledo, Ohio
For all of the cost and effort, it will be a lot more efficient to just build a solid network of high speed rail to get people around the country. They are over-complicating this because someone latched onto a 1950's utopian concept.
 

Wolf

AI is here, time to obey our robot overlords!
Oct 11, 2008
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Phoenix
www.lodowolf.com
For all of the cost and effort, it will be a lot more efficient to just build a solid network of high speed rail to get people around the country. They are over-complicating this because someone latched onto a 1950's utopian concept.

There were talks years ago building a high speed rail between L.A. to Vegas and Phoenix. A triangle grid area, but for now the company plans to build it rail in California.

XpressWest - Wikipedia
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
31,903
17,160
168
Toronto, ON
No, Houston does not have a subway. Houston is built on alluvial flood plain gumbo. Subways aren't practical here. We don't even have basements. On top of that, Houston has no commuter rail, very little light rail and a pretty poor bus coverage. Houston is built on oil. It is our duty to sit alone in traffic in our automobiles.

If these train cars leave the tracks and fly to some other city, do they become part of that city's rolling stock? Or do they turn around and come back to the first city? I haven't bothered to read the article so I don't know if that is answered there.

Remind me of this post next time Houston gets flooded. It always amazes me that people build on flood plains and then wonder why they get flooded out.
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
29,569
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Vacationland
I was listening to Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" on the radio, which has the line "the bartender looks up from his want ads". And that made me think of the Want Advertiser, which for decades was a staple of life in New England. Every Wednesday morning it would be out on the newsstands, in a different color each week. If you were buying or selling anything, this is where you'd do it. And before the internet and eBay, this was where you'd go to just browse for the next thing you might want; a motorcycle, a car, a pair of speakers, a guitar, anything. It contained hundreds of pages per weekly issue, and there was a fee structure for listing items for sale.

I looked it up, and the publication stopped in 2008, during the recession, when Craigslist and eBay was taking over. I'm wondering if they had something similar in other areas of the country. In NJ, they had the Pennysaver, but I don't remember it being such a popular and widely distributed newspaper.

upload_2018-7-13_8-21-14.png
 

memebag

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Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
Back in the 1970s, radio station KVLL in Woodville, TX had a "Swap Shop" program every weekday morning, just like the ones Sal and Richard used to prank call. It was just people calling in offering to sell or buy stuff.

Houston still has a Greensheet.