$53 Billion for High Speed Rail?

[piece-itpete]

Comb, I love the sound of the big diesel-electrics under full throttle, it is awesome. I'd like to hear a stereo that can do THAT (nice tie in, no? )

I hear it pretty often, I live about a 1/4 mile from a busy high speed track. The best one I've ever seen was right after 9/11, a very long military train, mostly tanks but also personnel carriers and armored humvees. I shivered at the sight of it.

Sometimes the graffitti on the boxcars coming out of the big cities is entertaining too

I once got a tour of a forge that made camshafts for railroad engines. It's like a kids' movie, they're so big. I think the displacement of ONE cylinder is around 400 cubic inches?

As a kid, your National Railway museum stood as a high point, even more so than Stonehenge and most castles & WW2 gun emplacements. I loved that place. I still remember some things I learned there.

Pete

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Busing killed what was left of the good neighborhoods. Anyone who can gets out of there for their kids sake.

"White Flight" has always been crazy, IMHO. A black family moves in all of the white folks haul ass. As I understand it, that wasn't as much of a problem here as it was up north. People here tended to stay put. Despite the busing. I sometimes wonder if the northern cities would have fared better if folks there had done the same?

A few weeks ago the Plain Dealer ran a story - 'what if Pittsburgh and Cleveland joined into a single municipality?' I thought, yeah, right lol.

Pete

Cle and Pit one city? That's nuts. There over 100 miles apart. WTF?

Dave

[piece-itpete]

With all territory in between part of the municipality, also Youngstown, Ashtabula, Akron. It would be a powerhouse truly, larger in area (though slightly less population) than Chicago. A neat exercise anyway.

Shows how big Chicago is!

White flight, partially. What busing did was make sure ALL schools were terrible, instead of some of them.

There's got to be a bad area near you, white black whatever. How about importing some gang members into your local school? It's GREAT for property values.

Pete

[Fast_Eddie]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

What busing did was make sure ALL schools were terrible, instead of some of them.

I pretty much agree with you here. I have some ideas about education and taking a hard look at bussing is one of the "radical" notions I have.

As for the size of Chicago - what's really amazing is a city that big is chump change next to New York or LA. And if you look at "combining cities", lump Philly in with New York and it will boggle your mind.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

With all territory in between part of the municipality, also Youngstown, Ashtabula, Akron. It would be a powerhouse truly, larger in area (though slightly less population) than Chicago. A neat exercise anyway.

Shows how big Chicago is!

White flight, partially. What busing did was make sure ALL schools were terrible, instead of some of them.

There's got to be a bad area near you, white black whatever. How about importing some gang members into your local school? It's GREAT for property values.

Pete

Youngstown?!? Someone is dumb enough to see YOUNGSTOWN as an asset?

Anyhow,
Yes, we have some bad areas. And we have gangs moving into our schools, but it's not because of busing. It's because of the southward migration of people from declining northern cities. We are getting a lot of really lovely people from Newark, Philly, Detroit.......................

Dave

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Youngstown?!? Someone is dumb enough to see YOUNGSTOWN as an asset?
.....

ROTFLMAO! Blue, you just made my day

Pete

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Youngstown?!? Someone is dumb enough to see YOUNGSTOWN as an asset?

Other than Jim Traficant, no.

[merrylander]

Funny how things never change, years back I was running compatibility tests on large video conferencing systems. The view was that they would replace the ond-day get togethers that involved flights , cabs, meals, etc.
As it turned out the majority of these systems were compatible. I wonder just how many are in use. They even developed ways involving multiple cameras and multi image screens (Hollywood Squares) so that you not only saw the speaker but others in the meeting. The inability to see more than just the speaker was one of the initial complaints. Guess you just can't break the habit that 'being there' is somehow essential.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Other than Jim Traficant, no.

Jimbo is a trip. I always liked the guy. I would never vote for him. But he sure is hilarious to listen too.

I grew up near Youngstown, and have been there many, many times. It's hard to believe that, in the late 1940s it was listed twice as one of the best places to live in the United States and had nearly 200,000 residents. Then we discovered cheap imported steel. Today it has less than 70,000 residents and one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. But, really, even during it's high flying days, Y'town was know for it's mafia activity and labor strife. A rough and tumble city of hardcases.

Dave

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Jimbo is a trip. I always liked the guy. I would never vote for him. But he sure is hilarious to listen too.

I grew up near Youngstown, and have been there many, many times. It's hard to believe that, in the late 1940s it was listed twice as one of the best places to live in the United States and had nearly 200,000 residents. Then we discovered cheap imported steel. Today it has less than 70,000 residents and one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. But, really, even during it's high flying days, Y'town was know for it's mafia activity and labor strife. A rough and tumble city of hardcases.

Dave

I have a number of friends from Aliquippa and Beaver Falls, PA. It's much the same there (though not quite as bad), but Pittsburgh itself has made a remarkable turnaround.