Railway lines once connected the Middle East • Hacker News Board

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#101

Post by hwillis » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #30

rendall wrote: post #20

This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…

> This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. Trains can also indicate war :) They are crucial for logistics, and were especially so before WW2. My…

For the curious, Russian gauge is/was 5 ft (1,524 mm) and standard gauge is 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm). Soviets eventually redefined it to a round metric number (1,520 mm), but that's a very small difference. Track width varies by around a centimeter normally.

Russian and Soviet rail profile tend to be bigger (taller by maybe an inch) but that doesn't really impact the trains aside from transitioning from one to the other.

Interestingly, 3.5 in happens to be almost the ideal change. The bottom of a normal rail profile is a bit over 6 in wide, so the new spike hole is right between the two old holes. If the difference was any larger or smaller, the new spike wouldn't hold as well.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#102

Post by bpodgursky » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #45

foxes wrote: post #5

We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.

Life is so much more enjoyable when you move away from the suburbs and get rid of your car. The freedom to just walk to your destination and having everything within walking range is priceless.

How to tell the world you don't have children, in two sentences.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#103

Post by merpnderp » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

hylaride wrote: post #98

AlgorithmicTime wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The freedom to get in my car and go anywhere in the country, in the company of my entire family, no less, is priceless.

You don’t lose any of that having neighbourhoods where you don’t need a car to pick up some milk. I don’t think we should ban private cars or anything, but when public schools have 3 lane car pickup lanes several blocks long there’s an issue.

My cousin's husband has been mugged three times in his life. Each time was when he was walking to school in NYC, each time was with a deadly weapon, and each time there was a chance he could have died. I've never heard of a single person being mugged driving to school.

I'm not saying this is the primary reason to have cars and live in the suburbs, but not being forced to share space with every random person in your vicinity is no small thing.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#104

Post by rolleiflex » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

egiboy wrote: post #99

rolleiflex wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had, in fact, three — we called the one in Libya Trablusgarp , Trablus of the West, and he one in Lebanon Trablusşam , Trablus of the Levant, and we call the only one that we have left in Anatolia, today's Turkey, Tirebolu . Just like hashes, given a large enough empire, name collisions are inevitable. Edit: Corrected one of the names. Thanks @egiboy.

It's not Trablusşark but rather Trablusşam , Tripoli of the Levant: https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trablus%C5%9Fam

Thank you! Corrected and credited.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#105

Post by bsanr2 » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

presentation wrote: post #54

pjmlp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for those in a condition not to easily walk or use any kind of two wheels device. Then there is the whole issue that local city transportation is pretty lousy, even in Europe. Sure big cities have it good on the innermost district, live a bit more on the outskirts or in a smaller town and taxi becomes the only option for those not willing to wait between 1-2h for each bus into each direction plus additional co…

Blind, wheelchair-bound, and elderly people use trains daily everywhere in Tokyo. It only sucks if your city doesn’t value the non-able-bodied (which unfortunately is most of the world).

I remember being surprised at the abundance of tactile paving in Japan.

https://www.simplemost.com/sidewalk-bumps/

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#106

Post by jtwaleson » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #93

throw0101a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last thing I want during covid is to be stuck in a metal box with 100 strangers uncomfortably wearing masks instead of in my own car blasting music with the window down. Or you could walk or take a bicycle (e.g., Amsterdam/Netherlands).

And get rained/snowed on like an animal?

Plenty of things you do are “like an animal”. I cycle in Amsterdam all the time, and while rain is unpleasant it is really not the end of the world.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#107

Post by inglor » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #56

inglor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the same alias :O Anyway, live close by. The train station at Malha was closed 2020 because of COVID because it was a scenic/tourist route. There was discussion of shutting it down permanently but it didn't happen. I used to take it every week for a coding-teaching gig 5 years ago. It will likely either reopen when tourism reaches a pre-covid level in a year or two or will be converted to a light-rail station…

Wow, never before have I met anyone with the same nick online. I have been carrying the Elvish name around since approx. 1995, when I was a young Tolkien fanboy. This railway is on my visit list. I hope that tourism recovers enough for it to reopen.

Got mine from a Tolkien name generator around 2000 to create an online alias (after reading and liking a few books) and used it since. Used to have inglor.com and still have the gmail.

If you look hard enough you will find my contributions in early-mid newgrounds (inglor day, zombie inglor, the inglor dance and 10k bbs posts :))

Anyway - good taste and nice to meet

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#108

Post by timthorn » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #44

Bloody British. Just think how many died building them. Great achievement and good progress. But it came with a price.

In the UK, about 500 navvies a year died building the railways here. Even recently, 10 workers were killed during the construction of the Channel Tunnel: https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/navvies...

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#109

Post by thakoppno » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #20

This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…

> how the presence of trains indicate peace

A tangent, but I’ve often pondered about the economic and societal value of other inanimate objects; for instance, what the economic benefit of a barricade has always fascinated and perplexed me.

One one hand, a barricade prevents free the movement of services and goods. On the other hand, without them there would be less security, leading to less economic activity.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#110

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #93

throw0101a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last thing I want during covid is to be stuck in a metal box with 100 strangers uncomfortably wearing masks instead of in my own car blasting music with the window down. Or you could walk or take a bicycle (e.g., Amsterdam/Netherlands).

And get rained/snowed on like an animal?

In the event that this is a (somewhat/semi-)serious comment:

First: one doesn't have to cycle all the time. If the weather is bad, or if you just don't feel like it, then one can certainly just not cycle. Feel free to take transit or your car/taxi/uber.

But by designing 'human scale' neighbourhoods this gives people the option of choosing their mode of transportation, instead of being forced to own/operate an expensive piece of equipment that sits idle and depreciates most of the time.

That being said, as someone who cycled in the Before Times to work in Toronto for ~9 months out of year,† I've found the risk of rain was more of a deterrent than actual rain. The number of times I was actually commuting in the rain as quite small over the course of a year.

When I started cycling I would look at the weather forecast, and not take my bicycle if there was a decent chance of rain. And most times it ended up not raining anyway. So at some point I bought rain gear and stuck it in a pannier: I no longer bothered looking at the forecast.

Of course one doesn't need to go for all the funny looking clothing. A simple poncho folded away can be sufficient:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLM_mTUuHlc

† Often the road conditions were garbage in January and February because a lack of decent practices in snow clearing. Those were the months I generally skipped: I often cycled into December (when it was still 'dry') and often re-started in (mid-)March.