Cafe Einstein: LPTP #12

David S
David S
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RE: @David: Oh I wish I

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@David: Oh I wish I could come up for that. Sounds like a ton of fun.

Next year when I'm training on the Chicago district we'll have to see if we can meet up. We run to Calumet, Landers, Blue Island, and several other places up there. It's been several years since I quit running that side, so it'll be fun seeing old sights again.

Norfolk Southern has a lengthy pedigree. I recall seeing somewhere there are around 150 railroads in our past. Mergers and buyouts of everything from large well known companies to small short lines are what make up our railroad. The other large railroads are just as varied in their makeup.

Phil


It actually seems to be a dying tradition. Only eight guys showed up, and only four bothered to write down their answers. Out of 320 possible points, the high score was the Metra conductor with 175.

Yes, NS has quite the corporate history. For the second year running, I added a bonus question at the end: Five pictures had NS heritage units in them. How many were on NS property? Last year, the answer was 0. This year, it was 1 (the NYC unit at Landers).

We might do better if we moved it to a different month.

One picture, for example, was taken looking along a passenger platform and on down the track. In the distance is a switch leading to a track curving off to the viewer's right (the left for a train going that way). What town? Manhattan What direction are we looking? Northeast What railroad(s)? WAB, N&W, NS, Metra, CM&G, MILW. The platform is Manhattan, the last stop on the Southwest Service, formerly the Wabash mainline to Decatur. (I now feel priveleged to have ridden that line behind N&W 611 before they sold off part of it and abandoned the rest.) CM&G is Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary, which went to none of those towns, and was later bought by the Milwaukee Road to connect to their coal line to southern Indiana.

Another picture shows a mass of new concrete with a big blue bridge to the upper left and the apparent stub end of an old bridge directly ahead. The tracks on the bridge have overhead wire. What town? Chicago What direction are we looking? Northwest What railroad(s)? K&E, CSS, NKP, N&W, NS. We are at 130th and Torrance. In the background is the Ford assembly plant. The bridge is the South Shore (technically Kensington & Eastern because we're in Chicago; it was built and owned by the IC/ICG/IC/CN until a few years ago when NICTD passed on a chance to buy it and South Shore Freight grabbed it instead.) We can't actually see the NKP tracks, but we can see a signal for the crossover in the middle of the Ford plant. The City of Chicago wanted to make the Torrance Ave. grade crossing an underpass. This involved replacing the K&E bridge and shifting the NKP tracks, putting them on a new bridge as well. Both railroads had their alignments permanently shifted. Took a couple of years and who knows how much money.

David

Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.

anniet
anniet
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May I ask who blew up my

May I ask who blew up my chest *gaze round thread* and stretched my legs so they go all the way up AND touch the ground at the same time?

Bill! :))))) YOU are no ordinary human :) Please prepare yourself for some considerable disappointment below :)

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@Anniet : To our collective credit we have not gone completely mad with our first alien contact.


True... you have not :) Despite all my efforts.

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We know you are an alien plant in the SETI project : to alert your masters if certain prescribed events occur.


Aah. I see YOU are no ordinary human either Mike :) We come in pieces... and WILL be in touch.

My ID...

*pause to evaluate cause of dull thud* Should we put Bill in the recovery position do you think? :)

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Ooooer I is speechless .... I know a movie star......


You must introduce us sometime :)

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So...question of the day (no insidious change of subject here)

How loud is the sun?


You've been having problems too eh Phil? Complete RACKET! THAT's how loud. WILL the council be doing anything about it... no!

I'd say... louder than a jackhammer...

... so... about 130 decibels from where I'm sitting...? LOADS louder higher up of course :)

@Aurel - :((((((( hope Tuesday's better. Sorry to hear about your tutor :( Hope your back feels better soon!

Hi David :) Hi TL :)

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Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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@Phil : Well Done ! The Sun

@Phil : Well Done ! The Sun would be very quiet actually .... heard from the outside at least and in the human frequency range of hearing .... take the surface temperature as around 6000K. Alot of motion per particle but all pretty random ie. no organised pushing and pulling above mere diffusion. Sound is defined as the non-bulk directed transport* above that. One would hear a hiss if you strain hard enough but no more than hot liquid metal, say. There would be some exceptions though eg. flares and what not.

@Aurel : "My back is hurting very heavy today, three weeks after my 3 Meter fall". Ouchies ! What broke the fall** ?

Cheers, Mike.

* The full horror is not exactly that but it will do for now.

** Yes the correct answer is 'the planet or something attached to it', but I'm querying the other side of the impact point. :-)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Phil
Phil
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I should have been more

I should have been more clear.

How loud is the sun on the surface.

Phil

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
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anniet
anniet
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Magic! It's you! :) Our

Magic! It's you! :) Our original no ordinary human :)

Thanks for the wiki brain spin :) The parodies were especially reassuring - like getting a kiss better after a nasty fall. Think Aurel needs one of those - poor thing :(

I fell down a mountain when I was twelve... to the tune of my sister screaming that I was going to die - which undermined my own feelings on the matter quite a lot as I recall :/ Fastest way down as it turned out :) Everyone else took AGES to catch up :)

edit:

Quote:
How loud is the sun on the surface.


Oh. Do we add in the sound of ourselves singe-ing or not? :)

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MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
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Hello again Anniet ! Yeah

Hello again Anniet !

Yeah I tend to do things like that (sound of the falling tree)

Now the funny thing is when I was 12 I didn't fall down a mountain even though I have climbed them........instead when I was 12 years old I fell out of a tree!

Bill592
Bill592
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RE: I should have been more

Quote:

I should have been more clear.

How loud is the sun on the surface.

Phil

How loud would it be ?
I estimate louder than Phil's train whistle even ...

Goodnight All .... off to work here.

Goodnight TL04 whatever time you are in )

Bill

anniet
anniet
Joined: 6 Feb 14
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Credit: 5079314
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RE: RE: I should have

Quote:
Quote:

I should have been more clear.

How loud is the sun on the surface.

Phil

How loud would it be ?
I estimate louder than Phil's train whistle even ...

Goodnight All .... off to work here.

Goodnight TL04 whatever time you are in )

Bill

Hi Bill! :) Bye Bill :(

@Magic - Funny! :))) ;) I've never fallen out of a tree... tripped over their roots a few times and tasted the soil though... :)

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TimeLord04
TimeLord04
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Goodnight everyone.

Goodnight everyone. :-)

(Pacific Standard Time, Bill. 9:45 PM - PST)

TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
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