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Re: What happened with California HSR?
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 11-08-2008 - 12:14
>I find it truly amazing that there are so many people on this board that are still bitter about the decisions made by BART a half century ago. GET OVER IT! It's by any measure one of the most successful rapid transit systems in the US and its in part because of the cutting edge decisions made so long ago.
You expect me to believe it's more successful than the MBTA, MTA, SEPTA, or NYCTA? By using the oddball gauge, and to a lesser extent the unique propulsion voltage, BARTD painted itself into a seriously small corner whenever it comes to buying new cars, which means that everytime BARTD buys a new order of cars, we the taxpayers pay and pay and pay through the nose because no car order can be an add-on to another system's. As I said before, the only thing BARTD changed was the track gauge and the propulsion voltage. The computer-control didn't work as well as the Lindenwald line when it was built. Several computer iterations, and buku Million$ later, BARTD does function. Do you remember the doors which used to open at 70 mph?
Then there are the Caltrans Capitol Corridor-San Joaquin cars. When first designed, Caltrans went into a closed room and locked out everyone with any experience, from the people who would run the trains to those friends of the project who had decades of experience in the field. And Caltrans came up with lemons. From leaky sewage systems to doors which didn't work reliably. Instead of listening to their own people about how to fix the doors, and these people came up with a fix which lasted for several years without a single problem, they funded a fancy-dancy, more expensive rebuild program. The sewage problem got solved, but the doors got worse, a German (Siemens) design. SO starting next spring there will be another rebuild program to convert the door control to that of the Surfliner cars, into which Amtrak had some input. That is, there will be this second rebuild program unless it gets cut out of the budget because of the losses caused by fallout from the toxic mortgage and derivative waste.
Yet you are saying we should continue to reward this kind of bureaucratic ineptitude and wastefulness. In this day and age, just how much money can be thrown down the bureaucratic rat hole before the system collapses? You're like the lemmings racing to the sea. On the other hand, perhaps you're a bureaucratic quasi-paper shuffler trying to justify your executive tap dancing. It's our [tax] money going over the cliff. I just added up the numbers and found that, just like the news media has been saying, along with everyone else I've lost about 30% of my net work because of the Repubicants and their banking/mortgage/derivative foolishness. So why not fire the incompetents and send some of this wasted tax money to me instead?
You expect me to believe it's more successful than the MBTA, MTA, SEPTA, or NYCTA? By using the oddball gauge, and to a lesser extent the unique propulsion voltage, BARTD painted itself into a seriously small corner whenever it comes to buying new cars, which means that everytime BARTD buys a new order of cars, we the taxpayers pay and pay and pay through the nose because no car order can be an add-on to another system's. As I said before, the only thing BARTD changed was the track gauge and the propulsion voltage. The computer-control didn't work as well as the Lindenwald line when it was built. Several computer iterations, and buku Million$ later, BARTD does function. Do you remember the doors which used to open at 70 mph?
Then there are the Caltrans Capitol Corridor-San Joaquin cars. When first designed, Caltrans went into a closed room and locked out everyone with any experience, from the people who would run the trains to those friends of the project who had decades of experience in the field. And Caltrans came up with lemons. From leaky sewage systems to doors which didn't work reliably. Instead of listening to their own people about how to fix the doors, and these people came up with a fix which lasted for several years without a single problem, they funded a fancy-dancy, more expensive rebuild program. The sewage problem got solved, but the doors got worse, a German (Siemens) design. SO starting next spring there will be another rebuild program to convert the door control to that of the Surfliner cars, into which Amtrak had some input. That is, there will be this second rebuild program unless it gets cut out of the budget because of the losses caused by fallout from the toxic mortgage and derivative waste.
Yet you are saying we should continue to reward this kind of bureaucratic ineptitude and wastefulness. In this day and age, just how much money can be thrown down the bureaucratic rat hole before the system collapses? You're like the lemmings racing to the sea. On the other hand, perhaps you're a bureaucratic quasi-paper shuffler trying to justify your executive tap dancing. It's our [tax] money going over the cliff. I just added up the numbers and found that, just like the news media has been saying, along with everyone else I've lost about 30% of my net work because of the Repubicants and their banking/mortgage/derivative foolishness. So why not fire the incompetents and send some of this wasted tax money to me instead?
