Position Light

It's so hard to find long 90s style cargo pants.

It's a proven moneymaker. The hard part was getting arbitrary mRNA into the body.

Bus would be a 1 seat ride as opposed to 2.

They know their audience moved to TicTok

MARION (AC) Tower's Missing CTC Machine A couple years ago the folks at the Railroad Media Archive Youtube Channel posted a video covering the last months of Conrail's MARION (fo...

The Position Light: MARION (AC) Tower's Missing CTC Machine position-light.blogspot.com/2025/06/mari... #InterlockingTower #Conrail #CTC

24-07-03 PHOTOS: Pittsburgh Arrivals I have friends in Pittsburgh that allow me to engage in regular railfan activities both while traveling to and while staying around the city...

Jersey Mike's Rail Adventures: 24-07-03 PHOTOS: Pittsburgh Arrivals prr4ever.blogspot.com/2024/07/24-0... #PRR #PittsburghPennStation #HeritageUnit

Why does my elementary school have an octagon? 🤔🤨

I don't think pluralism will ever be a strong motivator. It's good, but not a motivation. Miller's motivated by the mirage of social trust monoism seems to provide.

"I want all the efficiency of a non-union metro, but I'll never confront the union in a meaningful way."

Hot take, unions work best when preventing exploitation, not seeking rents.

The behavior of unions, including their recent right wing turn, has fundamentally undermined the cause of achieving better working conditions.

They have turned to rent seeking just like corporate monopolists.

The work culture is just a side benefit of using different rolling stock. Low height level boarding is standard in Europe and far cheaper to build. Recall that a single heavy rail metro station runs about 9 figures these days.

We run our social spending through healthcare and transportation.

The unions have set the infrastructure on fire when conductor cuts were proposed. This is beyond advocacy. Cops went on strike because of modest reforms and spiked crime causing an immediate retreat due to public backlash.

The war requires shit like spending 10 figures to outmaneuver the unions.

My argument is that you have to do the politics and technocratic proposals don't fix the politics.

The NYCTA was seriously running the 2nd Ave Subway with different crews under a different union and contract, Those are the sort of political fixes we need more of in the discourse.

Sad Trombone. They voted for this.

If you want the work rules changed you have to be ready for 6 to 12 months of effectively no subway service. I think the city would benefit from breaking its unions, but the public won't stand for walking everywhere for a year.

I literally used to advocate your totally reasonable ideas until I gained insight into how the system actually works. Even changing the politics requires playing politics.

Politics before administration before electronics before concrete. That's the way things work. Politics overrides everything. If you don't get that you'll continue to be surprised when nothing gets built.

Go work for the MTA, you'll change your tune in a hurry.

Forcing women to be indentured servants to low quality men

Yes, that's what you have to do. We live in the world as it is, not the world that we want. Transit is a political problem, not a logistics problem.

They are going to establish regional networks. NJ closed its local public stations a decade ago and all the old local stations became repeaters for Philly and NYC public radio. That's how things go with rising labor costs.

You don't seem to realize what costs more money. It's not buildings, but people, especially when Feds pay for the building but not the people.

Running NYCTA stock will like require 2 person crews for example.

The employee culture at NYCTA is likely more toxic than what I saw at Baltimore Metro. They need to start from a clean sheet.

They absolutely do not want a sealed right of way, as required for 3rd rail. Also a new facility can mean a better work environment. The Baltimore Light Rail and Metro shops have dramatically different cultures.

If it's 18/24 inch level boarding that's no different practically than 48 inch. See the RiverLINE

No overhead wire? 🤔

The old regulated system did result in much much more sex for a proportion of the male population that have since defected to the right.

Germany has some surprisingly nice OHC.

There's a good one of those in Franklin NJ.

It's the Coast but not the Ocean. Philly has shipping access, but you need to go to Atlantic City to reach the Ocean.

I don't think the Bay counts as the Pacific Ocean. 🤔