Infrastructure?

Amtrak Locomotive
image via Wikimedia CommonsFirst, as a libertarian, I'm of course holding my nose even just writing this post... things should be funded by private enterprise rather than government. But since it's being talked about, and it's going to happen anyway... might as well make some constructive suggestions

Everyone has ideas for what sort of infrastructure the big stimulus should build. Everyone says be smart, and avoid pork... way easy to say but hard to do.

Some stuff is obvious:

• Improve the electric grid so that renewable energy can be routed to where it is needed.
  
• Fix bridges, tunnels, water mains, and so forth that really need it

Those are both "construction" sorts of things. Manufacturing has been hit too, though.

Amtrak has seen a surge in ridership of late, as other modes of transportation have become pricier. But they're running into limits. Why? Amtrak has a rolling stock shortage. For years, their capital budget has been far short of replacement, and there are lines of passenger cars in need of repair, awaiting funds. New trains or more frequent service are proposed and often deferred because there just isn't the rolling stock available.

So then... build some... increase Amtrak's capital budget, and get the shops going repairing things. That has the advantage of not only stimulating manufacturing, it also produces something that's actually needed, and when used, will reduce energy consumption.

And don't limit it to Amtrak, review all the other mass transit modes and see what capital improvements for rolling stock have been lacking. We need that more than we need new freeways that promote urban sprawl.

Toward less boring layouts

Bill Ward, of BayLUG/BayLTC has a blog...

This post on track geometry is worth reading. Though LEGO has ended 9v, there is a lot of 9v track out there. As well, the ideas work for their new RC track too.

The images were done with Track Designer but you can experiment with BlueBrick as well.

MichLUG uses some of these ideas (notably the 45 degree curve) but there are others that we don;t use enough of. Myself, I use the 1 straight == 2 curves alignment trick all the time.

Couplers revealed

LEGO Trains at NMRA
(one of mine is in the pic!)
Image via Wikimedia CommonsA while back, I posted about the apparent change in the LEGO train coupler design, in which it seemed likely the old style coupler which consisted of a 3 part assembly (buffer, magnet holder, magnet) was going to be replaced with a single piece.

Railbricks, the fan generated LEGO Train online magazine had a piece about it at the time as well. It was discussed on quite a few venues, including LUGNET.

The LEGO Company has announced the new design, via a release to several fan sites, including Railbricks, which has this copy, and it confirms the speculation of fans, it was done for safety reasons.

I think the old design is more flexible, but the reasons given for the change (safety) do seem fairly irrefutable and they have put some thought into interoperability.

It's nice to see that the fans speculating got it right, and nice to see that LEGO announced the change well in advance via fan media. LEGO is getting better at working with fans.

What do you think? Good change or bad? Well publicized or not?

From the what were they thinking department

The iconic LEGO brick.
Image via Wikimedia CommonsThe LEGO company continues to confound and confuse adult train fans.

Their latest move, apparently, is to replace the current magnetic coupling scheme, which uses magnets free to rotate around a horizontal axis, in a way that finesses which end is which polarity issues, mounted in a holder that is free to swivel from side to side (to allow the train cars to go around curves) and then mounted on a buffer, with a new scheme in which the magnet is apparently encased inside the buffer.

Why?

No one yet knows for sure. Speculation in the online LEGO community has it that this is to address safety concerns that might arise if young children swallow magnets... there have been reports in the media of children suffering problems when two magnets join adjacent stomach or intestinal walls and cause blockages.

How do we know this?

Seems that the new part libraries just refreshed into LDD show some new parts. You can see the images at this LUGNET post.

All in one and presumably harder to swallow by kids.

Oddly, these will probably be harder to swallow by adults too, as they make it harder to build things compared to what they replace.

Well, one more old style part to hoard, I guess, along with 9V motors and track.


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