Category: Transportation

London Tube Officials Have No Bloody Sense of HumoUr

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Voiceover artist Emma Clarke, who has recorded announcements for the tube, was given the sack (her contract was terminated) after 8 years for making spoof messages:

  • “We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly.”
  • “Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”
  • “Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers.”
  • “Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage … If you’re female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He’s probably not had sex for months.”

“London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays,” a TfL spokesman told the Evening Standard Monday.

Her recordings are here.

Opposed Piston Engine to Enter Test

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It’s an interesting technology, and they are putting two of these engines in an FMTV truck. (Full disclosure, in 1992-1993, I worked at Stewart and Stevenson, Tactical Vehicle Systems on the FMTV trucks.)

If you look at the picture (below) it appears complex, but there are no valves, just ports (look closely at the bottom of the cylinder.), so all in all, it’s likely no more complex than a conventional engine.

It also has a high power to weight and power to displacement ratio because it is a two stroke, though this leads me to wonder about pollution levels, as two stroke engines are typically more polluting (GM’s locomotive division, EMD dumped it’s very reliable and mature two stroke diesels about a decade ago for this reason), which may put a stake through the heart of this concept.

GE Transportation Systems is Testing Ground for Executives

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It appears that GE wants to give their executives a bit of hands on experience with manufacturing, so they send them to GE Transportation Systems in Erie, Pa.

I find it interesting because I worked there for two years. It was interesting work, I got paid to watch them smack two locomotives together at about 3 mph (Uncle Fester, eat your heart out), but Erie sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.

When I was there, Jack Welch was doing his level best to kill the place, because he personally hated the local head of the union, Jimmy Nelson, and now it’s the hot place for corporate climbers.

Then again, Bob Nardelli, of Home Depot infamy was head of GETS for a while.

I was lead engineer on the blower cab for the AC6000, among other things.

Everyone Ride the SLUT

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“Yes, it’s an unfortunate acronym“, he said, laughing his ass off.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is constructing a streetcar line for South Lake Union.

While its official name is the “South Lake Union Streetcar”, it appears to have started out as the “South Lake Union Trolley”, which is what everyone calls it.

Great T-Shirts though:

Also, I like transit cars, though I prefer those with their own right of ways (i.e. no traffic lights)

This is the Face of Terrorism: Disney World Edition

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It appearsthat a seven-year-old Muslim boy was flagged as a terrorist, and prevented from visiting the US.

Why?

A 39-year-old Pakistani man of that name was arrested in New York two months after the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001.

He was never charged with any terrorism offences, although he was convicted of fraud for having false papers and deported.

He is seeking compensation from the U.S. government, claiming to have been beaten up by guards during more than a year in detention.

It’s reasonable for a name to be flagged. What’s is unconscionable is that they cannot distinguish between a 7 year old from with a British passport, and a 39 year old Pakistani.

Considering the nature of the 911 terrorists, they were all fairly well to do, one wonders if might have just created a future terrorist.