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Build Your Own Monorail
jpatokal writes "Building your own roller coaster may be fun, but how about something a little more practical -- like a monorail in your back yard? Kim Petersen designed his from scratch, building the elevated track from wood, scavenging the engine from a motorized walker and handcrafting the train from sheet metal. Total cost: $4000! See the photo tour and the construction history."
More practical?
More practical for someone who needs a tram in their backyard? K.
What would be more practical for the referenced site is a webserver than handle more than 5 hits per hour.
c-hack.com |
And how much does having a $4000 monorail in your backyard increase your home owners insurance? :p
"Seriously, why in the hell would you want this? "
Rail building materials: $4,000
Roses to sooth diplomatic relations with your wife: $100
Being the coolest dad on your block: Priceless
"Derp de derp."
Click here!
Quimby: And now, I'd like to turn things over to our Grand Marshall, Mr. Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy: I'd say this vessel could do at least Warp Five.
[appreciative laughter from the crowd]
Quimby: And let me say, ``May the Force Be With You!''
Nimoy: [annoyed] Do you even know who I am?
Quimby: [indignant] I think I do. Weren't you one of the Little Rascals?
Also nearby is the Redwood Valley Railroad, which is in slightly larger scale than the monorail and runs half-scale steam trains. Redwood Valley has quite a layout, with a roundhouse, turntable, sidings, bridges, and tunnels.
Niles was once the Western terminus of the first transcontinental railroad. So there's much railroad history there.
We're working on plans to build an expanded monorail system in Seattle. True, compared to Kim's backyard monorail, it's a little longer (14 miles) and a little pricier ($970M-$1.7B), but it'll haul about 60,000 people per day, and likely turn an operational profit. And it's probably the only transit system in the country created by a citizens' initiative...yes, that's right, no monorail salesman or catchy jingle needed--just a good grassroots campaign! For more info, visit The Elevated Transportation Company. The plan goes to the voters November 2002.
For info on the campaign (which I'm helping out with--yes, this is a shameless plug), visit Rise Above It All
[teacher]: Brian, tell me the plural of ox, and use it in a sentence.
[brian]: Uh, oxen. I saw a herd of oxen.
[teacher]: Good. Now try "box."
[brian]: Boxen. I ate two boxen of doughnuts.
[teacher]: No Brian, it's boxes. Let's try another one. What's the plural of goose?
[brian]: Geese. I saw a flock of geese.
[teacher]: Good. Now how about "moose?"
[brian]: Mee... MOOSEN! I saw a flock of moosen! There were many much moosen! They were in the woodses--woodsen! They were eatinen the foodeninen!
[teacher]: Brian, you're an imbecile.
[brian]: Imbecilen!
(transcribed from memory. probably lots of mistakes)
c-hack.com |
How can y'all bash the creator of this masterpiece left and right? This is creativity in pure form... a technical wonder... 100 points of "coolness"... one of the most amazing things I have ever seen! I know people who have spent half this much on the game Everquest buying intangible items, yet I doubt such purchases would drum up anywhere near the negative response that spending $4000 on this creation has elicited on Slashdot... Give this guy some credit!