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Radio Shack Selling Subway Cars on eBay
David Cantrell writes "The Radio Shack Corporation (formerly the Tandy Corporation) headquarters in Fort Worth, TX was one of the only companies in the world to have its own private subway system. Its main purpose in life was to move employees from their parked cars to the office building. About a year or so ago, Radio Shack decided the subway system was no longer needed and they shut it down permanently. Well, they are now selling the subway cars on eBay. For $5000US, you can get your very own Radio Shack Subway Car. Rails sold separately. Click for the eBay auction page."
Are they going to insist I give them my phone number and try to sell me batteries with it?
I am sorry to say that these so-called subway cars are fake. They are clean, with no graffiti. That is simply impossible.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Shipping Will not ship.
What kind of service is this?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
...looks more like a light rail system.
... maybe by train!
But then again, I don't think one of these would fit on my N-Scale layout.
I wonder what the shipping and handling will be on that item... I also wonder if it will be sent by air, UPS, or
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Does it use 8bit addressing and have green screens and is propietary too?
Ebay, distrbutes everything from pickels..to parts of discovery....and now subways.....only in america.
Selling for 5000? seems like a small for a subway....surprising, usally radio shack sells over priced hardware...
Maybe their subways are like their tandys.....so cheap you can make money of a cheap price
Just getting it shipped would probably cost $10-20K. What then? Put it on concrete blocks in your front yard?
Need to order about 25000 AA bateries to power one of these babies ??
Also does anyone know where I can get a good repetive recording of 'Mind the gap' so my dream to replicate a london subway station can finally become a reality.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Reminds me of the plot to Half Life... Are they selling a reactor that'll open a portal to some big headed lightning monster?
Is it compatible with any metro system, maybe the Prague Metro. It'll probably become a road side restaurant. BTW I havn't seen one for a while but is it still called Tandy in Australia or have they gone broke. Jaycar was always better.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
I always thought it would be a cool project to convert a bunch of subway cars into a liveable house. I especially think it would look pretty snazzy in the middle of one of those pre-planned developments, with all the houses that look alike, and your subway car network right next to them.
$5,000 seems like a reasonable price for such a thing. Assuming you'd need between 5 and 10 cars, thats not so expensive for building your own house.
However, the logistics involved in transporting a 40,000 lb subway car would probably make such a project impossible.
(ducks and hides!) :-)
I never heard of such a thing. I think this is the subway in question. Some pictures and a movie on that site. Pretty cool, but then again, nobody has yet bid on ebay which should tell ya something :)
Radio Shack Corporation? This is not the secret name of Black Mesa is it?!
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
I like the nooses convienently placed above each seat, so if you have a sudden bout of realization that you work for Radio Shack, you can quickly put yourself out of your misery. That's a work-perk!
I never understood how the word "Shack" was supposed to convey competence with technology. If it's so convincing, how come we don't see:
- Grammaphone Hovel
- Victrola Shanty
- 8-Track Barn
- Dictaphone Slum
...on crappy old two-rail carts! Buy Monorail! "Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail!"
Well now, that just goes to show how crazy those people in fort worthless are. First the class action suit for not paying the slaves, er retail employees for overtime and now this. For more amusing antics relating to the Shack, check out Radioshacksucks.com for many more amusing tales of angst.
I used to ride that subway. The city library is right next to Tandy Towers. I'd park out in the extended lots and ride the Tandy subway into the library.
Hate to see it go, but Fort Worth has grown up a lot in the last fifteen years. I guess they have better arrangements now. Anyone been there recently?
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Can you say "Urban Infiltration?" Methinks I have a new target.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, it's sort of a game: exploring places people are no longer meant to be. Old subways, abandoned factories, campus steam tunnels, etc.. Lots of fun, and certainly more exciting than.. say.. reading slashdot!
A few links:
Infiltration.org
Zone Tour
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
With my trusty samurai sword and an unwitting guest, I can hone my slash to perfection
Saya
BLOOD: The Last Vampire
Howie, what are you doing in my house, and what are you staring at?
It is a light rail system for most of its track but as it enters the Tandy Center, it goes through a tunnel.
Anyway, the rail system itself is very old and goes back to a previous merchandiser in Fort Worth, Lennings or something similar. They were pretty famous because they were the department store in Fort Worth (and the surrounding small cities) for a while.
I wonder how much of E-bay's bandwidth is now devoted to that page? ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
...I get the feeling that someone left a ".com" off the name of the company involved with such a waste of money.
blog |
Perhaps its an improvement since you were last there, but there are two side-by-side tracks in the tunnel so I do not see any compelling reason why they could not move two trains through the tunnel although the two tracks converge into one track at the end of the tunnel/at the Tandy Center.
This thing is barely worth the $5k. Although it does seem to have some history behind it.
Remember, items like this are really only a steel box with a couple electric motors. They arn't worth very much. There is tons of stuff like this for sale. Giant used tractor-trailer trailers cost less than this for example.
Used school buses sell for similar prices and you can do much more with one of those!
It's their loss leader! Don't be fooled!
It's just a guy who picked radioshackoutlet as his nickname, it has nothing to do with Radio Shack.
And there are a lot of people, enthusiasts, collectors, eccentrics, who would bid for such a thing. I had a great uncle who bought a vintage caboose and had it parked in his backyard, and attached to his house. Made a really cool little 3-season porch.
Hell, if I had the bananas and space for it, I'd probably want it.
I guess I have no sense of humor, because this isn't one of the 'funny' ebay auctions.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Here's a link I just turned up with a quick google search that has some pics and information about the subway itself. These will be nice tunnels to explore in a few years.
http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/FtWorth/
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
I heard Radio Shack's next special is to rid their inventory of those high-performance "cassette drives" used with the TRS-80...
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I grew up riding the Tandy Center Subway (as it was called then). My dad and I would drive in to Fort Worth on Saturdays from the small suburb where we lived, and ride the subway into Tandy Center to go to the Fort Worth library. The main floor of the library was underground, and had an entrace from the Tandy Center mall.
Tandy Center also had a pretty good arcade at the time (at least, by Fort Worth standards).
Ranger96
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.-Ecclesiastes 1:9
I see someone (a Tandy employee) buying one of these and converting it into a houseboat or house and having it on EXtreme Homes on H>V.
Not to be a grammar nazi, but it was either the only or one of the few. It can't be in both states at once, unless subway cars are now in a state of quantum superposition, which, given their size, is doubtful.
is more. (two rails, one rail :) )
We've slashdotted ebay.
Spaghetti Warehouse selling tandy's?
Is it just me, or does anyone else look at eBay auction pictures with a fear in the back of your mind that you will see the naked guy who took the picture reflected somewhere?
If they are one of the only, I'm curious as to who the other onlies are.
Hopefully there arent many.
And you are both a logic nazi and a sexual orientation nazi.
The city provides a large infrastructure of rails, and a sophisticated switching system. Citizens pony up for their own (much smaller) 'cars'; they can do whatever they like with the interior of these cars, etc. You register your 'car' and have it installed in the rail system. Make a request and the car goes to the closest station that you're looking for. You give up the convenience of having the 'car' make 100% of the trip between points (i.e. you walk to and from whichever station) but you don't have to drive.
I know, I know... Minority Report. I just really liked the idea of intelligently switched rail traffic in-town, with more traditional free-roaming vehicles outside of urban areas. It makes so much sense.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Shouldn't something like this belong in the Smithsonian or something? From the links offered on eBay, it has quite a history behind it.
you didnt take your pills today did you?
Batteries not included!
-- Bandit450...If-Else-Do-*TWITCH*!
If you read the eBay ad carefully -- and know a little about trains and streetcars -- it turns out this was more of a "subway surface streetcar" line than a pure subway. The car itself did not start out life as a subway car; it was an old "PCC" streetcar. Tandy remodeled it extensively in the '70s, basically bringing it down to the bare frame. Thus, any Trolly Museum that would be looking for a PCC will not get much by buying this other than a few spare parts and a frame. Perhaps some museum would want it as a novelty. If you want a good place to see some authentic PCC streetcars still in active service, visit San Francisco -- they purchased a bunch from Philadelphia for tourist attraction.
I should just bid on one, set in my yard and open it up as an ice-cream stand. Perhaps I can put the annoying, idiot sales rep that's probably included to work.
"Car weighs approximately 40,000 lbs"
.]"
"Winning Bidder is responsible for all shipping costs [. .
Hee hee. Wonder if I could ship it Priority mail for $4.85?
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
Will they ask me for my address & telephone number?
I went to college at UTA 15 years ago and used to hang out with friends in Ft. Worth. Last year I went to a friend's funeral in Ft. Worth and as our procession drove across town, I was completely shocked at how many formerly nice neighborhoods that used to be like "Leave It to Beaver" neighborhoods back then, are now completely decayed and crime-riddled. I mean these were really nice mostly-caucasian middle-income neighborhoods back in the 80's, were filled with what used to be ~$150K, 3000-4000 sq ft sprawling 3-4 bedroom suburban family homes on 3/4-acre lots, now turned completely to ghettos full of graffitti, burned out houses, abandoned cars, and seedy-looking characters hanging out on streetcorners, probably gang members selling crack. All the old neighborhood shopping centers were closed down with windows and doors boarded up and graffitti painted all over everywhere. Several entire apartment complexes, that used to be pretty nice, where college students used to live, were now also all boarded up, covered with graffitti and big orange "Condemned by City of Ft. Worth" signed plastered all over.
What the hell happened in 15 short years time there? I was almost afraid to be driving thru there parts of the city in broad daylight, for fear of bullets flying thru what used to be such peaceful, nice middle-America neighborhoods.
# of bids 0
Apparently Radio Shack hasn't done very good market research on this one. I mean really who's seriously going to bid for a 40,000 pound piece of junk that they won't be able to move.
Anybody know how much it costs to ship a 40,000 pound peice of junk?
I wonder if RadShack had planned on non-corporate consumers considering buying a subway car to run from (in no particular order) the bedroom -> kitchen -> computer. I know I've considered it. Now all that's left is to contract some construction company to build the tracks/tunnels.
a Beowulf cluster of these. Yes, I know I'm a pain in the ass.
The various rail lines would be owned by companies with incompatable formats.
Can I interest you in a RadioShack Service Plan? It will protect your subway car for up to three years! No? Well, I can save you $400 dollars on your purchase, if you're so inclined. All we ask is that you sign up for three years of MSN Internet...
No? Well, would you be interested in a cell pho... yes, I see you have one. How do you like the service. Just fine, huh? Well, we've got some great deals on cellular phones and...
Sir! Sir! You left your subway car!
(I used to work at RadioShack. Ick.)
It lives up to it's name: http://www.sanspoint.com
Why is it that the phrase "Mason-Dixon Line" is always proudly used in reference to things that would make any other part of the world vaguely ashamed?
-Cletus's house was the first house south of the Mason-Dixon line to have toilets
-Clem was the only child south of the Mason-Dixon line not to have been fathered by his brother
etc.
Furnish all of your franchise diners in one fell swoop!
You mean like this.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
Well, if those were really nooses, the turnover would be even higher than it already is! I could've used one of those. Want to talk about the most hellish job in the world? Think about this.. a typical /.'er having to deal with the general public in a gizmo / electonics store.
shudders... traumatic is the only way to describe it
You know it can't be a good when there's an employee-based site with over 2500 registered users of the forum.
--n
I used to live in Fort Worth. Considering some of the people I saw in my time there nosing around that parking lot, you WANTED something safe to get you into the building!
Wow you must have some moderators who really hate you. I can see nothing in your post that made it deserve a flamebait mod. I mean if your were bullshitting then you deserved a troll but not flamebait.
In this modern world, $5000 buys you either a second-hand subway or a DIY cruise missile.
Hmm.... tough choice.
--
Rune
this is the end result of the corporate war on the middle class. if jobs are exported or given to a h1b then its kinda hard to keep up the neighbourhood. what cracks me up is you americans actually believe the drivel your masters feed you through the corporate media and vote for the weasel.
I just did a lookup on the shipping costs. To Indiana, it looks like I could get it shipped for $8500, provided I can properly "pack" it.
So, I'd guess it's a $20,000 venture when it's all said and done.
I bet they'll carge $7,000 for the power adapter.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
"Remodeled in 1974 by RadioShack/Tandy Corporation to pattern design after Bay Area Rapid Transit vehicles operating in the San Francisco Bay area."
;)
Those things look nothing like the BART cars. First off, BART trains are 3-10 cars, and you can move between cars if you like, and only a couple seats are back against the wall (near the doors, for seniors & disabled folks)
And BART knew better than to use that ungodly red color. What is it with companies in Texas using awful paint schemes? Southwest Airlines is next on the list.. "Hey, we got a bunch of this brownish paint.. really cheap!"
Now will my friends please stop emailing me about this!
My father used to work for Tandy at that office in the early 80's as a system programmer on the Tandem until he had a stroke. I remember riding those subways to his office when I was a little kid and he would show me around the data processing center. We also used to go ice skating at the Tandy Center and my sister and I would love riding on those little subways. For me, this is an era gone by.
Now I am a programmer myself and it gives me a great deal of pride to be a chip off the old block.
Lord, bless my users that they may stop being such fucking idiots!!
About a year or so ago, Radio Shack decided the subway system was no longer needed
Why? Did all of their employees' feet suddenly mutate into wheels?
Nobody wanted the newer Boeing Vertol cars when San Francisco finally junked them. Some museum in Germany that collects one of each streetcar type got one, and the others were scrapped.
I'd love to buy that and cruse the North East Corridor line (Heavy Amtrak and Acela Line) during rush hour Honking and waving at the platforms as I go by. Does anyone remeber when you could actually get radio parts at radio shack? I used to buy tubes there... (For the kids think of a tube as a transistor the size of a small light bulb)
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
The Tandy Subway (and other areas around the Tandy headquarters) are featured in the movie "The Lathe of Heaven", based on Ursula le Guin's book of the same title. Buy a car, and own a piece of sci-fi history...
The PCC cars are still in service on part of the Boston mass transit system. There is a short (two miles long) streetcar line on the southern portion of the Red Line. After the normal heavy rail subway ends at Ashmont, you can board a PCC to travel to Mattapan. From what I understand they haven't really been renovated since World War II. Eventually the MBTA is supposed to update the line, but the way things go in Boston, that could be years from now...
www.tealeaves.org "All you need is love." -
I think it's a conspiracy that this was modded down. . .
Andale hosts the counters for most people. They are not eBay owned [at least not to my knowledge]. And they rarely work properly. Sometimes they reset themselves to 0.
I had 18000 hits on an auction once, and then it managed to get back to 16000 a few weeks after being reset.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I've seen railroad cars converted to diners and small offices. The diners looked pretty cool, but the offices looked like crap. Like "Container Town" from that gawdawful "Highwayman" TV show.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It was one of the only. That is, there were only x, and this is one, all others make up the remaining x-1. Notice that x may be any integer greater than zero but less than the number of companies in the world. It would have made more sense if they put in a number, say "one of the only 69 trillion" or "one of the only two."
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
I wonder if one of these puppies would work for Muni in San Francisco. Might be a bargain. :)
this is the end result of the corporate war on the middle class. if jobs are exported or given to a h1b then its kinda hard to keep up the neighbourhood. what cracks me up is you americans actually believe the drivel your masters feed you through the corporate media and vote for the weasel.
Not at all true in this particular case. During these years, up until the dot-com bust, Ft. Worth (and the DFW metroplex in general) had a booming economy, and good jobs were plentiful. I'm puzzed and baffled why these such formerly-nice, stylish neighborhoods went to hell in a handbasket and rotted so rapidly in the good economic times of the 1990's. What did or didn't the Ft. Worth city leadership do that allowed those neighborhoods to die like they did?
...these things are too expensive and of substandard quality.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I guess we are starting to have nice trolls that say "Hey this is funny I would give them points if I could". Offtopic mabey Overrated mabey but troll. Come on guys are you smoking dope or something. Heck the message below this one is more of a troll then this is. If you are going to Mod down do it right. I mean this is complete and udder ramblaling of an Anonymous coward and this dosent get modded as a troll which this is. It is also Offtopic and Overrated this comment deserves a -3 everything bad. Wow that moderator is on crack.
I bet this guy and this guy (builders of monorail and roller coaster in their backyards, respectively) are drooling over this auction, and their neighbors are thinking "please god, no".
my good friend mr bernoulli would like to have word with you... (depending on construction of the tunnel, at least)
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Looks like the exact same tram, down to the red stripe on the side.
Wonder if this'd be a bargain as a spare for them?
I think this would be a great buy if I had 5k and an easy place to dispose of the leftovers. 4 50hp DC motors along with many other smaller engines? I'd love to have those kicking around for projects. The rest of the car would be garbage to me but there is enough stuff to peel off of that car I think It's worth it. Perhaps I'm overestimating the value of those motors though. It's difficult to find hard pricing on such items.
If IBM decides to sell off some lawnmowers they used to use to trim the grounds around their HQ, will that be "news for nerds, stuff that matters" as well?
I don't know what's worse...this story being on slashdot, or me wasting 2 precious minutes of my lunch hour posting a reply to it.
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
1) You get reminded that Radio Shack was once Tandy; more than a front for selling overpriced Compaqs and cables.
2) Queens of the Stone Age do indeed rawk.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Maybe they can be incorporated into some type of rail system, where our freeways now stand, to gain fuel efficiency. This seems like the most time efficient way to travel in the future, short of the flying car.
Here is an article.For all the hippy Trailer Trashers,
who needs trailers now?
Trash with some style, get yourself a 40,000 lbs.
Vintage M&O Subway Train Car for only $5000!
You can't handle the truth.
Do you think i could use this for the train set i set up under my tree at christmas?.....or it could be set up under the tree at rockefeller center....I would go broke buying battries .I wonder if they still give out those battery cards?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
I remember when my Mom would take us to ride the Leonard's subway.
Then we would go home and watch Icky Twerp on TV.
Toronto's streetcar system used to consist of these old "PCC" cars. They ran them up into the 1980s before phasing them out. They were affectionately known as "Red Rockets", being painted red in Toronto Transit Copmmission (TTC) colors.
They sold the cars off back then. I wanted to get one but didn't have any place to put it (nor could I afford one at the time). You see them around the province in spots. They would make good diners.
If Radio Shack provides battery power and remote controls, then this one could be fun to play with.
Last August during the final days of subway operation I managed to make it down there and snap a bunch of pictures including some of their shop facilities if anyone is interested.
My wife and I got swatted by our home owner's association for... (insert drum roll).. Parking in our driveway.
Well you're a fucking retard. What the hell did you buy a house with a garage for then? To store your glutanous shit? I mean come on, only in the USA do people park in the driveway because their garage is filled with useless crap. How fucking retarded.
Hi Radio Shack,
I am from New York City. Can I get my subway car with a urine scent?
Thanks,
NYC Subway Commuter
I would watch these cars every day, when my father and I would drive an hour or so to the Ft. Worth farmer's market (which, then, was just an arbitrary point in the parking lot under an overpass) to sell our produce. I rode them a couple of times. They were neat, but I am not sure I would ever want one.
Amazing.
I guess "white flight" is still a reality in Ft. Worth.
Many cities experience the phenomena of older suburbs turning into low-income neighborhoods with all of the resulting problems. Houston and now Ft. Worth are the only places where I've heard of it happening that fast. Most other parts of the country it is a slow process over 40-50 years.
One other factor that may contribute is the lack of any real geographic or zoning limits on sprawl for Ft. Worth or Houston.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Realistic? I don't want realistic gear. I want real gear. I don't want real sound, not just realistic sound.
Who came up with realistic?
Pool house. It's just the shipping that would kill it. I'm sure my neighbors would love a train in my backyard.
Zoid.com
just watch the counter tick on up from all the Slashdot visitor. 54731, 54737, 54742...
"Hello Peterus7, welcome to the black Mesa facility. Please stay inside the tram until it is fully stopped..."
You know those folks at Radio Shack are a lot more high tech than they appear...
This subway lasted long enough for me to take my son to the mall on it, years after I had last ridden it. Good enough I suppose! The TC subway had always been the way to get into Downtown Fort Worth with a minimum of parking headaches.
I'm all choked up! My son thought it was f'in cool. The route overlooks the trinity river as you enter the tunnel below a bluff upon which downtown Fort Worth sits.
Anyone seen my low uid? last seen 10 years ago while panning the #@$# out of Taco's 'web based discussion system'
It looks like there is a troll with Moderation points at work on the parent post.
May you rot in Meta-Moderation hell.
:-)
i've got karma to burn, and then some. don't think that will happen anytime soon.
I'm sure some will slip by our "watchful" metamoderators, but not all will. Let me know how it turns out, I'm curious. Catch you later, night
will do. my guess is most of them will not notice it is your journal, and will only see your response to the trolls; metamodding quick this can be easily mistaken for a troll as well. the others....well, we'll see.
buhahahahah!
and $5 handling fee
I don't know what is more sad, that you waste your karma, or think you are being so clever.
In any case, I hope you keep wasting your moderation points on me, it will be funny to see how much you can get away with.
Muahahahahahaha!
it's not that i think i'm being clever.
i'll logon and post on thse comments in the near future and remove the troll designation. i'm just curious to see how far meta-moderators will let me go.
i doubt they'll catch on, honestly.
I see. Good luck with that. I think 25% will catch on.
A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you.
Really.
Xerox never comes up with anything original.