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A Modest Model Railroad
Endymion53 writes "The TMRC at MIT may be the best known model railroad layout because of its role in the formation of hacking culture, but railroad uber-enthusiast Jack Burgess has built himself a pretty enviable layout, that does its best to capture the look and route of an old rail line that went to Yosemite National park, called the Yosemite Valley railroad. I was tempted to make some crass remarks about having too much time on one's hands, but frankly, the whole thing looks just awesome. He's been working on this thing since 1981."
Come on, use some logic. You don't have enough information with only the year the project was started to make a comment in the vein that you want to.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Damn, does this guy have too much time on his hands or what?
Or maybe he didn't have enough free time for years which is why he's been working on it for nearly a quarter of a century. Okay, model railroading isn't my personal hobby. But I spend enough time pursuing hobby interests to respect someone's ability to go beyond just puttering and create something on an impressive scale. Having too much free time on your hands often has dramatically different results.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Trains are so 1981. Trains were geek magnets back then. It seemed like everyone had trains back then. It would be nice to see a come back for trains.
Before /. techno geeks laugh at this guy's dedication to the hobby too loudly, remember that the railroads were the work of America's original high-tech geeks. This is much more impressive than running a Trash 80.
Railroaders were the technical cutting edge of the 19th century. Financial over-investments in transportation (both canals and rail) contributed to the 1837 Panic. Gee, times have changed (heh!).
Yeah, I play Loki's RT2 Linux port. But I'm not knowledgable enough about the real thing to be a credible rail fan.
Isn't it interesting how the first response to anyone who is truly devoted to something other than getting drunk or watching Celebrity Idol Millionaire is "they must be wasting their time" or they need "a life?"
Does this not perfectly describe the difference between "producer" and "consumer?"
Would that we, as a society, could find a way to encourage people to value productive, thinking time. Such people produce literature, invention and wisdom.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
> [John Allen] revolutionized the hobby because he was a professional photographer
His college training was in art, and he made some good investments which left him financially independent at a young age. Both of those help. Those and a sense of humor.
The work this guy has done is amazing. Even if you aren't into these types of things, you cannot help but respect the tremendous attention to detail he has put into his work. If only most commercial programmers had the work ethic of this guy imagine the stability and performance of our software and other systems.
I've visited Jack's layout several times. To say it's impressive would be an understatement.
Jack is *the* expert on the Yosemite Valley Railroad and has modeled it down to the smallest detail, including time-table operation for the scheduling of the trains based on what was actually running on the real railroad in August of 1939.
And his craftsmanship is outstanding.
Jack is an engineer and is very familiar with computers and has used CAD to design to construct his layout.
To put it another way, Jack is an ESR or Linus equivalent in the model railroad community.
If model railroading has a guru, it's John Allen of the Gorre & Daphetid.