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Man Builds His Own Subway
jerryjamesstone writes "Everybody is into rail these days; it is the greenest way to get around next to a bike. Leonid Mulyanchik has been into it for years since before the Berlin Wall fell, since before the first Macintosh, building his own private underground Metro railway system. English-Russia says that he has been doing it with his pension, that it is all legal and approved and that he is still at it. Gizmodo calls it 'Partly the traditional, inspiring, one man against all odds type of persistence, but more the obsessive, borderline insane persistence.'"
Update: 06/02 07:33 GMT by T : And if you're the type to visit Burning Man, you can actually ride a home-made monorail this summer, too.
...given the type of construction used and the state of the tools in the tunnel.
"What's the point of going abroad, if you're just another tourist..."
I doubt anyone who's stood in a British railway station watching a diesel locomotive idling at the platform spewing out black clouds of particulates could really consider them 'green'
Your evidence seems to about on the level of "I know some guy who says ...".
Yes, diesel trains burn diesel fuel, with all the pollution associated with that. The key is that they burn a lot less oil than moving the equivalent amount of stuff via cars and other road vehicles. For the Underground, you're looking at the energy usage of the train versus the energy usage (and other costs) of each person on that train driving their own car.
The health issues are one of the major reasons most major cities make their light rail systems electric rather than diesel.
I am officially gone from
The abandoment of those tunnels as well a poor maps led directly to the great chicago flood of 1992:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Flood
if you're running trains on a regular basis all day long you can pretty much guarantee that most will be half-empty.
...as opposed to the car, which, based on my observations as a commuter, is typically run 4/5ths empty?
William “Burro” Schmidt started in 1902 and spent 33 years digging his 2087-foot tunnel through solid rock on Copper Mountain. About all people could get as a reason was that it was a "shortcut."
http://www.desertusa.com/mag05/sep/tunnel.html
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
In practice in most of the US (don't know about Europe), the energy efficiency of passenger rail is on the same order as that of the automobile.
Lots of these running under the Gaza-Egyptian border.
Have gnu, will travel.
Poor old guy didn't realize they were just after his underpants.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
They use diesel on the London Underground?
No
Seriously?
No
Most subways are electric-powered.
So is the london underground.
Heck, most modern commuter trains run off electricity. Third rail, much?
London Underground actually uses a four-rail system. It's one better.
I don't know whether to blame GP for jamming together two discrete concepts (diesel trains and impure subway air) in such a way that a sloppy reader may infer causation, or to blame you for being a sloppy reader ("similarly" != "therefore") and failing to spend five seconds googling to confirm your healthy scepticism instead of spending it posting "Seriously?".
The health issues are one of the major reasons most major cities make their light rail systems electric rather than diesel.
Including London. The GP is, as we say in Britain, talking bollocks. The study comparing taking the London Underground to smoking compared only the mass of the particles in the air -- and the ones in subway tunnels are pretty harmless (dead skin and iron from the wheels/rails).
Diesel trains are still used on some rural routes in the UK, although two of the largest are to be electrified soon (starting this year, IIRC).
Stupid Idjit. Here in California a short commute is 30 miles that takes 45 minutes on the freeways. Now tell me another tale about what constitutes a short commute in the United States.
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