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 TRAINS!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjuVVlSgYLc Hey so I just have a really vague sense of curiosity about trains in general (probably because I had to patiently stare at one rolling by for 10 minutes yesterday when I was already late for work). Being from the US I've only traveled by train a handful of times and it was only relatively short distances (and weirdly it was more expensive and slower than a bus). So yeah I guess I have a somewhat romanticized view of them. The idea of a long-rear end series of moving rooms is pretty cool, but I'm really curious about the people who ride them daily/work on them. I'd like to hear any train related anecdotes or facts you have, whether it be as a regular commuter, long distance traveler, maintenance person, whatever. Hell if I can get the guys who sweep for hobos or even the guys who drive the drat things to come in here, that'd be neat. If you work for a train company or on a train, what's it like? How'd you get the job and why did you want it? Any prerequisites? Any stories? Little known facts? See any grisly accidents? A friend of mine designs parts used in trains and while not directly related to railway shenanigans has told me about some pretty crazy near fatal industrial accidents and stuff. Other folks: have you ever illegally hopped or stowed away on a train? Does anyone count train watching among their hobbies? How'd you get into it? Why does the movie Trainspotting have precious little to do with trains? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOvZQgPJyVY Thanks in advance!
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Sep 1, 2017 14:50
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 17:08 |
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I once took a train from New Orleans to Champaign IL after the car my friends and I drove down in broke down and we sold it. A guy on the train brought a cooler full of beers with him and drank all of them, then started to get cafe car beers. Unfortunately for him my friends and I were at it first and the train ran out of beer before they stopped selling for the night. Dude also said he ate a big bag of mushrooms earlier that day grown by his cousin, who happened to have the only basement in New Orleans. And he called a black woman wearing a bandanna Aunt Jemima. He got off in the middle of nowhere Tennessee at 4am and could barely walk as he stumbled into the darkness at a rural train station. Godspeed Chilton, wherever you are.
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Sep 3, 2017 09:36
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I travel by train about 10 hours per week. It's pretty neat. In fact I'm sitting in a train in this very moment. It's not always faster than a car, but it's much more comfortable and being able to work on a computer while commuting is a pretty cool thing. In Europe it's also comparably cheap. When I was taking the Amtrak recently I was horrified by how expensive it is. No wonder Americans don't take the train. Although I travelled many hundred hours in trains I haven't witnessed a really weird story, yet.
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Sep 3, 2017 17:58
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First rule of train club is don't talk about train club, because then these guys come out of the woodwork: https://youtu.be/NqvwnxgxazY
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Sep 3, 2017 21:54
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Honj Steak posted:I travel by train about 10 hours per week. It's pretty neat. In fact I'm sitting in a train in this very moment. It's not always faster than a car, but it's much more comfortable and being able to work on a computer while commuting is a pretty cool thing. In Europe it's also comparably cheap. When I was taking the Amtrak recently I was horrified by how expensive it is. No wonder Americans don't take the train. Yeah I went to a joint Amtrak/Greyhound terminal to book a ticket to a nearby city, and the train ticket was a good 40 bucks more expensive than the other. Hell even the Greyhound was about 80 bucks. I ended up getting a Megabus for half that.
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Sep 4, 2017 05:16
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congrats ur autistic now
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Sep 4, 2017 05:48
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Do metro/subway style trains count? I used to have a job that sent me smack dab downtown into LA on a regular basis. Got really, really tired of the drive so I'd take the train whenever I could, because gently caress driving. Memorable moments from a two year stretch of using the blue and green lines on the reg: -Once I found an almost empty car during rush hour, turned out it was empty because some dude had passed out and poo poo himself while vomiting. The doors closed before the smell registered and so I had to stay in the stench until the next stop. -Old jazz man from n'awlins absolutely killing it on a ukulele. Cool guy, great improvisations. Wish I'd had my recorder on me. -Packed car, circa 5pm, two drug dealers having a shouted conversation about a kilo of meth from either end of the car while an old lady tells them "don't be evil!" They ignored her. -Midget (dwarf? little person?) picked my pocket but only got a bic lighter. I made eye contact and he flipped me off, then he ran off at the next stop. Bonus Paris metro story: An old, grandmotherly looking white french lady spots two black women and immediately runs up to them and starts making monkey noises. Nobody in the car does anything.
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Sep 6, 2017 01:45
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I was on a train that derailed. I was traveling from Atami back to Tokyo, and the train hit a car that happened to get stuck while crossing the tracks. Despite the speed of the train, it wasn't some disastrous derailment like you see in Super 8, it was more like the lead car just kind of got knocked off the track. No injuries or deaths. Everyone had to get out and walk the remaining 2km down the train tracks to the next station. I've now been in car accidents, bus accidents, and train derailments. So I always kiss my rear end goodbye when getting on planes.
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Sep 6, 2017 02:14
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I should say that I took the train a lot to and from Seoul so yeah metro type trains definitely count. It was definitely way more crowded than NYC but at least there were no crazy women selling kittens out of a cardboard box! A metric fuckton of drunk people through, both Korean and expat. And they have no qualms about sleeping in public. Same story when I went to Tokyo.
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Sep 8, 2017 13:19
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 17:08 |
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There's a train thread in AI.
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Sep 10, 2017 20:16
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Bad Angus! Bad!