Informed but opinionated commentary and analysis on urban transportation topics from the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

Our Mission: Monkeywrench the Anti-Transit Forces

 
Hurry! Before George W. Bush Doesn't Let You See North Korean Steam Locomotives!

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

From the website of FarRail Tours, a German outfit: www.farrail.com/frames/main-0_mainframe-engl.html.

"No-one ever visited more railway sites in the DPR Korea than we! An unique experience is waiting for you!

"FarRail Tours was the first western company who offered public visits for railway enthusiasts to the DPRK. After four successful visits in 2002, 2003, and 2004, we are able to offer more places than ever. As steam in Korea is running on it's very last leg, do not wait until the last steam has gone or an American politician has ambitions to block any further travel into a fascinating and unique country."
posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 4/29/2004 01:51:00 PM

 
AY QUE LADRONES! Cuban Post Office Steals Internet Images, Issues Tramcar Stamps

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

No, no, no, a thousand times no, we are not making this up!

Intrepid websurfers with an interest in Latin American urban transport may have come across the “Electric Transport in Latin America” site www.tramz.com by Allen Morrison. The webmaster, who provides many links to pages produced by others, has published three books on the subject, and has his own pages covering Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru – and Cuba.

It was the latter that caught the attention of Correos de Cuba, the “Post Office of Cuba.”

Without consulting the webmaster, and without giving credit to any of the photographers or collectors, CdeC issued in February 2004 a series of commemorative stamps showing Cuban tramcars www.tramz.com/cu/st/st.html. Black-and-white images were colorized and, in some cases, background details were changed, but the origin of the images is unmistakable.

Think of the last time you were whiling away time in the check-out line, eyeing some fanciful bit of “creative photojournalism” on the cover of some supermarket tabloid:

“ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH PHOTOSHOP^tm”!!!

(. . . dad-burned Commies probably used a pirated copy . . .)

One more thing. These stamps will probably be coveted by collectors . . . but not in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It is illegal, you see, to import anything of Cuban origin into the U.S., including postage stamps.

“Which government – U.S. or Cuban – is more ridiculous?” asks the webmaster.

We Opinionated Ones can’t help but wonder whether the stamp issue was approved by “El Barbudo” (“The Bearded One”) himself.

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 4/29/2004 11:39:00 AM

 
WISH WE’D THOUGHT OF THIS ONE!!

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

The following appears as an “introduction” to Funiculars.net (www.funiculars.net), a website maintained by Bruse LF Persson, a Swedish enthusiast:

Se där på berget!
Det är en spårvagn!
Det är en hiss!
Nej, det är en bergbana!

Look! Up on the mountain!
It's a tram!
It's an elevator!
No, it's a funicular!

And there ‘s much more to the site than the slogan!

The Webmaster has gathered together a database on funicular railways worldwide, past and present. The “Database” currently contains 626 entries from 43 countries – 58 from the U.S., 13 from Canada, and so forth. The country with the largest number of listings is Sweden – with 67 of them! That’s a lot more than we would have thought – but the database also includes inclined elevators, suspension railways and public elevators.

(Public elevators?? Yes, there are such things; Genova (Genoa) has more than ten. They are part of the municipal transit network and yes, you have to pay. If you don’t, and you get cautht (self-service fare system), then you're a “clandestine passenger” and you’ll get cited and fined.)

Answers to quiz questions (just in case you come across such queries):

1.) Pittsburgh. (“What U.S. city had the most funicular railways?”)

2.) Los Angeles (“What was the largest U.S. city with a funicular railway?”)

3.) Valparaiso, Chile (“What city, anywhere in the world, had the most funicular railways?”)

4.) If you want the answer to the logical “next” question, you’ll have to check out the site. And we’ll bet that you won’t believe the “all time” total number for Valparaiso!

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 4/29/2004 11:35:00 AM

 
PETER GORDON’S GOT A BLOG, GOT A BLOG, GOT A BLOG

Home of More Transit Links Than You can Possibly Check(tm), Unless you have no life other than websurfing

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not so sure about the universe. Einstein


From the Cabalmaster:

PETER GORDON’S GOT A BLOG,
GOT A BLOG,
GOT A BLOG!

PETER GORDON’S GOT A BLOG,
HA! HA! HA!

No, we kid you not! The one and only, the inimitable, Professor Peter Gordon, PhD, University of Southern California, now has his own blog!! http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgordon/blog.

Not just a mere “website,” mind you, but a genuine blog!!! Just like the one by Your Favorite Transit Pundits that you just love to read!

Among Gordon’s most famous – and asinine – pronouncements was one we brought to you right here! Yes!! Intrepid websurfers will certainly remember:

“The world would be better off without the [Los Angeles] Blue Line.”

The Los Angeles Blue Line is evidently among the ten busiest “light rail” lines in any “developed economy.” But the good citizens of “LA-LA Land” – and the “rest of the world” would be “better off” without it!

(Say, Dr. Gordon! Did you mean the world, the whole world and nothing but the world? Including such far-flung places as Peoria, Pittsburgh, Perth, Phnom Penh and Pyongyang? Or was that another of those florid flourishes of rhetoric?? Please let us know, Peter!)

(Intrepid Websurfers who follow this blog are perhaps marveling at our restraint! Note that we DID NOT get carried away this time; we REFRAINED from adding “Petersburg” to the alliterative list above!!)

If we didn’t know better, we’d swear that some of the posts on “Peter Gordon’s Blog” were penned by . . . well, visualize a fat-headed idealogue, playing in his libertarian sandbox, crying in his beard because few take his extremist rhetoric seriously – and fewer are likely to “convert,” so to speak.

Why not?

An underlying tenent of the libertarian “faith” may be expressed as follows: “The highest ‘moral authority’ is ‘the market.’”

(This doesn’t get stated “up front,” of course; it sounds much too harebrained.)

(Bt then even Dr. Gordon agrees, well, sort of. From his 4/23/04 blog post:

"Economic analysis, by definition, leaves out many considerations..."

Well, Doh!)

As for the alleged morality of placing market above other considerations:

Most people would probably not agree . . . hey, don’t take our word for it; ask your local theologian; your choice of denomination!

The following is heresy to libertarians of various stripes, but: There are public services that, because of nature or scale, are best left to government. Imagine privatization of all streets and highways . . . all sewers . . . all water supplies . . . all police and fire services . . . all schools . . . and so forth. No? We didn’t think so.

Contracting (or “tendering”) is one thing. Given proper management by supervising public agencies (a very big “if”) contracting can provide significant economies. But full privatization of all government infrastructure and services? Not likely.

Oh, and by the way, don’t believe your local libertarian lolapalooza when he protests that all he wants to do is provide more “choice.” T’ain’t so. Most of these guys are virulently anti-choice when it comes to issues related to urban form. In the mythical land of “Libertaria,” you can have any urban form you want so long as it’s auto-dominated sprawl. (That’s the ultimate expression of the marketplace, you know . . . not!)

Of all the offerings in cyberland, wethinks that only Wendell’s websites will offer more material for cheap shots than “Peter Gordon’s Blog.”

posted by The Cabalmaster, Master of All Transit-dom 4/26/2004 10:03:00 AM