Life on the Rails

[Admiral Yi]

I know that a case of beer is called a slab in Oz. 

[KRonn]

[Savonarola]

Un Amour de Jeff Swaan

Derrick was from Cuba's northernmost province, Miami.  His grandparents had fled during the revolution; but he still identified with his Cuban heritage and talked it up all the time.  He did things a certain way because Cubans did it that way.  He made snap judgements, because Cubans made snap judgements.  He didn't take measurements because Cubans were good at eyeballing measurements.  He got reassigned to another project because the measurements he didn't take were wrong.

Even before that final incident Derrick's Cubanness annoyed Jeff to no end.  In those days the team would regularly get dinner at a restaurant called "Crepes y Waffles."  It was an Americanized restaurant, clean and air conditioned.  The only person who ever got sick there was Javier, but he seemed to get sick everywhere.  Every breakfast for him was toast and coffee as he was trying to get his stomach to settle.  He's a Spaniard, so we assumed this was the curse of Bolivar upon him.

While they were at Crepes y Waffles one night Derrick started talking about how he loved women with big asses, because Cubans loved women with big asses.  In fact all Hispanic men loved women with big asses.  There was a skinny waitress there named Laura whom Jeff and Bill started talking up.

"You guys are crazy," said Derrick, "She's got no ass.  No Hispanic man would like her."

They started going to Crepes y Waffles all the time.  Bill and Jeff would flirt constantly with Laura at first mostly to get Derrick's goat.  It moved into more serious territory and Laura started sending Jeff pictures of herself.  She was fully dressed in the pictures; just not in her Crepes y Waffles uniform.

We stopped going to Crepes y Waffles one night after having some extraordinarily bad service.  Jeff and Fabio had ordered a chicken stuffed crepe.  Two hours after they ordered it our waitress came by the table and told us they were out of chicken.  Jeff was livid.  He wouldn't order anything else.  He wouldn't consider ordering anything else.  He complained to the waitress (with Max translating.)  He had her bring over her manager and he repeated the complaints (again with Max translating) about the horrid service.  The manager listened very politely, and when Jeff finished asked, "Is that it?" She didn't care in the slightest.

The rest of us got our food shortly thereafter, but it was quite late by the time we left.  Jeff and Fabio went over to the frozen yogurt stand in the same mini-mall.  The server said they were closed.  As they were walking away, three young ladies came up and ordered frozen yogurt, and he promptly served them.  Jeff went back and said "You wouldn't serve us."

"Yes, but they're girls," the waiter said; but begrudgingly agreed to serve Jeff and Fabio.

We didn't hear anything else about Laura for a long time; then one night I saw Jeff sneaking a woman past the lobby (so far as a 250 pound man can sneak a woman half his age and weight without attracting attention.)  It was Laura.

The word spread like wildfire through our team.  Gary, naturally, took this as a great source of fun and would wait for about an hour after he saw Jeff slip in to Irotama with Laura, then he'd start texting him.

"You texted us in the middle of the act," said Jeff.

"I thought I might be," replied Gary

"Every time my phone would ding she'd open her eyes and look around."

"It's a good sign when they open their eyes.  It means they're still conscious."

Jeff got kicked off the project and Laura was left in Santa Marta.  Jeff had asked her to get a passport and visit him in the United States, but she didn't seem all that eager.  It was probably for the best as Jeff also has a stewardess girlfriend.  He told me not to date stewardesses as they keep odd hours and constantly have computer problems.  I told him I didn't think my wife would let me anyway.

Jeff was in the office this week.  I hadn't seen him for about two years.  He's married to Laura now, and they have twin girls (13 months).  Jeff is 53, so I don't blame him for being on the road.  They live in Bogota; he said that our experiences in Santa Marta is just as alien to the middle class of Bogota as they are to Americans.

He hasn't changed, I listened to him spend an hour try to wheedle first class and a reduced rate out of Delta.

He's headed to Michigan for Amtrak.  I thought that was funny since he worked on the project before, several year before I got there; but everyone remembers him.  I was at a meeting with Amtrak one day and everyone started razzing our construction manager about "That guy Jeff."  Even our current program manager for FeNoCO, Marcello, has never met Jeff but heard all about him from FerroMex.  (He was working with Bill, so he told FerroMex that he was bringing down a gringo engineer.  The FerroMex guys all immediately made sure that he didn't mean Señor Jeff.)

[KRonn]

Perspective

Barranquilla is a much larger city than Santa Marta.  It's about 100 Km from Santa Marta, but with the road conditions and traffic it takes two to three hours to get there.  One time, early in the project, Jeff and Bill needed parts to put together the signaling cases.  They struck out in Santa Marta and headed to Barranquilla to look. 

They found mostly what they were looking for and decided to have lunch in the city.  As they were eating they overheard four young women speaking English next to them.  Jeff started talking to them.  They were Canadian and had just recently graduated from college.  In celebration of graduating they were taking a trip through South America.  They had started in Colombia and were going to make their way to Chile.  Bill told them what they were doing was incredibly dangerous.  He was there with guards and there were all sorts of diseases and revolutionaries everywhere.  He tried to convince them of the danger in their trip, but they insisted they would be just fine.

In further talking to them Bill and Jeff learned that already two of them had their purses stolen and their passports with them.  They were planning to get new passports issued to them at the Canadian embassy in Santiago.  Bill tried to convince them that they couldn't cross international borders without a passport; they needed to head back to Bogota, but again they insisted they would be just fine.

Things have a way of working themselves out when you're twenty-three that they don't when you're older.  I think that the girls will actually be just fine; although there are many dangerous parts of South America especially for young women.  The public transportation in Bogota for one has a bad reputation in that regard.  There are other dangers for the traveler too.  Flavio, who was Brazilian, told us that in Sao Paolo you knew you were going to be robbed sooner or later.

It occurred to me that their account, even if we were to experience the same thing, would be different from mine.  There wouldn't be racism, dynamite fishing or elderly hippies annoying locals in their version.  Even Ken and I, who are from similar backgrounds had a very different take on the experience.  One day we were discussing the people of rural Colombia.  Ken said "They're always happy because they live such uncomplicated lives."  I replied, "They don't have clean water; air conditioning or even electricity.  There are tropical diseases everywhere.  I'll take our complicated lives."

So if we spirits have offended anywhere in this account; this is only my own personal narrative.  Everyone would find something different in such a strange land.  I found Colombia fascinating, frustrating, filled with adventure and far too hot.  It was a weird and wonderful experience; one that I'm glad to have even with all the difficulties.

When you mentioned Santa Marta I searched back to find a reference to it. I wonder if those female travelers ever made it ok? The ones your friends told how dangerous it was to travel the way they were going.

Also interesting are your comments on the heat and uncomplicated lives of rural folks. I think I'll also take the complicated but there's a lot to be said for uncomplicated. It's funny - I often think and realize how much things have changed in my life with today's tech, internet especially. We didn't have that when I was a kid. For instance, just shopping and researching anything from appliances to clothes to autos had to be done via magazines and newspapers.

[Savonarola]

When you mentioned Santa Marta I searched back to find a reference to it. I wonder if those female travelers ever made it ok? The ones your friends told how dangerous it was to travel the way they were going.

Coincidentally Bill and Jeff were just reminiscing about that last week.  As always the stories become much better the further we get away from the events ().  From what they were saying this time one of the young ladies was planning to stay down there for four weeks, two for two months and one for six months.  That last one might have given over to Latin America; she's probably wearing flounced skirts and living in a hacienda somewhere.



Seriously, if they stuck together they'd probably be alright.  I hope the one who was planning to travel by herself for four months had second thoughts.

Also interesting are your comments on the heat and uncomplicated lives of rural folks. I think I'll also take the complicated but there's a lot to be said for uncomplicated. It's funny - I often think and realize how much things have changed in my life with today's tech, internet especially. We didn't have that when I was a kid. For instance, just shopping and researching anything from appliances to clothes to autos had to be done via magazines and newspapers.

If you can't afford glass, you'd never have to worry about a broken window. 

There's a lot I admire about the parts of Colombia I saw; their sense of community, their camaraderie, their ability to improvise and their ability to roll with whatever misfortune they encountered.  That being said, I'd still take our bourgeois alienation if it means having pesticides, sunscreen and antibiotics.

[Savonarola]

Yeah, I do remember when Maglev rail trains were all the rage, very much talked about as the future of fast rail travel.

It would be easier to do today, with "High Temperature" superconductors; (and it sounds so cool and science fiction-y.)  The thing is that conventional trains are so energy efficient, low friction and (potentially) fast that they Maglev trains aren't economically feasible.  Something like a hyper-loop might be worth it (especially when you factor in environmental costs); but that would be a competitor to air travel rather than conventional rail travel.

I was out at the place where the US Department of Transportation did tests on hovertrains this week; today it's the Federal Rail Administration's Transportation Technology Center (FRA TTC), but administered by the American Association of Rail (AAR) under their subsidiary the Transportation Technology Center Incorporated (TTCI).

Today this is the test center for all the major manufacturer's.  It's located near Pueblo, Colorado.  Near by western standards , that is, it's 21 miles from the city, and you have to go over dirt roads to get there.  I had forgotten how vast and how empty the west is.  Pueblo isn't by anything as it is; and the TTCI is really the middle of nowhere.

I've become a prop at this point in my career.  When the customer is having issues with their radio equipment; I get sent in order to prove that we take their problem seriously.  In this case Siemens was installing locomotives for Amtrak and they were failing a radio test, but only by an amount so small it wouldn't have impacted the customer.  There was a couple things that they could have done wrong in the installation or test procedure, so I asked some questions about how they had troubleshot the problem and I got back a bunch of  .  So I made flight arrangements.

I flew into Colorado Springs, there's no easy route from Melbourne, Florida to Colorado Springs, and I didn't get there until late in the evening.  My first thought, exiting the airport was "Woah, mountains," coming from Florida that's a majestic change.  I drove south and watched an enormous red moon rise up over the plains.

My hotel was south of the city; near the speedway and just south of the steel mill.  It was just like being in a Bruce Springsteen song.  Pueblo looked like a hard luck town, at least the south end of it.  It was kind of like Detroit, with neighborhoods made of dilapidated small houses; remnants of a more prosperous age.  The biggest difference is that there were taquerias rather than soul food restaurants.

I made it to TTCI the next day.  I got to the gate to discover that no one had informed the TTCI that I was coming; it took them half an hour to figure out who I was, and who I was supposed to be meeting.  That was a lot like being back in Colombia.

I met up with the Siemens' crew and we went through safety training.  Our trainer looked like he had stepped out of a John Ford film; a cast extra for "Withered ranch hand."  He even had the accent Ken Curtis was trying to do in "The Searchers."  The training was mostly the same as anywhere else: look both ways and watch out for snakes.  He did tell us in the drug and alcohol section, "I know this is Colorado, but you can't come to work stoned, boys."  The trainer was an Federal Rail Administration employee; you could tell because he knew exactly how many days he had until retirement.

I was in training with a couple contractors.  The rail industry is staffed mostly by people from rural areas or small towns.  Rail contractors tend to be difters.  The Siemens manager was pressing the contractors about their backgrounds; and they fit that exactly.  One was from Muncie, Indiana the other was from somewhere by Texarkana.  Both had worked more places and more places than they had years of experience in rail.

I figured out the problem Siemens was having immediately.  My network analyzer is made by Keysight, theirs was made by Fisher-Price.  I showed their radio tech how to use my network analyzer; and then I showed him how to use his.  We did analyze every train and did find some genuine issues; so it wasn't a wasted trip.  The land the TTCI is on is vast; every manufacturer has their own space and there are dozens of test tracks.  All different sorts of tracks too; standard gauge, narrow gauge, third rail electrified, catenary electrified and so on.

The downtown Pueblo is nice; they have a river walk along the banks of the Arkansas River.  There are a bunch of micro-breweries; Colorado's other favorite licit vice.  I did get a chance to sample the famed green chili; I liked it.

I returned home the next day; American Airlines ran the trifecta on me, a solid three delays on three flights.  There was a copy of "American Way" magazine in my seat, which I first thought was an alt-right publication with the name and the fact that they had this six foot tall Celtic warrior-princess on their covers.  I discovered it was the in-flight magazine; and the white power model was actually Karen Gillan, Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

[frunk]

Fisher Price Network Analyzer 

I was hoping for something I could give my kid.

Oh, there we go!

[Savonarola]

Fisher Price Network Analyzer 

I was hoping for something I could give my kid.

Oh, there we go!

I've heard good things about RF Explorer.

Edit:  If you do get him one make sure you have "The Talk" with him first; the "No pirate radio talk," that is.  You don't want those fines.

[Savonarola]

I needed a compass and inclinometer for an upcoming radio site survey.  We're putting the antenna fairly low to the ground, and the customer wants to know the incline of the surrounding clutter relative to the antenna.  I didn't have an inclinometer, and with our... fantastic... internal processes it's no small task to simply go to a camping store and getting one.  Instead we ordered one from our usual hardware supplier for rail and radio equipment.  So now I have a Burton Geo Pocket Transit Compass at my desk.  (We did get it for much less than the manufacturer's list price.)  It's quite a bit more compass than I need; the instruction manual explains not only how to use the compass and inclinometer but also how to stake a claim and how to survey land.  In any event if you have a lot more money than you know what to do with; you need one of these.  The sapphire bearing alone will make you the envy of the neighborhood.

[KRonn]

I assume the gadget will measure the amount of interference might affect the antenna? Curious though, why would an antenna be placed somewhat low to the ground?

[Savonarola]

I assume the gadget will measure the amount of interference might affect the antenna? Curious though, why would an antenna be placed somewhat low to the ground?

No, it just points to magnetic north (although it does have an adjustment for declination and the instruction manual has a chart for declination for all of North America so you can get true north.)  It really is just a compass with an inclinometer built in.  (I do have a spectrum analyzer that I'll use to evaluate potential interferes.)  It is a compass for people who are seriously old school; not only does it have the declination chart (something that is simple to look up online now); it also has a section on how to read topographic maps.  Maybe that's still used in surveying, but it has been twenty years since I've even seen a physical topo map.

The antenna we're putting in, in this case, is only meant to cover a rail yard.  Putting it lower to the ground means that we won't cover much past the yard (in this case clutter helps); which will probably help our customer when they apply for a license.  It's also important to know when using a GPS.  In that case higher clutter (relative to the horizon) means that your cutting off the number of satellites you can see; which, in turn, means that your precision goes down.

[KRonn]

Ok, that makes sense. Interesting to know. 

[Savonarola]

I was out in Pueblo again a couple weeks ago.  We finished work early and I had the day off so I went to Bishop Castle.

Bishop Castle is a medieval inspired building in construction by Jim Bishop in a largely single-man endeavor.  It's in the middle of nowhere; you have to drive through the San Isabel National Forest to get there.  It's a pretty drives that takes you up into the hills.  There isn't a parking lot or anything, you just park along the road and head in.  There's a sign in sheet which Jim Bishop says if you sign you release him of all liability, and if you don't you're a trespasser and he'll treat you as such.  (I don't know what that means, but in rural Colorado, I doubt that's anything good.)  All along the lower levels of the building there are signs which have hand painted on them some... extreme... views.  Such as:



or



or



Another dealt with there being an inalienable right to travel, so driver's licenses are an unconstitutional restriction on your freedom.  Another was about how law enforcement officials were welcome only if they were going to uphold the constitution; otherwise get the hell off his property.

So, as you may have gathered, Jim Bishop isn't one to follow the rules; including building codes.  This becomes obvious as you start wandering around the site.  There's no guard railings; no ADA wheelchair ramps, no effort made to keep the construction equipment away from the visitors and no guard rails around the parapets.  You're free to wander around the castle, it's a riot of stained glass, towers, iron bridges and even a dragon shaped chimney.  The concrete is crumbling at the higher levels.  The iron spiral staircases, at points, are attached by wire.  The wood at places is warped, or has fallen away.  You can feel the bridges sway in the wind.

There were a number of families there when I was.  A number of the children and adolescents would scream as they climbed the wobbly stairs; it was a bigger thrill than any roller coaster.

The castle has a pretty overview of the San Isabel forest.  It's really is an amazing site; the triumph of one man's hard work and quirky vision over society, government and common sense.  I'm sure he's going to kill somebody; there's already been a fire due to shoddy electrical work, but it is still a wonder.

[KRonn]

Seems this place and its people would fit in well with those in your other thread who have founded their own nation states. 

[Malthus]

How on earth did this guy get the cash to make this place?