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NMH Track vs. Cushing Academy and Worcester Academy at Northfield Mount Hermon on April 15 2017. Photography by Greg Leeds.
Love, like sex, is largely transactional and basically a 'service'.
Apparently I missed the longbus and caught the shortbus instead.
From New York Bicycle Messenger Foundation's Monster Track 8 competition this last weekend, by my house.
From the website: Side events. Skids, Polo, Trackstands, Backwards Circles, Rampant Boasting, etc
See all of my Monster Track 8 Photos.
American railroad tracks are 56.5" wide (the "gauge") because the English built the first railroads in America and they used that width. Why did they use that width? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that were used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing.
Why did wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Because older wagon ruts throughout England used that spacing, and if they changed it, wagon wheels would break by either falling into or being forced out of the old ruts, which were 56.5" wide.
The old ruts were that size because the roads were built by the Romans, who arrived in England in 54 BC and left about 400 AD. Their wagons, and their chariots before their wagons, used that spacing, and that spacing was used all over Europe and wherever Rome conquered, because their wagons used the identical wheel base everywhere. So the modern railroad track width derives from the Roman chariot.
Why was the Roman chariot track width 56.5"? Because that was the width of a chariot that would equal the width of two "standard" Roman horses. Thus, wagon and horses would fit through the same narrow street. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever!
Such curious dimensions continue today. A space shuttle sitting on its launch pad has two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is just wide enough to accomodate a railroad car, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds, (and we now know why) so the booster rockets were made to fit.
The major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass!
Day 175 of 365: "Train Tracks!!"
I tend to avoid shooting train tracks. They've become a very cliche' subject matter. People love them as the leading lines create a sharp perspective towards the horizon. They look rustic and gritty and pretty cool. Seniors love love.
And everybody shoots them. That's usually why I don't.
But tonight I saw these tracks going over the Fox River, just beyond the dam by the paper mill. Something about that part of town felt so utilitarian to me I had to shoot it, especially with the Veterans Memorial bridge in the background. I shot this in Kaukauna, a small town where I'm from. Lately, I've been finding so many nuggets of awesomeness in a few small locations, I had to take a few quick shots in some wonderful late afternoon light.
In the end, the black and white treatment for this was an afterthought. Once again, it was almost tormenting picking between color vs. black and white. But I quickly fell in love with this and tried to give it an Ansel Adams feel to it. I'm pretty happy with it!
And train tracks! I mean, really!! :)
(4/3/12)
William Lacy Swing, Director-General, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva speaking during the session "Tracking Every Move" at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 19, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Jakob Polacsek
Frame:*FAIRWEATHER* track BLUE LUG CUSTOM PAINT by COOK PAINT WORKS
SPEC
STEM:*NITTO* technomic stem
Handle:*NITTO* B352 albatross bar
Brake lever:*CANE CREEK* time trial brake levers
Head set:*TANGE*
Wheels:*GRAN COMPE* small track hub × *H PLUS SON* the box rim
Tire:*PANARACER* pasela tire
Brakes:*DIA COMPE* brs100
Crankset:*FAIRWEATHER* cx crankset
SADDLE:*SELLE SAN MARCO* rolls saddle
Seat post:*NITTO* 65 seat post
Pedal:*MKS* sylvan stream
Stand:*PLETSCHER* double kickstand