Any good news?

[shorty943]

WOT!

You don't know the White Winged Warrior? No, this is not acceptable. This I must remedy.

It was a stupid morning radio sketch on almost every radio station in Australia for, hell, it must have been 30 years.
A ridiculous "Batman" type farce.

(In the dulcet tones of the classic radio voice over man)

Well, what will Chickenman do now? What will the Commissioner think? Will Miss Hennypenny ever tell Chickenman how she feels?
Tune in tomorrow when Chickenman says.......

[Miros1]

The frozen rocker bearings have been red flagged (fix immediately) and yellow flagged (fix quickly). Fortunately for the county, they're on the end of the bridge maintained by the railroad, so it's on the railroad's nickel.

[Greg]

*blink* The railroad maintains one end of the bridge and the county maintains the other?

[Miros1]

Apparently. Sounds weird to me.

The fun thing is they're talking federal gas tax to pay for bridge repairs... so every dinky town with a bridge of any sort is gonna be begging for money, even though their citizens use the near-by bridges in larger communities.

I had another thought on the subject, but the oven just beeped.

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

*blink* The railroad maintains one end of the bridge and the county maintains the other?

What's so odd?

Here in Australia, we have sections of local roads, about 100 metres or yards long, in a hiatus between council districts. (County?) Along the lines of.

A) "It's your bit of road".

B) "No it's not, it's your bit of road".

A) "No it's not".

B) "Yes it is". Ad Nausium.

Now, I ask you, Why can't I just shoot them both, and employ a local council that will just do what they are paid to do?
Or, is that idea just too old fashioned.


Edit.

Add to that, every railroad crossing in the country, is on "sacred" railways ground. The local council? Oh no, you don't know about railways, you don't touch.
The result? A nation of "unlevel crossings".

[Miros1]

Ah, but do you have bridges with dead rocker bearings on the railroad end which might pull the other end off the road level supports and drop it onto the supports underneath?

Here, they make the railroads fix the crossings so they're smooth if not level.

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Miros1

Ah, but do you have bridges with dead rocker bearings on the railroad end which might pull the other end off the road level supports and drop it onto the supports underneath?

Here, they make the railroads fix the crossings so they're smooth if not level.

Put it this way.

I'll swim the river.

I don't catch trains.

And, there ain't no such thing, in the entire universe as a, smooth, level, railroad crossing.
I just can't believe it. Nope, it don't exist.


On another note.
And at this very moment, I am watching a documentary titled "Hoovers Gold". By, Mago Productions. Interesting.

The story of your 31st president, Herbert Hoover. It takes off in the now long dead West Australian mining town of Gwalia. The company, Gwalia Gold. He was Inspector General of the West Aussie gold mines. The very mines that re-wrote the world standard for gold purity.

Better than the movie a couple of weeks ago titled "The Pirates of Silicon Valley".
That portrayed Mrs Gates little boy, Bill, in a pretty poor light. Mind you, the rest of that mob didn't come out shiny and nice either.

Other Americans who made a mark here. The Chaffey brothers came from California, to help set up our inland irrigation systems, 1880's or 1890's. They tried to institute some stupid, dry company town, no pub puritan policy. They went back to sunny California, somewhat disillusioned.
Idiots. The only place in the world that drinks more beer than Australia is Germany. And that is only because there are more of them than us.
But, we are working on that.

And a rabble rouser, name of Lawton. Came out from California during our gold rush.
Caused all sorts of trouble with his gun happy ways. Nasty business, the "Eureka Stockade" became.

[Miros1]

Originally Posted by shorty943

<snip>And, there ain't no such thing, in the entire universe as a, smooth, level, railroad crossing.
I just can't believe it. Nope, it don't exist. <snip>

Believe it or not, there is!

Crossings on major (for here) highways get high tech materials between the rails and down the sides. Those you can drive across at 30 and never know you crossed them. Most of these were built at ground level, probably due to building density not allowing the extra room for an embankment (and at one point, trains had to stop every block or so to unload cargo).

Side streets get paved between the rails. They count as smooth, but may or may not be elevated on an embankment (level). You know they're there, but they won't destroy your suspension unless you're going far too fast. They do this for a reasonable distance out into the boondocks.

Once you get into the boondocks, the highways get the paving between the rails and private roads (ones owned by the one-to-five families living on them) are what you probably think of as a "nice" crossing... low embankment, exposed rails, etc.

[Miros1]

Oh, in Pennsylvania, be prepared for a giant pothole when you pull off the Turnpike. You'll see this sign: Turnpike Maintenance Ends. Then your front wheels vanish from all human knowledge...

[Greg]

I was previously unaware that Herbert Hoover had an interest in an Australian gold mine! I thought he just built dams and stuff.

If Chaffey brothers had come later I would have guessed that they were somehow a product of the Prohibition era. They might have been Quakers. There's a dry town just down the round from here named Friendswood. It was founded by Quakers and is now actually a rather sizeable city, one of the mid-scale NASA bedroom communities. There's not a single bar or liquor store within the city limits.

What was the Eureka Stockade about?

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Miros1

Oh, in Pennsylvania, be prepared for a giant pothole when you pull off the Turnpike. You'll see this sign: Turnpike Maintenance Ends. Then your front wheels vanish from all human knowledge...

That's it. That's the same repair technique they use here. We can loose a whole Mack truck for over a week. Well sort off. We also have a massive network of dirt country roads, raised railway embankments, and some of the worlds highest unlevel crossings. There is one, only a mile from me. I drive an old model Land Rover, and the rail embankment and crossing are over the Landy's roof height. At night it is fun.

You approach, your lights point at the moon, then you just drop over the other side, into pitch black, like some crazy roller coaster ride.
Mind you, that is at our open road speed limit of 70 MPH.
Crazy roller coaster ride. "do it again, do it again", is the cry from the kids in the back.


Greg.
Hoover, was the man responsible for the massive efficiency of the Aussie mines.
Strange, for a company man, he is very well remembered here.

Note. President Hoovers, fancy ceremonial Presidential Wreath, is the only one ever to have left the USA, it has pride of place in the West Australian Parliamentary Musseum, he allowed the Australian flag to fly below the US flag at his inauguration ceremony, I think that is the only time any other nations flag has ever had that honour.

The Chaffey brothers? Damn your good. Quakers they were indeed my friend.

[Greg]

Aha! So that's what the open road speed limit it! When I was Down Under in 1985, I read all the Rules of the Road but couldn't find anything or anyone who knew what the speed limit was. We were driving around in a little Austin America and getting passed up by those big ol' British Leyland road hogs, but hey, I was peddling as fast as I could!

Golly, I knew there was something I liked about Herbert Hoover besides him being the model for the guy on the Monopoly box.

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

Aha! So that's what the open road speed limit it! When I was Down Under in 1985, I read all the Rules of the Road but couldn't find anything or anyone who knew what the speed limit was. We were driving around in a little Austin America and getting passed up by those big ol' British Leyland road hogs, but hey, I was peddling as fast as I could!

Golly, I knew there was something I liked about Herbert Hoover besides him being the model for the guy on the Monopoly box.

Mate, these speed limits have only been in force for a few years, figuratively speaking.
The Northern Territory has only this year, introduced open road speed limits. There was, litterally, no limit to the speed you could drive at, once past the little no more speed limit sign.
As for the thousands of miles of private, farm roads.
They're private roads. What road rules?

Mr. Hoover. A man I've learned to admire.
He was also instrumental in the relief effort, to help those so disastrously affected by WW1. The Hoover Dam was named in his honour. I don't recall him doing the design work, "doco" on that not long ago as well. I didn't take well to the engineer who lead that project.
But, Herbert Hoover was truly, a very special sort of man.

Jack Kennedy as well. A Navy man, what do you expect.
Surprisingly, it was hearing JFK's inauguration speech, on TV here as a school kid, that did a lot to inspire me to serve my country and people. That and it is hereditary (again), every generation of my family have served, my own youngest boy was an Army Medic.
That is a big job. Those few, hold their brother in their arms in the worst time of their life.
That takes one hell of a big heart. Damn, now I'm misty. Little bit proud of baby boy.

[Greg]

I think they named the dam after him because he was president of the US at the time and got the congress to go along with funding it. Franklin Roosevelt tried to rename it Boulder Dam, but nobody was buyin' it.

Yup, JFK really had a flair for delivering speeches and really great speech writers to back him up.

Amusement: Most of JFK's speeches don't get quoted these days. It just would not be politically correct to see St. John pounding the pulpit and yelling, "There are too many communists in the State Department!"

[shorty943]

JFK, Commanding Officer, USN Patrol Boat 109. Based our side of the creek WW2. Ran down, cut in half and sunk by Jap Destroyer in the New Guinea area. Spent 18 1\2 hours with his trouser belt around a crewman's chest, belt held between his teeth. JFK, towed that man to safety and never lost a single man of his crew.

JFK was a man. Movie made, William Holden? played JFK, PT109. Actually quite a good movie.

The Eureka Stockade was a miners strike and rebellion, over mining rights and permits.
Ballarat, Victoria. 1854 Aussie Gold Rush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade

Not a very pleasant part of our history. Full cavalry charges by mounted police against unarmed miners who had blockaded themselves in protest, at the governments intolerance and extortive permit system for gold mining. Lots of men killed for no damned result or reason.

[Miros1]

Dang, an Aussie who's read "PT109"?

When I was in junior high, that was required reading. Guess Greg's just a little too old...

[shorty943]

There's a book?

I learned about it in Naval History.
Not school, Naval recruit school, something to keep in mind, remember the help we got during a very hard time in our recent history.

Did you know?
The Japanese attacked Australia 95 times in 3 years in an attempt to get in.
Most Australians don't even know that.

They failed. Miserably. The Japanese I mean.

[Miros1]

Actually, it's a short piece. Not sure what it's called, since it's non-fiction (or a fictionalized account of a historical event).

I think I read it 3 times in different classes from 6th grade up.

[shorty943]

Being part of American history, one would presume it would be taught in school.

And not as fictionalized as one may think. He was a bit of a "lad" was JFK.

I personally like to think, the TV show McHale's Navy was at least in part, based on the time he spent over here.

He's the type of "bloke" who would have been right at home here.
Fun loving, cheeky larrikin, solid and dependable all the same.

[Miros1]

For those of you who didn't go to school in Australia or NY state: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical...+and+PT109.htm