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funny how that works (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/memes@slrpnk.net
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[–] 33 points 2 months ago (9 children)

If you'll allow me to nerd out a little. I love trains as much as the next guy. I also love arriving at the next station alive. Every single time. And i also want my grandchild to arrive at the station Alive. Every single time.

But by the time we start to actually lay down the tracks, a whole lot of work has already been done. Ground has to be sampled along the way. The ground has to be prepared, large boulders has to be cut/blown apart. Engineers and geologist must have had time to calculate that the ground will hold, perhaps certain areas needs to be reinforced more than others The ground has to be owned by an entity that can authorise the use of it.

Signal cables has to be drawn. There has to be space for trains to pass eachother. And then there are probably solutions to things we didn't even know was a problem.

What's my point? Of course trains take a lot longer than setting up a bunch of cameras on poles... I'd be more concerned if it was the opposite. And yes, I'm hillarious at parties.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Rights of way need to be negotiated and secured. This is a big one.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    This is the biggest one in the US. The right to keep the government from ruining your land makes building trains extremely difficult and the legal process is extremely expensive and time consuming

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    The US was built on rail. 100 years ago, there were trains going to every little town that a passenger could ride.

    Thanks to subsidies of the auto industry, many rights-of-way are not currently in use, and most that are exclusively carry cargo, not passengers.

    I'll admit I like a rail trail as much as the next cyclist, but it does make me a little sad when I'm on a cool trail that's essentially the skeleton of our former public transit infrastructure.

    The rights of way largely still exist, though. Some are still owned by the rail companies and just loaned to municipalities for trails, but the land of a former railway almost never gets completely dissolved into the parcels around it. There's cost to dividing/recombining parcels, and no one does it without reason. Those lines shouldn't be splitting anyone's property, either, because the land was platted with them in place.

    Those old rights-of-way often wouldn't work for high speed due to the radii, but most of the rail we need doesnt need to be high speed. In situations where we do need high speed, there are usually highways that we could and should cannibalize some land from.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    FWIW, while you're not incorrect about the build process part, this person specifically mentions the politics and paper process required just to get approval to start conducting land surveys and the like, so his point is valid too. Also fun at parties, cheers!

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    No it’s really not.

    Flock is a massive evil. But there’s zero planning required. They're completely self contained, solar powered cameras. You can put them anywhere. Thats their entire selling point.

    You do not need any new infrastructure whatsoever.

    Got a stopsign? Strap a flock to it.

    Street light? Flock camera.

    Tree? Flock camera.

    There are no land surveys to do. No finding a site. No dealing with property ownership issues. No construction. Nothing at all other than telling Flock “yeah sure strap a camera to this existing pole”.

    A flock camera requires about as much planning as slapping a sticker onto a street sign. They’re not even remotely comparable to fucking trains lol.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    And you’re right to point out the distinction but I’d mention another distinction that in the states a rail plan crosses multi state jurisdictions, zoning, needs, electorates… all that in a country where there are specific political mechanisms designed to make top down federal imposition difficult.

    In other words, a data center, or a flock contract is easy to install. It only needs “corruption” aka approval in ONE location. It’s spread is implemented point by point, it’s not like a gas pipeline, fiber cable or any PHYSICAL infrastructure that must cross multiple borders.

    A corridor railway, unlike individual cameras or server farms, needs sign off across multiple states plus multiple sectors of public and private land to get started. It is hard to get all those parties and locations to conform and adhere to a plan; all in a country expressly designed to prevent the fed from forcing it all.

    That’s before construction gets ever considered. So compare that to installing a flock cam…

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    It’s also been known that when laying track over large distances, a site of archeological importance has been discovered, this can delay the project for years whilst it’s examined.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    A huge part of the reason the planning takes effort is that you need community support. The train might be running near houses or have to demolish housing or community buildings. Similarly, flock cameras are community surveillance, and ought to require community buy-in, but that process doesn't happen.

    My view is that this is because:

    • A huge part of infrastructure is less about use and more about separating the rich from the poor. A car lane keeps the driver in a little bubble, away from the poors. A train doesn't, so the train doesn't get built.
    • A bunch of flock cameras, however, do a great job of keeping tabs on the poors. In they go. Obviously the community is for this, they want to stop criminals right?
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