Berlin's trains in North Korea..
On a side Note:
The Stuttgart S-Bahn's can be found it Tunis.
Has anyone encountered other trains in exile?
On a side Note:
The Stuttgart S-Bahn's can be found it Tunis.
Has anyone encountered other trains in exile?
After a few minutes, I realized it was the faded sticker on the seatback in front of me - it said 'Livvest under setet dykkar' ('Life vest under your seat') in Norwegian - definitely not something you'd expect to see on a flight en route to Pointe-Noire!
I checked the MFG # sign as I left the aircraft, and a few E-mails later I found the plane (A 737-200) had been sold for scrap in 1993 as it no longer complied with relevant noise regulations; it then made its way to the Congo by some dubious route and, to paraphrase the puzzled Boeing customer rep who got in touch - 'As far as we are concerned, the plane is not as much flying as not having crashed yet.'
Aircraft in exile indeed.
That made me think of this; vintage Douglas DC-3 plane in Columbia.
One (dubious) perk of my job is that I get to fly on all sorts of dilapidated airlines all over the world. I have never flown on a DC-3, but have tried its DC-4 and DC-6 siblings on a couple of occasions. They do have a couple of things going for them:
a) Over-engineered to extremes; rather than calculating how much weight could be shed without making a part too fragile, it seems they did the opposite - just how sturdy can we make this and still be able to take off? This approach doesn't get them any fuel economy medals, but as for longevity? Oh-la-la.
b) Very (VERY) simple to work on; simple access to just about anything that matters, very little by way of fancy solutions requiring deep specialist knowledge. As long as you maintain oil pressure, the engines will run.
Also, the economics kicks in here, too - maintaining an airframe properly is cheaper in the long run than having to replace them occasionally after a total loss. Presumably also better for your reputation and recruiting capability.
While chatting with the aircrew of a positively ancient Antonov in the Congo once, I found that a mechanic would come along for the flight. In my naïvety, I asked what he could do in the event of an issue while en route. The first officer shrugged and said 'Not much - but it sure keeps them focussed while working on the plane!'
Crude, but effective.
They are over the design weight and have shoddy brakes so they're downrated from their specified top speed. The increased weight makes them much harsher on the tracks and transmits way more vibration to neighboring houses. The doors have overly complex mechanisms prone to jamming. So do the rising stairs. The air conditioners leak condensation. Overall they get far fewer miles between maintenance windows than they should - by less than half - resulting in a lot more cars stuck in the maintenance yard reducing an already over-stretched capacity.
They also can't be coupled more than two cars at a time (where I'm calling a car the joined halves with the flexible part in the middle). Even if Muni had enough cars they couldn't run three-car trains with the Breda units.
SF finally learned its lesson; Siemens is making the new cars. The first ones should start running end of this year. They can be coupled into 3-4 car trains, have good German engineering, working brakes, etc. Muni will also end up with more of them (~120 in the current fleet, vs 240 in the new one) so there will be a lot more capacity.
http://www.rtands.com/index.php/passenger/rapid-transit-ligh...
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/pain-in-spain-as-trams-head-to-syd...
http://www.streetcar.org/second_melbourne_tram_joins_f-line-...
Canada has carriages originally intended to run overnight services through the Channel Tunnel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)#Via_Rail_Can...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2-class_Melbourne_tram
Various tram types were demoed on the Melbourne network in the 2000's - Bombardier Eurotram, Bombardier Flexity Classic (from Adelaide), Siemens CombinoPlus. Ultimately Bombardier got a contract for Flexity Swift/2 derived trams (the E class).
Adelaide also bought six trams from Madrid in similar circumstances
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Adelaide#Citadis_302_...
IIRC old narrow-gauge Spanish trains are being used in San José, Costa Rica as they have opened a small number of train lines in these last 8-10 years.
Some infos:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TW_601 (German article w/ picture)
http://fahrtenbuch.uestra.de/601-die-rueckkehr/ (Blog posts with pictures, just throw it in Google Translate)
How they ended up there I don't know.
I witnessed a mass burglary/theft in the train, my friend to barely hold on to his rucksack.
[1] https://www.visiting-africa.com/africa/tunisia/2010/03/train...
I've never been on it, but I've heard that incidents like that may happen once a year on those lines.
PS: I think it's one of the only trains I saw that doesn't have the "closed-door" safety enabled. You can open the doors while it is on full speed and it doesn't matter.