trains

The terrorists have defeated the railroads, and by extension, the people. Well, not totally defeated, but they won a small but important battle. We have a problem with the wholesale removal of petroleum from the Bakken oil fields, and the shipping of that relatively dangerous liquid mainly to the east coast on trains, with hundreds of tanker cars rolling down a small selection of tracks every day. I see them all the time as they go through my neighborhood. These trains derail now and then, and sometimes those derailments are pretty messy, life threatening, and even fatal. There has been…

A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Robin Marantz Henig in the New York Times Magazine: The Last Day of Her Life David Heath at the Center for Public Integrity: American Chemistry Council lied about lobbying role in flame retardants, consultant says Maryn McKenna at Germination: The Avian Flu Epidemic: Massive Impact, Uncertain Future Lydia DePillis in the Washington Post’s Wonkblog: The next labor fight is over when you work, not how much you make Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker: The Plot Against Trains

Damn, I must have ridden those very train carriages thousands of times! The crash happened just four stops up the commuter train line from where I live. My wife and I went there this morning with our camera. Details here. . Update 21 January: On the basis of first reports and information from a former railway employee, I thought this was an ostentatious suicide attempt. Now there are indications that it was a horrific accident caused by the unsanctioned habits of train drivers. Apparently they routinely jury-rig the safety apparatus for convenience, and in cold weather, to keep the brakes…

Ripping off Timmy: Laptops and mobile phones mean that at least a modicum of work can be done while travelling. So the value of time saved by fewer hours travelling should fall. In fact, we can almost certainly go further. Sitting with a laptop, a phone and a decent internet connection in a comfy seat on a train is, these days, almost as productive as being in a nice office in a comfy chair with a computer, phone and decent internet connection. In which case the value of the reduced transport time for these very important people collapses down to almost nothing. Something which rather…

First and foremost, thank you so much to John Bell, Molly Davis and Niepoliski for their aid and comfort while I was head down in the conference. I admit, I had no idea that I would be going every single second of each day, and running on quite so little sleep. I think realistically, being on the board and being able to blog the conference are fundamentally incompatible, and next year, I probably won't try it. But thanks to my friends and allies, you at least got the beginnings of a picture of what was happening. There's so much information being shared there - someone called it "like…

When I visited Shanghai a few years ago, one of my favorite moments was riding the maglev train from the airport to a Metro station on the outskirts of the city. As I recall, its speed got up to around 250 mph - a counter in each car displayed the speed, and the numbers changed in a blur as the train accelerated out of the station. I thought about how wonderful it would be to have such a high-speed train between DC and New York or LA and San Francisco, but feared it couldn't happen in the US. Flights and long drives are not only major sources of greenhouse gases, they're also growing sources…

You can be doing more fun things. I'll be out of touch and my blog will be quiet. But you could be reading some of my old colleagues and some new cool stuff at the new cooperative blog group "Scientopia." Zuska's there and Dr. Free Ride, and a lot of awesome folk - so have fun! Sharon

All month the Scientiae train has been loading at platform 37.7*, and now we're pulling out of the station on a wonderful journey on the rails. I'm picturing a Harry Potter-esque train running through the Scottish countryside, complete with cozy compartments and carts full of goodies, comforting tea, and chocolate frogs.** But most importantly, this train is full of amazing people sharing confidences, celebrations, frustrations, and encouragement. Alice and ScienceWoman will be your conductors for this journey, and we're going to drop in on some of the conversations. We'll start up near…