Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Friday, July 13, 2018

Because It's Friday

The day they changed the gauge of all Southern railroads:


Though things were more efficient after the change of gauge, the railroads kept the savings.

That, in point of fact was one of the reasons why people in the early-mid 20th Century greeted the laying of highways with open arms. In the Plains states, where there usually was only one railroad serving an area, the pricing for both passengers and freight would, these days, be viewed as predatory. Few looked upon the subsequent collapse of local rail service with anything other than quiet satisfaction.

2 comments:

Borepatch said...

I hadn't heard that, and 36 hours is incredibly fast.

IIRC, Stalin kept the USSR railroad gauge different from western Europe's to make invasion harder. Or so I've heard.

none said...

The way I heard it, one of the Czars, Nicholas I, started it off and it was to prevent rolling stock (cars and engines) from leaving the country. Or you could believe the OTHER story, which was he told the engineers to make the gauge wider than the European standard by the width of his private parts, which dimension I will leave to the student to determine.

As to wartime railroad use, the first thing a retreating (or invading) force does is rip up the rails. Historically anyway.