Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, Scotland Superthread

[liamcool]

Because I touch myself at ni-because I don't have an intimate understanding of trams. Who the fuck drops people off in the middle of the road?

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

re: fare evading...i got inspected all the time while in europe. i always had my ticket with me (well, except for one time when i left it at the hostel, oops) so it wasn't an issue, but i knew a group of people travelling to switzerland (from a tiny town in bavaria) and got caught. they got dumped at some train station in the middle of nowhere and had to pay fines...i think in germany it's like €300 or something crazy. long-distance travelling like that is obviously more prone to inspection i know, if you're catching a regional train the conductor has much more time to go through and check everyone's ticket.

it did happen even on just local trams and such, just much less frequently. never got checked on a bus (i had a pass, so i didn't walk up to the driver and show anything/pay for a ticket).

here in memphis though? any time i've ridden the trolley (or what you all would call a tram), i've never been checked. it's just one guy driving it, it'd be a pain for him to get up at every stop and check tickets. never ridden the buses here so i can't say what they do.

re: trams stopping in the middle of the street...it is definitely a little odd at first. the trams here in memphis sorta do it, as they drive in the left lane. but the main trolley line is almost entirely in a pedestrian-only area, the rest of the line doesn't see a lot of car traffic, at least not to the point where it's impossible to cross. plus this street is just one lane per direction, so you're not far from the kerb. the other line though where it is two lanes per side, there's actual stations in the median area, so you're not just dumped in a little strip of pavement in the middle of the road.

luckily it seemed whenever i did take a tram in europe, the stop was either busy enough in that there were plenty of other people crossing too, or it was dead enough that i didn't have any traffic to deal with.

 

[cobl04]

speaking of trams, Ax I dunno what type they are but surely you hate the trams that the majority of the 96 uses (not the latest ones, the ones before). they are fucking horrible. aside from the middle parts which have seats against the sides and a lot of standing room with a lot of handles, they are atrocious. there's what, four seats in the back and front parts? and fuck all space. so idiotic. the older trams are fucking miles better.

 

[Axver]

speaking of trams, Ax I dunno what type they are but surely you hate the trams that the majority of the 96 uses (not the latest ones, the ones before). they are fucking horrible. aside from the middle parts which have seats against the sides and a lot of standing room with a lot of handles, they are atrocious. there's what, four seats in the back and front parts? and fuck all space. so idiotic. the older trams are fucking miles better.

I hate to break it to you, but urban transport design is tending increasingly towards minimal seating, prioritising standing room, so that you can fit maximum crush loads at peak hour. You might have noticed that they've recently taken some seats out of the B classes (the high-floor articulated ones that run most services on the 19, 59, and 86) to achieve that goal too. It's a theory from high capacity rapid transit for cities like Hong Kong or Tokyo, being applied to Melbourne in part because they want to squeeze more people onto the current trams at peak rather than invest in a sufficient number of new trams and the associated infrastructure.

The trams you mean, incidentally, are the D class (my main problem with them is that they squeak like a mofo). And yes, I maintain the older the tram, the better the comforts and amenities for passengers. The Ws and Zs are my favourites - seats with sufficient padding, and windows that actually open. Nowadays it's all about as few seats as possible, and where there are seats they're fucking uncomfortable. Though if you go back and ride a tram from 1900, you'll find it just as uncomfortable - their wooden bench seats look nice in a quaint way, but fuck I'd hate to sit on that for over five minutes.

 

[cobl04]

totally get that - that's why I like the newest ones - but at the front and back of the D class trams you're not even saving room for standing passengers because of this idiotic fucking design

there's four seats in those parts, facing each other, but because of that gigantic white armrest thing (whatever it is) you're actually making less room. surely you agree?

 

[cobl04]

looking at yarra trams site, B Class is by far the best.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

that looks exactly like the trams i rode in munich

 

[Axver]

there's four seats in those parts, facing each other, but because of that gigantic white armrest thing (whatever it is) you're actually making less room. surely you agree?

You do realise that "armrest" is the housing for the wheels?

The C class have seats raised up above the wheels (which I'm not sure actually meets accessibility requirements nowadays as there is a step up to those seats even if the rest of the tram has no steps), the D class have the armrests, and I've only ridden on an E once so I don't know how they've managed to bury the wheels on that one while still keeping it low-floor throughout. The rest of Melbourne's trams are older high-floor designs that are inaccessible for wheelchairs.

 

[Axver]

that looks exactly like the trams i rode in munich

I was surprised to ride a "Melbourne D class" in Amsterdam - but I shouldn't have been, since they were both similar types of trams built by the same company and based on the same design, adapted to suit local circumstances such as track gauge. It wouldn't surprise me if you rode one in Germany because they're built by Siemens.

 

[Axver]

Can't wait for Dufflecoat Supreme to romp to victory tomorrow.

 

[bono_212]

Were you all aware that the All Blacks were in town this past weekend to completely annihilate Team USA in an exhibition match?

 

[Axver]

Hahaha yeah that was quite a thumping. Off the top of my head we've played the US three times now and that's our biggest win. I'm pretty impressed how many people turned up; I figured the All Blacks would play in front of a few hundred Kiwi ex-pats, a few hundred more curious ex-pats from other rugby countries, and three Americans who thought something else was on.

This game was pretty much just a rehearsal drill for our forthcoming big encounter with England, who are the only team other than South Africa who are on New Zealand's level at the moment. Be grateful we didn't repeat what we did to hapless Japan in 1995; our score of 145 is the record for an international.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Apparently a Chicago paper called them "Aussies," I could hear all of NZ groan when I read that.

 

[liamcool]

Melbourne is currently a ghost town.

 

[Axver]

The University of Melbourne doesn't observe Cup Day so I'm at work.

 

[bono_212]

I wish sports events were holidays here .

 

[liamcool]

If you aren't wearing a hat that doubles the size of your afro, I am disappoint.

 

[Axver]

I wish sports events were holidays here .

We might get a second one if Labour win the state election later this month, since they're promising to make the Friday before the AFL Grand Final a public holiday. An election promise after my own heart!

Many cities in Australia have a public holiday for the local show/exhibition too. Brisbane has a public holiday for the Ekka, the state exhibition. That holiday was widely but informally observed on the Gold Coast too, where we had our own public holiday for the Gold Coast Show. I was personally grateful for both holidays despite never going to either show in my life.

 

[liamcool]

Fucking Cobbler.

 

[Axver]

I think that just for the record Liam goes hardest out of all the Aussie contingent.

 

[Axver]

Oh man, seriously, just for the record: Evening with Cobbler and Liam = I am soooo gone. That was good times. Cheers guys. I liked the deep-and-meaningful Liam and I tried to have about historical theory at the end of proceedings.

 

[cobl04]

Good times indeed.

 

[Axver]

Just sent my book manuscript to a publisher. They've already accepted to send it out to a couple of academic readers, and here's hoping the readers like it enough that I'm offered a publishing contract.

I'm so glad the publishers had a firm deadline for receiving the manuscript to expedite the reader process, or else I would've just sat around tinkering at the edges for weeks and been completely unable to let go. This thing is my baby and I'm a hopeless perfectionist. Right up until the last minute I was tweaking phrasing and squeezing in extra research. I'm sure that if it gets accepted I'll still take the opportunity to revise the manuscript again.

 

[cobl04]

 

[dan_smee]

That's awesome Ax. Hugely exciting. Congrats mate.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[bono_man2002]

Fuck the Rolling Stones!

 

[bono_212]

Ohhhh damn, sorry man . But you're going to be banking an awful lot of money now, I assume

 

[bono_man2002]

After I give Dad back his half, yes!

 

[Axver]

Cheers guys.

And damn that sucks Daniel - are they not rescheduling the gig?

 

[bono_man2002]

They're not rescheduling. I guess because its at Hanging Rock there is a lot of work in scheduling everything (buses, food ect) rather than if it was at say, Rod Laver Arena. I'm pretty devastated, but we are thinking of going to the gig in Sydney if we can find reasonable priced tickets.