Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Every so (far too) often somebody comes on here and says we can create a new train with schedules to blah blah and especially blah. They even come up with play schedules for these play trains to their play cities that range from vaguely realistic to vaudeville. And then they say, "it would be nice to have such a train". Well duh.
I have been working for several years to get certain wealthy businessmen and their related politicians to sponsor the $50 million or so that would be needed to create and operate an hourly shuttle from Pottsville to Norristown connecting with Septa and run it for 5 years as a trial. My train's concept is a likely guaranteed success, since a large portion of the population along that route work in the Philly metro area, traffic along I-176 is appalling in the morning, and 422 is worse. I even have a liberal friend who has a ridiculous amount of money that he is in the process of giving away the bulk of to charity because he has no heirs thats sorta getting on board with backing my project. I'm talking about a natural rail corridor that saw service into the early 80's. I'm talking about dirt cheap operation. With my friends help, I think I have a 20% chance of succeeding. Without it, I'm pissing in the wind, and I know it. Were it not for a dinner conversation one night with this friend, I wouldn't have even started putting work into it. I refuse to waste my time.
You go about it backassward.
Step one: Come up with the idea. Propose it in your head. If you are grinning antecedently to laughter, ashcan it right here and don't go on to step two.
Step Two: Ask your self the five Ws:
1) Who is going to pay for it? If the answer is "They" stop. If the answer is Congress and you don't have an in, stop. If the answer is the state, and you don't have an in, stop. If the answer is a municipality, and you don't have an in, stop. And if the answer is a wealthy businessman and he isn't a personal friend you socialize with regularly, you should have been laughing at step one, doofus. If the answer is yourself, double your estimate and apply a monetary version of Hoftstadter's law. (It always costs more than you expect, even when taking this into account!)
2) Where are they going to get the money? Don't think in terms of vague notions of defunding what you consider unneeded projects. A tax? On what? A coalition of businessmen?How do you get affected people to go along with your plan? What ever you do, you have to have the people affected by the movement of money on board for your plan. If you can't figure out a way to get the people funding it ENTHUSIASTIC about it, stop. Do you know how many parents of children will vote against desperately needed school projects at referendums?
3) When do you think adequate funding can be amassed? Always Remember HOFTSTADTER'S LAW. You have to wait for properly aligned politics and get the wheels gaining huge momentum by the time the politics change. If you think it is going to start in less than a decade, stop. You are too naive to try this stuff.
4) Why are they going to pay for it? Seriously. You and I know trains are of great benefit to the world. They cure cancer and everything. But to people who don't ride them, what are they? An old, slow, antique reserved for socialists, the poor and the east coast elite. They are the devil because we train advocates not only want to force you to ride the train, we want to take your car away. You better have a convincing argument that includes things like allowing for increased highway maintenance and decreased congestion so that drivers can get to work more easily.
5) How much is it going to cost? Don't think on a government scale. Think about a number that can be swallowed by the average imbecile. You have people like Kaisch or whatever is name is by telling people this train project was going to cost Ohio taxpayers a few million a year. Chicken feed, I know, but the average person doesn't think like that. They think in terms of the $30,000 they make a year, the $20,000 they paid for a car over 5 years, and the $150,000 they paid for their house over 30. Don't even contemplate how much the DOD gets. If you can't make the number palatable to friends, stop.
Step Three: Go find a railroad engineer and find out if this project of yours is even feasible. I don't care how fast the Hummingbird or whatever ran over the track when my father was in high school, because its entirely irrelevant. I want to know if I am going to need to use chainsaws to cut through the trees that have grown up through whats left of the roadbed or not. I want to know how fast I can run that train given the traffic that runs over it now, the current track conditions, the current trackage status (Single? Double? Triple? Signaled? Dark? PTC?) and all the other intangibles. If you hear the words Rail Trail, stop. You can't buck the utter horror, the evil dark empire, the walking group that make audacity and smug nouns, known as cyclists. If any of this requires more than $100 million or so, don't even try to fight for it. Try to create a coalition. It won't work, but if you insist, try.
Step Four: Go to a vanity somewhere. Sit down in front of the mirror and stare deep into your own soul. Say to yourself out loud, "I am going to spend the rest of my life fighting for this because I believe in it. It is now my hobby. I will do nothing else. I won't have as much time to spend with my children or my family. I understand that after favorably completing every other step laid out by GreenManedLion, I truly believe I have something that may approach a ghost of a chance of improving the world. I will never be thanked for this. Most people including other rail people will think I am crazy and stupid and don't understand the political reality of the world. I will be verbally abused by fools. I may be threatened and bullied by people if I ever manage to accomplish a single thing. But I consider this important enough that I am willing to endure all this for the chance of improving the way of life for my descendants in an area I care deeply about and wish to benefit at my own great expense."
And if you can bring yourself to do all this, then you can post your ideas on this forum. Because then you have the commitment needed to actually bother other people with what you think is cool. I am so freakin' sick of people who just think that a train is a good idea and we should ask for it and it'll fall out of the sky complete with electrified Class 8 track and brand shining new Shinkensen sets and a billion dollar piggy bank to pay for operations. Talk about what you are personally willing to fight for. Anybody can talk the talk. Walk the walk first.
I have been working for several years to get certain wealthy businessmen and their related politicians to sponsor the $50 million or so that would be needed to create and operate an hourly shuttle from Pottsville to Norristown connecting with Septa and run it for 5 years as a trial. My train's concept is a likely guaranteed success, since a large portion of the population along that route work in the Philly metro area, traffic along I-176 is appalling in the morning, and 422 is worse. I even have a liberal friend who has a ridiculous amount of money that he is in the process of giving away the bulk of to charity because he has no heirs thats sorta getting on board with backing my project. I'm talking about a natural rail corridor that saw service into the early 80's. I'm talking about dirt cheap operation. With my friends help, I think I have a 20% chance of succeeding. Without it, I'm pissing in the wind, and I know it. Were it not for a dinner conversation one night with this friend, I wouldn't have even started putting work into it. I refuse to waste my time.
You go about it backassward.
Step one: Come up with the idea. Propose it in your head. If you are grinning antecedently to laughter, ashcan it right here and don't go on to step two.
Step Two: Ask your self the five Ws:
1) Who is going to pay for it? If the answer is "They" stop. If the answer is Congress and you don't have an in, stop. If the answer is the state, and you don't have an in, stop. If the answer is a municipality, and you don't have an in, stop. And if the answer is a wealthy businessman and he isn't a personal friend you socialize with regularly, you should have been laughing at step one, doofus. If the answer is yourself, double your estimate and apply a monetary version of Hoftstadter's law. (It always costs more than you expect, even when taking this into account!)
2) Where are they going to get the money? Don't think in terms of vague notions of defunding what you consider unneeded projects. A tax? On what? A coalition of businessmen?How do you get affected people to go along with your plan? What ever you do, you have to have the people affected by the movement of money on board for your plan. If you can't figure out a way to get the people funding it ENTHUSIASTIC about it, stop. Do you know how many parents of children will vote against desperately needed school projects at referendums?
3) When do you think adequate funding can be amassed? Always Remember HOFTSTADTER'S LAW. You have to wait for properly aligned politics and get the wheels gaining huge momentum by the time the politics change. If you think it is going to start in less than a decade, stop. You are too naive to try this stuff.
4) Why are they going to pay for it? Seriously. You and I know trains are of great benefit to the world. They cure cancer and everything. But to people who don't ride them, what are they? An old, slow, antique reserved for socialists, the poor and the east coast elite. They are the devil because we train advocates not only want to force you to ride the train, we want to take your car away. You better have a convincing argument that includes things like allowing for increased highway maintenance and decreased congestion so that drivers can get to work more easily.
5) How much is it going to cost? Don't think on a government scale. Think about a number that can be swallowed by the average imbecile. You have people like Kaisch or whatever is name is by telling people this train project was going to cost Ohio taxpayers a few million a year. Chicken feed, I know, but the average person doesn't think like that. They think in terms of the $30,000 they make a year, the $20,000 they paid for a car over 5 years, and the $150,000 they paid for their house over 30. Don't even contemplate how much the DOD gets. If you can't make the number palatable to friends, stop.
Step Three: Go find a railroad engineer and find out if this project of yours is even feasible. I don't care how fast the Hummingbird or whatever ran over the track when my father was in high school, because its entirely irrelevant. I want to know if I am going to need to use chainsaws to cut through the trees that have grown up through whats left of the roadbed or not. I want to know how fast I can run that train given the traffic that runs over it now, the current track conditions, the current trackage status (Single? Double? Triple? Signaled? Dark? PTC?) and all the other intangibles. If you hear the words Rail Trail, stop. You can't buck the utter horror, the evil dark empire, the walking group that make audacity and smug nouns, known as cyclists. If any of this requires more than $100 million or so, don't even try to fight for it. Try to create a coalition. It won't work, but if you insist, try.
Step Four: Go to a vanity somewhere. Sit down in front of the mirror and stare deep into your own soul. Say to yourself out loud, "I am going to spend the rest of my life fighting for this because I believe in it. It is now my hobby. I will do nothing else. I won't have as much time to spend with my children or my family. I understand that after favorably completing every other step laid out by GreenManedLion, I truly believe I have something that may approach a ghost of a chance of improving the world. I will never be thanked for this. Most people including other rail people will think I am crazy and stupid and don't understand the political reality of the world. I will be verbally abused by fools. I may be threatened and bullied by people if I ever manage to accomplish a single thing. But I consider this important enough that I am willing to endure all this for the chance of improving the way of life for my descendants in an area I care deeply about and wish to benefit at my own great expense."
And if you can bring yourself to do all this, then you can post your ideas on this forum. Because then you have the commitment needed to actually bother other people with what you think is cool. I am so freakin' sick of people who just think that a train is a good idea and we should ask for it and it'll fall out of the sky complete with electrified Class 8 track and brand shining new Shinkensen sets and a billion dollar piggy bank to pay for operations. Talk about what you are personally willing to fight for. Anybody can talk the talk. Walk the walk first.