Tolga's Railroad Repository

Recently, as with many developments, opposition has tried to bite All Aboard Florida's project bringing intercity passenger service between Miami and Orlando. People have a fancy for distorting the truth about what the project plans to do and bring to the communities involved. My efforts were combined with the High Speed Rail America Club to produce a video contesting the top 5 butchered claims about the system. Here is a summary of the top 5 misconceptions about the service: 5. All Aboard Florida will cause economic impact. There is no logical way that a city's economic health can be ruined. In fact, the contrary, due to the easier logistics and added service/hospitality that is to follow. 4. All Aboard Florida is Publicly Funded. All Aboard Florida's only gov't involvement is a loan. Other than that it is simply 100% private, run by FECI which is in the Private Sector. 3. All Aboard Florida is Noisy. Any noise impact by a light nine-car trainset cannot match ...

Friends; Many of us are aware and know that the current passenger rail system in the United States is not exactly living up to  systems that are seen throughout the world .  The High Speed Rail America Club is a group chartered within Florida International University and aims to bring high speed rail to the United States. While admittedly such a system is difficult, costly, and takes time to execute, it is NOT impossible, and quoting university president Mark Rosenberg, we as people have the power to "Turn the Impossible to the Inevitable". Our main goal at the moment is to produce a documentary that highlights the current state of rail travel in the United States and what can be done to improve and bring it up to High Speed standards. We would like to film our documentary on and revolving around present day passenger rail, while discussing within the film and later focusing on and cooperating with prospective systems such as All Aboard Florida, which we know that s...

This is a Trainz route that I like to work on in the fall. But, something just occurred to me that made me want to rework the track layout in Key West just now. I was looking around in Google Maps and noticed that the viaduct that connects the main island to one of the industrial islands, which is where Nikos laid the main yard, felt lower. This apparently justified making the track lift bridge a fixed span, but I felt that since there was a marina, the idea was no good. But it was worth the while to adjust trackwork in the area  to be more realistic. The first issue I attacked was the fact that the yard and the lead to Fleming Key needed a Wye lead so that engines and stuff can more conveniently turn around. If I were to turn power other than a turntable, I would need to run something through the docks. A wye track was constructed to also cross one of the industrial leads, which is something that works in modern cities. The diamond is manual and yard jobs would 'need per...

Nathan Sawaya's "Art of the Brick" will be returning to South Florida this June, and so will the biannual contest that supplements it. I have been a previous winner of the Brick Creation Challenge in 2008 , and am delighted to see this contest return, but stumbled upon this rather offensive and new  rule: "All creations must be glued together and completely secured with no loose parts. Each entry must be submitted on a clean and stable base of plywood, metal, etc. The Center will not be responsible for pieces which become disassembled in any way. No exceptions to these conditions will be accepted." Suffice to say, they lost me as an entrant. While there is some understanding that kids will have some temptation to destroy MOCs, as they sideswiped my 18 wheeler big rig (which is one of the few models from that entry which are still in one piece), the fundamental rule of LEGO is... YOU NEVER GLUE LEGO. That is, unless, you are building for say, the Downto...

I am happy to say that the Spring Semester of classes has come to an end at FIU and I am free for FOUR months... That is to say, I will be busy busy busy! at work with my hobbies, potential Learning Assistant job in the Summer A term, and other things. First and foremost, the big announcement is that I am finally able to focus on an effort to bring Tri-Rail service into the Miami-Dade suburbs. This has been much overlooked over the years, as SFRTA probably focused more on the existing improvements. However, as 836 and other east-west roads continue to be a pain in the behind, the sparsely used CSX Lehigh Spur should come to mind and commuter rail should be designed to allow an option to avoid the ridiculous traffic on our roadways. A fanpage has been started to kick off the efforts, which include a very sound and on-point vision of these specific transportation improvements. A dummy Trainz route has been tailored to simulate, to the best of my ability, this service. Traffic pattern...

The previous post has generated quite a bit of praise; now for the FEC edition;) You know you're a FEC railfan when: You can't handle railfanning in any temperature below 32º F.  You're up at the butt crack of dawn for some FEC action, which can vary depending on which part of the mainline you live in. North end: 226, 224, 905 and 109; Middle corridor: 109 and 210, with a local here and there, and South end: 335, 121, and 123 You eat, sleep, and breathe EMD. You don't believe that GE has any form of existence and deny that the railway has bought the Tier-4 Compliant ES44C4s Your girlfriend is named Ashley You can actually call a locomotive "Pinky" Freight cars are termed as Dead Loads You bow down to the gods (ie. President Hertwig) every time the Azalea, St. Augustine, and Power Car pass on the butt end of trains like 101 and 226 Nightlife for you includes clubbing around the destinations I mentioned in the previous list, as well as Fort Pierce, Ja...

Saw a kind of dated list called " You Know You're an Idiot Railfan if " and I wanted to incorporate South Florida into it... that is because we have developed a railbuff culture and our own railfan humor pretty unique and distinct from the rest. This is all in good humor not to be condescending towards anyone, and it is NOT to suggest that we would be idiots, much less the original list that this was inspired from. So here goes - and I'll update frequently: You know you're a South Florida Railfan  when... Nightlife for you is either Delray Beach proper, Hollywood, Midtown (as of 2014), or, if you can handle it, Ft. Liquordale, and maps to a certain FEC milepost number Your Friday night hangouts are the White Lumber Lead, Fort Lauderdale Airport Station, Hollywood Blvd, or Hollywood Amtrak Station You just have to check out East Rail, Pompano Market, or Downtown Spur when you're in the area You repeat and know verbatim the Power-Assisted Switches on the...