99% Invisible - 514- Train Set: Track Two

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Funiculars are great, which is why the main image from our previous train episode featured one -- except we didn't actually talk about that one during the show. It's a cable car from Wellington, and as it turns out it's one of hundreds of funiculars in this city. Roman and Kurt are back with another series of railroad tales. All aboard!Train Set: Track Two

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Earlier this year, Kurt Coles said a producing episode about trains, only trains, and nothing but trains, featuring strange and amazing rail cars and routes from around the world. But he ran into a little bit of a problem. Fortunately, it was the good kind of problem. I had way too many train stories for a single episode. And not just my ideas, but also ideas sent in by fans. And it was pretty clear from all the tweets and emails that you, beautiful nerds, would be down for a second round of train stories.

So here it is, train set, track 2, all aboard. Greetings passengers. This story starts not with a train, but with a photo of a train. When I was working on our previous episode about trains, I found this wonderful picture of this cable car in Wellington. And I decided to use it as a lead image on our website when we released that episode. Yes, I remember that one. This is really lovely shot. It's a red finicular climbing up a hill in a city with mountains in the background. You know, the funny thing was, we didn't actually talk about that finicular, did we? No, no, we didn't.

I was just looking for the ultimate train picture. Plus, I figured it's a finicular, that's something you would enjoy. Yeah, of course. You know, who didn't enjoy it? New Zealander's. They were very polite about it, but it was clear that seeing an image

had gotten more than a few Wellingtonians excited about their city being featured on the show. So I started chatting with a friend who lives in Wellington, and well, I'll just let her set the seeking. One of the first things you notice when you move to Wellington is these funny little rails going up the hill as you drive along. And you're like, well, what the heck is that? Is that an elevator?

That's my friend and de facto New Zealand correspondent, Pepper. I'm Pepper Raccoon, and I'm an artist from Wellington, New Zealand. Her name is Pepper Raccoon. That is outstanding. I can see why you guys hit it off. And those rails that she's talking about, they're not just for that one main cable car. There are a bunch of smaller private trains around the city too. I think, honestly, Wellington is the best place to come for a tour of the best

finiculars. It's a, yeah, it's a smorgasbord, really. There's so many different ones, and they all look completely different. And she explained to me that there are actually hundreds of local finiculars in Wellington. They range from like a fiberglass bucket on a single rail to like effectively a beautiful little room elevator that mimics the style of your home on a dual rail that gives it a much smoother and stable ride. So it's like, yeah, you can go real fancy. So Wellington is now becoming like the first city of my heart because it has tons of finiculars, which as we all know,

are the greatest form of transportation. Oh, yes. But the question still remains, why are there so many vernacular in Wellington? Right, and it's not so much that the city itself as a public entity needs them, it's that all of these homeowners do, because Wellington is the small coastal city

and it's crammed in between the water and all of these craggy hills. In terms of the topography, it's just a nightmare of like crumbling cliffs. So it makes sense that we ran out of space and so has us kind of ended up on cliffs and on very steep hills. Yeah, it's good. It's also like an insane place though because of the topography. So a lot of things don't make sense here. Or rather they make sense here, but sound weird to everybody else.

And so Wellington is actually one of the most densely populated cities in New Zealand because there's so little flatland to build on, and people have decided to move up and out of the densely peck city and live on these steep slopes, which otherwise might not get built on. And this approach has upsides and it has downsides. So those homes on the coast have incredible views, but unfortunately moving into that means you have to hire a helicopter. So, having forbid you buy a new sofa. Like, I couldn't imagine buying new furniture after having moved in and being like, well, I guess we have to call the helicopter again, like that sucks. But because most people, of course, can't hire a helicopter, every time they want to go to the supermarket. And the only way to get up to some of those houses

was a set of stairs if you're lucky, and for some houses it's literally just the finicular. So you can get stuck there. Your finicular can break down, and you can just not be able to go anywhere. And they do. Yeah, and they do break down. And they can be dangerous.

Someone did die due to a finicular-related incident before there was regulations around them. And so the government had to institute a warrant of fitness on finiculars, but it's really expensive. When the maintenance costs are so expensive and you have to keep the piles, you know, stable and higher inspectors and all that stuff. And so

that cost becomes a pretty big deal because these trains aren't being run by the city, they're owned, operated, and maintained by individuals or small groups of homeowners. Some people have teamed up, so there'll be three or four houses on the same vernacular track, and so you just share it. And that seems really sensible.

And so a lot of people don't get fancy with their verniculars either. They just need something to get them tuned from home safely, something they can afford. But even the safety part is a little bit optional. And as the islanders also have this really dangerous and kind of entertaining, seems whimsical, but also kind of terrible philosophy called, she'll be right, which is just build something. Don't worry too much about it. She'll be right, which is just build something. Don't worry too much about it. She'll be right. It's fine. And unfortunately, I think a lot of the funiculars that existed before the warn of fitness

might have been on that kind of spectrum. Because it's all funiculars and games until someone gets hurt. But despite them being janky and unpredictable, she absolutely wants to hide on a private vernacular. Okay, I've been on the cable car. I have never been on a personal vernacular. And the one person that I talked to that was willing to let me ride on their vernacular, their vernacular was broken. Broke in.

Which I have been told is very common. Hahaha. Next stop will be Goet Canyon, California. Please be advised that the track beyond this point is abandoned. Goet Canyon is situated in a beautiful stretch of desert east of San Diego, California. And it's a great place to ride the rails. Oh, big rock, big rock. Oh, I'm sick. Oh, yeah.

So now we got to move some shit all the way here. Okay, so what am I looking at here? Basically, like a really low-tech go kart that runs on rails instead of roads. So it's this bare bones plywood platform with four wheels attached and a couple of bucket seats and a motor and beyond that, just a cooler strap between them for beers

and sandwiches and whatnot. And in this particular video, you've got two brothers who are out there, one who built the thing and one who's recording their adventure, and they're just taking to these abandoned rails. So clearly this is an abandoned set of tracks. So where are they going? They're heading up to see the goat canyon Tressel Bridge, which was built nearly a hundred years ago, and it's the largest wood Tressel Bridge in the world. Largest, per wood, Tressel.

So it's this massive and daunting structure that's around 750 feet long and 200 feet high. But like if you're on rails and you're going 20 miles an hour and it's an abandoned track and maybe some other daredevil is also going 20 miles an hour, hopefully in the same direction, maybe not in the same direction. I mean, like what happens? Right. So the good thing is these cards don't weigh a lot, so they don't have a ton of mass, which means they can stop relatively quickly if you see an obstacle.

Plus, people who regularly ride these stretches, they know more or less what to expect. People like Gabe Emerson, a tinker from Alaska, who has built a few rail cards over the years. In this video, I'm going to try to make a rail road speeder or homemade rail cart. Now I've had a couple of these in the past. If you've seen my prior videos, you may have seen the horrible antique metal one. And you've probably seen my horrible plastic one that kept derailing constantly. My hope here is to make one that actually stays on the track,

and that I can take out to some abandoned railroads for a bit of fun. And true to the title of his video channel, Save It For Parts, Gabe is using pieces he's recycling from these previous builds, like a pedal-powered rail bike that he built and a speeder that was kind of like this one, but this time he added a new motor and a gas pedal. And of course, he doesn't need a steering wheel

because it's on train tracks with no turns. And in the end this creation worked more or less. Like chain keeps jumping off. I need like a tensioner or something on here. Actually I lost a nut for my finally, finally engineered gearing system. So that's why the chain keeps popping off. Oh geez, here come the parking. So these referring to here are these park cops who happen to be passing by and apparently driving a little weird DIY vehicle at slow speeds down an abandoned set of railroad tracks isn't something they're used to ticketing.

In any case, after that game reflected on his work and called it a day. This thing may not be fast, but at least it's ugly. Are you allowed to do that? Oh, no, no, definitely not. In general, yeah, no. But there are some legal DIY rail riding options for people who want to, you know, stay above board or just don't want to build their own carts. Okay, so, so like what?

Well, there's this place up in Northern California, for example, near Fort Bragg called railbikes. And they rent out four-wheeled, two-seat vehicles that use a combination of electricity and pedal power. For a long time, there was this 40-mile active rail line that ran between Fort Bragg and Willitz. But then about a decade ago, this key tunnel along the route collapsed and basically cut the line into. So people on both sides decided to spend up these shorter rail options like this to make the best of a bad situation. Huh. Well, it makes sense.

I mean, they're there, why not use them if they can't be used by trains. Let's use them for some else. Right. So where the collapse happened, it's all rubble covered useless train tracks. But on either side of that fairly narrow crisis point, our tracks that were actively maintained until quite recently, making for a safer ride. And there's all this existing rail infrastructure

already in place, stuff like crossing gates and bells and signals for where the rails intersect the roads. And that infrastructure is now used to stop traffic so rail bikes can cross. It's kind of funny when you go through the railroad crossings and all the gates come down and these rail bikes go past with us waving at the people in the cars. That sounds amazing. Yeah and of course they vary in terms of legality, some being a little less illegal than others, but honestly I would write any of them. Attention passengers! For those interested in taking home a train of their own, there are model trains in our onboard gift shop. New Young is best known for his music, but he also has a lesser known passion, model

train sets. He got his first one at age five and throughout his years touring as a world famous musician, he built up a collection of vintage, Lionel model train sets. Neil's two sons, Zeke and Ben, were both born with cerebral palsy. In Ben's case, it rendered him quadriplegic and nonverbal. Neil's then wife Peggy, struggling to find good schools for children with disabilities, founded the Bridge School in 1986, and Neal found a unique way to engage with Ben through trains. When I started building the railroad, I built it so that my son and I could have something to do together.

Neal extensively modified his vintage trains, adapting the controls to suit band's abilities. I developed a model train control system for Lionel and the sound systems, because I basically made this for my kid, so he could do it with his little switch. Here's some kind of a mechanical electronic, in addition to being musically very nerdy, I think. He holds seven patents for his train innovations, including remote control and more realistic

sounds. He worked closely with Lionel in the early 1990s, and they incorporated his designs into the train master command control. Around the same time, Lionel faced bankruptcy, and Neil led a group of investors to bail them out. Ben frequently accompanies his dad on tour, and these days, with the help of modern speech communication devices, runs a successful organic egg farm. In recent years, Neil has begun to sell off his vast model chain collection.

In part, he wants others to find joy and connection through these vintage sets. But he's also doing it for a good cause. He's donating the proceeds to the Bridge School to help other kids like Ben. This train will never run me down But only take me where I'm bound. It's part of me and part of you. I'll always be a part of you.

Our next stop will be Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Please note, this route is only operational until the end of the week. So there's this train line that for one week a year has the highest reported capacity of any metro system in the entire world. But there's a caveat. It only operates for one week a year. Okay, I'm hooked. So why build a train that runs only one week a year. The network is based in Mecca, and the reason it only operates for this short annual period is that it's designed for a single purpose, moving Muslims around the region during the Hage. Okay, that makes sense. So pilgrims are traveling to Mecca.

They need to get between various holy sites, and it's only a short time of the year. With substantial increases in the number of pilgrims and vehicles carrying them in the holy sites, the road network has become unable to accommodate pedestrians and vehicles simultaneously. So the whole region is notoriously crowded during Holy Week and people flood in during the hodge because one of the five pillars of Islam is visiting Mecca at least once in your lifetime, at least for those who are able and during this one narrow window of time each year. So I know millions of people make the pilgrimage each year and I've read that things can get pretty crowded and dangerous even

deadly because when you have that many people it can turn into a stampede. Yes, absolutely. The crowding has led to some really tragic deaths in the past, but there are other health risks too. The region gets super hot during a hodge so spending a lot of time outside traveling between sites can be risky. Physical safety is definitely part of what drove this project. The government of the Castudian of the two Hauli mosques decided to build a railway in the southern section of the Holy Sites. The southern line, Gupt, Al-Masherar al-Mukadde-Sahmithra

will be the most effective solution to transport the largest possible number of pilgrims in the shortest possible time. So as you can imagine back in the day, these pilgrims are traveling by camel or on foot, and then when these roads came along, as any urbanist knows, they ironically led to more congestion, not less, especially with the rise of personal motor vehicles. So in 2009, they started building this rail line, and the project employed thousands of engineers and even more construction workers who in total had to move nearly 200 million

cubic meters of earth. And despite that, the whole thing was completed in just two years, which is incredibly fast if you think about the scope. And then in 2011, it carried nearly four million pilgrims around between these holy sites. Wow. I mean, that is hard to imagine for my people being moved in a way. Right. Yeah. And if you break it down even further, it can carry 70,000 people per hour, which I also have a hard time imagining, because it has trains leading every few minutes. And in terms of what this offset's in terms of other traffic, they calculated that this train system replaces the need for over 50,000 surface

buses, which of course helps reduce that congestion. But why, you know, if they put all this effort into it, why not just keep it open year round just because? You know, I wasn't able to find a definitive official answer for that. My somewhat educated best guess is that it just isn't cost efficient to operate it all the time. And the route isn't really optimized for commuters or other everyday uses. So it really only makes sense during the Hodge. And the Hodge, meanwhile, brings in so much money. It has almost certainly already offset the billions of dollars

that the project costs. Yeah. Just to put that in perspective. So this one doesn't run regularly. But is there one optimized for commuting? Like, is there an everyday metro system in the area? Well, not yet, but they do have another network in the works

that's supposed to serve the region more regularly and broadly, which as I understand it won't even link up to this one. It'll just be a completely separate system, and that will be for more everyday use, but this existing line is just going to continue being a once a year affair. Attention passengers. Do not be alarmed as this train is about to take to the sky for each 88 miles per hour and take us back to ancient Rome. Enjoy the ride! There's some old infrastructure lore about the reason why American rails have such

specific spacing. The persistent story is that American rail gauges, as in the distance between the metal rails, can be directly traced all the way back to the wheel spacing of ancient imperial Roman chariots. And the logic goes something like this. American rails are spaced four feet eight and a half inches apart, and that seemingly odd number comes from English spacing standards, and those standards in turn were based on wagon construction dimensions, and those had to be standardized so wagons could ride in existing routes, and those routes were initially formed by the Roman Empire and reinforced by other vehicles

ever since. Now there is some truth to this train of thought, but the legend itself, which has persisted for over a century, is mostly fanciful. For one thing, ancient Roman roads were built more for foot traffic than for chariots. Plus, current gauges were far from inevitable. For a long time, there was no standard gauge in the United States and a variety were used.

Ultimately, the relative similarity between modern rail line gauges and ancient rutways are tied more to design than history. Times may have changed, but the physical constraints of vehicles have remained relatively consistent. Axles need to span far enough to support the structure above them, but they can't be too wide or they might snap. So modern gauges aren't really a product of Imperial Rome. History rarely lets us trace such a direct line across such a long period of time. Still,

it's also not entirely coincidental that rail spacing tends to fall into that certain range because the overall needs and limitations of ancient chariots and medieval wagons and contemporary railroads are broadly more similar than they are different. Next stop, Anchorage, Alaska. If you wish to disembark before we arrive, please alert the conductor for a manual stop. Way up in Alaska, there's this one particular train that works differently from probably any train you've ever taken. It operates on what's known as a flag stop basis.

Okay, trains and flags. All right. Onward. Okay, so what does it mean for a rail line to operate on a flag stop basis? What a flag stop train is is basically a train that stops on demand. When somebody needs to get off or get on. And there are some train routes that use a form of higher tech Flagstop service. Like they only slow down at a station if somebody is booked to take it from there in advance, right?

Or in some parts of the world there are these Flagstop fairies where you have to flick a light switch on and to get a boat's attention. But this kind of classic low tech flagstop train where you literally wave a flag is very uncommon. And this route in Alaska is one of the last of its kind in North America. So how does the actual flagging down work? Like do people just stand alongside the tracks like in the dead of winter in Alaska and just wave a white cloth around or maybe what, you know, or scarf or whatever they have on them?

Yeah, basically yes. And the train operators are watching for those signals and stopping when they see them. Huh. So it's a little bit more like a bus, but even buses have bus stops. But what I don't get is, you know, the whole thing that makes a train great is that it efficiently

moves on rails and has inertia. And so how can you stop it to do these pickups when the pickups are done, kind of spontaneously? Right. I mean, these things have a ton of mass. But along this particular stretch, the trains are short. They only have two locomotives, two passenger cars, and one baggage car. So they're small enough that they can start and stop

a lot faster than a normal, you know, full-length locomotive, and still achieve a maximum speed of close to 60 miles an hour. Wow. So if the trains are going up to 60 miles an hour, that means that it's a pretty rural area. So if that's the case, like, who are they stopping for?

Yeah, well, a lot of them are just visitors who are heading out to hike or fish and remote areas for maybe even a couple of weeks at time, or they're traveling to their seasonal cabins. But the real way also provides a vital service for those brave, brave souls who live way out here in rural Alaska along this stretch. It's been really interesting to see how this railroad provides a lifeline for the 40 or so people who live a lot here. Just hanging out of flag if you wanted to train to stop and they stop and they pick you up or they drop you off wherever you ask the conductor to stop. So some folks use the train to get to and from their homes in the region and they also need

this train to get supply drops. But probably my favorite service they offer is news delivery, which doesn't actually require them to stop at all. Basically there's this real worker who stands there and tosses out print newspapers for area residents from the moving train. They can even get their daily news, courtesy of Harry Ross.

The people will come out, they'll send their dog out to come and pick up that newspaper and the dog will bring it back to the get. to come and pick up that newspaper and the dog will bring it back to the cat. We have more trains, more Kirk-Colestead and even more Alaska after this. Next stop, Wales, Alaska. This will be our final stop of the day, as the proposed tunnel that would take us to Russia has yet to be constructed. So Kurt, we're still in Alaska?

Oh yes, absolutely. We're still in Alaska. I mean, it's a really, really big state. It's a huge state, and things are pretty spread out, which makes sense that there would be trains between them. But in this case, it's not a real train, or at least not yet. For over a century, there have been various proposals to connect Eastern Russia and Alaska across the Bering Street, a project that would have to span a bit over 50 miles and would

tie North America to Asia in this unprecedented way. Of course, in the current political climate, it's probably more of a pipe dream, but it would be a world-changing feat of engineering. Such a tunnel would have major benefits. First of all, it would physically link North and South America to the old world. You could ride by train from San Francisco to Beijing in a day and a half and travel by land all the way from Cape Town to Miami. A tunnel would provide a safer, cheaper and faster way to transport freight between Asia

and North America. Of course, right now, Russia is the aggressor in a needless and horrible war, but putting geopolitics aside at 50 plus miles, this sounds like a massive undertaking. I can imagine some pretty massive economic benefits for international trade, you know, if things were to work out diplomatically. But are these just pying this guy ideas or are people like really taking this seriously. Well, definitely some people have, including some pretty serious folks who've pitched plans for over a century. For example, you have Joseph Strauss who went on to design something like 400 bridges

and was the project engineer for the Golden Gate Bridge. And he did his undergrad thesis on a bearing street bridge. Then in 1905, a more fully fleshed out plan was all but approved, but got axed at the last minute. I mean, if they could build something as beautiful as the golden gate bridge, but 50 miles long, that would be pretty stunning. I mean, what was the thing that killed the project back in 1905? Well, the timing as it turned out was terrible. The Russian revolution was kicking off. So, you know, you know, Zara Nicholas II had bigger fish to

fry. And the next thing you know, everybody's caught up in World War One, and then that, you know, bleeds into World War Two, intentions were just high throughout. So the idea kept getting shelved. And then in the 1950s, people started to ramp up and pitch various bridge and tunnel plans again, but none of them panned out. In part because of feasibility concerns, but also of course the cold war. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could just imagine it being a tough sell because there's the engineering challenge of doing something that massive in any climate and then you think about where

they are in the world and connecting the barren straight. It's super cold. The waters are very turbulent. And there's not a whole lot on either side of these things. You know, directly. Oh, yeah, there's basically nothing, especially at the points that are closest to each other from like these nations. And if they built a bridge, it would probably also have to be closed down for much of the year because it is so cold up there. And if they went the train route, they'd need to figure out how to reconcile these different gauges for each country. And if they

went the tunnel route, well, a 50 mile tunnel would be an incredible undertaking and would set a world record. So with all these obstacles and all these really logical reasons why it doesn't exist, is there any realistic prospect of this happening? I mean, I don't know for sure, but I was kind of stunned to find that about a decade ago, the Kremlin approved a rail tunnel proposal. Since 2007, the concept has advanced. In 2008, Vladimir Putin, the then Prime Minister of Russia approved the TKM link. Then in August 2011, the Russian government approved the project. So honestly, it seems like a really cool project, but of course, this ongoing conflict between

these two countries makes it really unlikely we're going to see any progress on this project you know, under the current Russian regime anyway. But given how persistent the idea has been to date, I would be shocked if it didn't resurface again someday. I would not be shocked if it resurfaced again. And then when you lay out the fact that this is going to be a decade's long project to actually complete, it's hard to imagine political stability that would persist through the actual construction of such a project.

It really is. It really is. Yeah, getting that handshake to last for decades seems kind of like an impossible task, given the history between our countries. But you're hoping it would be so cool to see it though. It would be amazing. It would be cool. I would drive all the way through Alaska just to get to the bridge.

I love it. Well, thank you, Kurt. This was a great collection of trains again. Yeah. Anytime, Roman. And if you're down for round three, I've got more ideas where these came from. I know you do. It's so good. Thank you, Roman.

Thank you for riding with 99% invisible. 99% invisible was produced this week by Kurt Colestead, Martin Gonzales, and Jacob Moltenado Medina. Chris Baroube was our trustee conductor, music by director of sound, Swan Riao with Mia Burn on guitar and lap steel. Flanie Hall is the senior editor, the rest of the team includes Vivian Leigh, Emmett Fitzgerald, Jason Dalyone, Christopher Johnson, Lashmidon, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prone, Sophia Klatsker, and Turn Olivia Green, and me Roman Mars.

We are part of the Stitcher and Sirius XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building. And beautiful. Uptown, Oakland, California. you can find the show and join discussions about the show on facebook you can tweet at me at roman mars and the show at 99pi org while it lasts you can run instagram reddit and tiktok too you can find links to other stichers shows i love as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, I hear the train coming in old 99% She's going into stature at Sir Sexham

you