Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 139: The Impossible Railroad

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

turns out it's hard to build a railroad through the worst terrain on earth follow tom on whatever they're calling the posting site now: https://twitter.com/TomColetti century of steam on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2517940/Century_of_Steam/ century of steam on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Studio346/posts Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hello, and welcome to well, there's your problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. Well, I have people talking in the background of our podcast. Yes, say because Fred asked me if I was excited to record as we were recording. I can. I really turned on a dime there. I just kind of like it so much. I'm just like who the fuck? Hi Hello, and welcome to Will there's your problem podcast. It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides I'm Justin Risenick and the first is talking right now my friend answering him. Okay, go I am Alan school walk out anytime recording pronouns are she and her person who's talking now. Ye Liam I am Alan Skullwakali and I'm recording. Prime Minister Shane Hurt, person who's talking now, Ye Liam.

Ye Liam. Hi, my name is Liam Anderson. My pronouns are he. Him. I can also hear people in the background of my podcast. Do you want to go and yell at them? Like really all the bleed? Do you want to like get up and like go scream? Yeah, just start screaming.

Yeah, we'll just we'll work around. Leave all of this in, by the the way because it's been great. Yeah, this is the comic. Yeah No, no, I don't think I will God invented noise gates for a reason God invented noise gates for a reason. And we have a guest. Hi, I'm Tom. My pronouns are they them now because I got on a fight with my brain and lost. How are you? But glad to be here.

Thanks for coming on. Why are you here? Why are we looking at this chissey like landscape? Cause this is a railroad that arguably shouldn't have been built. Cause it was so dumb. Fantastic. What you see on the screen here are two box cars which are on a slope so terrible that no one has figured out how to salvage and recover them since like 1970. They belong to the hill now. 70. Oh, they belong to the hill now, you know? Yes. Yeah. And like, give it, give it like 10,000 years and future archaeologists, the same ones who are going to misgender me, they're going to be like,

clearly this was like the size of a great battle. These were like sort of like war steeds, which have been like buried with honor. They were all, they were war steeds and somehow part of a fertility ritual. Absolutely. So like the story behind those cars is like a couple of times like engineers would throttle up too quickly through this stretch of railroad and just string line the train and just eat freight cars into the abyss. So like there's these two here near the track and there's a Cours Reefer down at the bottom of the gorge. You can't get your beer because it's a... Go get it.

They got the beer. They sent guys down to take all the beer out of the big... Oh, amazing. And they got 30% of that beer back. Everyone's truck's driving away from the work site, riding really loads of the ground. Leave the freight car, take beer. Take the beer.

Yeah, today we're going to talk about the Impossible Railroad, the San Diego and Arizona Railroad, an extremely stupid railroad for a stupid purpose But first we have to do the goddamn news Every day shit is getting Dumber yeah, what's everyone? What's everyone think about X? think about X. It's too much. Are you X? Did you send out any X? I don't want to like zete. I don't want to re-zete. I don't want to know that someone re-zeteed my zete. I hope someone s**t seal on mask with like I did genuine a there is no other way out of this. of this, like, so like a man who has been caught ordered to buy and out like run Twitter is now doing his best runs, the ground by renaming it to X.

Yes. Which is the real like, Gabbo thing, you know. It's just embarrassing to use now like in public, you're like, oh my god, come on milkshake, don't do that. milkshake is signing you up for an ex premium. That's that kind of card statement. milkshake is fully like compromised the podcast to a temporary end there. like cat sabotage. yes milkshake is not a fan of X or the rest among us. Yeah, no, it's just embarrassing that, you know, it's like, okay, it's X now. That's funny for like a week.

I don't know, but it's gonna keep being X. And, you know, it's just like, I don't want people to see I have the Sun my phone I imagine public, you know, it's like it's like I this is just embarrassing to be around I have a simple policy as Ruined us all yeah, I have a simple policy here, which is that for as long as Elon Musk refuses to correctly name his daughter I will refuse to correctly name his daughter, I will refuse to correctly name his website. We're just naming Twitter. Yeah, exactly.

Biologically, it is Twitter.com. Right. And WTTR. Yeah, you will never be an X.com, right? And he's been trying for like years, he tried to make PayPal into X.com and he got shitt canned from PayPal into X.com and he got shit canned from PayPal for that. So, yeah, the only thing you're also gonna get rid of the board. So, let me do that again. Yeah, when you have an idea that's like too

dumb for piece of two, like, you have to do it yourself. That's a bad sign. On charter territory, yeah. I'm speaking about signers. Yeah, I, the one thing which has been interesting about this ordeal so far is Elon's war against the permitting department in San Francisco, whatever they call it, their equivalent of licenses and inspections. Yeah, where it's like, I'm going to take down the sign. You can't actually take down the sign. They just sent cap cops to stop him from doing that. And then he's like, well, we're going to put down the sign. You can't actually take down the sign. They just sent cops to stop him from doing that. And then he's like, well, we're going to put up a big X sign

on top of the building. And this was interesting because there are a couple videos out there where this is clearly something which is going to give someone an epileptic fit. Oh, yeah. It's really like irregularly and in different directions in a really obnoxious way. And those are apartments opposite Twister's building. So if you paid like, you know, you're in St San Francisco for office surprises like a conno or whatever. Yeah, if you paid

many dollars, your view was Elon Musk sort of like flashbacking you. Give you right. Rainbow Six style every, every minute of every nighttime. And they just put this sign up real quick with like temporary stuff and they held it down with sandbags because, you know, that's. This is crazy. Yeah, I could have built this better with connects. We very nearly missed out on, we like, we could have had Elon Musk getting killed hitman style by his own X sign landing on him Outside of his building another entry to

List of people killed by their own inventions right there That this is actually a lot of people were pointing at the sandbag thing This is actually a fairly common way to put down temporary equipment, which is, you know, where you don't want to penetrate the roof membrane, but usually you would use more sandbags than this for something of this size. Well, he got the cheapest guy's available. Right. He got the cheapest logo available where he was just like, he just tweeted out, hey, does anyone

can anyone design me a low second third richest man in the world can anyone design me a logo. I didn't even design a logo. I just use the weird unit cut unit code thing. Yeah. You know, the only thing is you, the San Francisco building department tried to gain access to the property multiple times and Twitter just said no, what's he building in there? But what the hell was he built? What's he doing? Roboto. Yeah, stupid. Something a real stupid like what are you up to in them?

I'm what's going on? What's Yeah, they have now taken down the excite I think it was just like he wanted to get some publicity photos and maybe kill some epileptics Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean on the grand scale of his misdeeds this ranks pretty low But it's like to me the most sort of like Typical of them in a lot of ways like I saw that video of the thing just like flashing into like, you know, some guys condo, some guys like $3 million condo

and just like filled me with rage in a way that I don't think I felt about a lot of Elon Musk stuff because it just felt so him, you know, like dense down into one object. I one of the things is, you know, the dense down into one object. I one of the things is, you know, the entire this entire startup economy has historically been based on not getting permits. And this is what's the great thing that's getting permits, things that Elon has done.

Yeah, I was going to face any consequences. Someone's going to get like a $500 fine. Yeah, it's it's going to turn out to be like the universal tree pruning thing or it's just like, you know, we all got very excited about it and it turns out the answer is you get like a, as you say, a $500 fine. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't we just learn from the ocean gate thing? Why, like, you need permits and regulation and stuff? I mean, Elon Musk didn't. Right. Now, he wants to move fast and regulation and stuff. I mean, Elon Musk didn't.

No, he wants to move fast and break things down. I just want to like thinking about his dad would have fallen over. I mean, the fight with Zuck is back on, so he might get his head. Yeah, yeah. I just, the thing is, and this is not actionable, because it's not a crime to say that you look forward to when someone dies. But I look forward to when he dies. but I look forward to when he dies, but I spend a decent amount of time thinking about how,

because I think, like, I would feel a little bit chisid if he died of something like quotidian, right? Like if you got the like Steve Jobs cancer or whatever, you know, and tried to turn himself into an AI or some shit like that, I would be, I would be, I would feel chisid, I would feel board by that. I think he's,

no, please. I was gonna say it has to be like, in a Tesla, in a tunnel, on a rock and a bike. Yeah, like, all of his stuff just like, zeroing in on him. We've been taught since the earliest days

of like human storytelling that hubris like this has to be met with sort of like, like matching consequences. And like, okay, in real life, it seldom has been, but like, I have hope and he's really doing his best to be like the first billionaire killed by his own shit, I would say. Oh, yeah. If nothing else, he has the least amount of goodwill of I think anyone in the world right

now. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. That's true. Yeah. No one has ever been this down bad. Yeah. That's true, but he's also like, he is the Reddit equivalent, the human being equivalent of like when you set a Reddit thread to most controversial. Oh yeah. That's true. I mean, there are a lot of people who also think it's going to save humanity as opposed to, you know, what he's actually doing, which is being an asshole. Yeah. Well, he's an asshole in a way that is saving humanity. It's like, no, he's not doing that.

No, he's not doing that. He's just making everything worse. And then I have to listen to people tell me what a genius he is that all their Twitter handles and a .ETH. And it's just like, hasn't the shit fucking sailed as all chasing off to the snake or a wagon leaving town. At least he got the child pornography off of Twitter. Oh, yeah, pornography that he allows.

I mean, personally, I would say for myself, the amount of child pornography that I would allow is zero, but Elon disagrees with that. I guess I'm just both different, right? Yeah, yeah. The little, little fuzz here of a number there. This is my principles and values, such as not being a pedophile. Yeah. I believe that the acceptable amount of like, shall pornography on the internet or indeed anywhere is zero.

Now Elon Musk doesn't agree with that number, and I can't speculate as to why, but he, you know. that number and I can't speculate as to why, but he, you know, you know, killing Maxwell photo here. Please do. You know, there news. Uh, what's going on in the right? Let's then my pd suit jack.

This back. Yeah, baby. You're going to get a lot of mileage out of this. So I, so I'm reliably informed by Libs that this means that the system works, um, that we should trust the Justice Department going forward on everything and our democracy, your democracy, to be honest, is saved, right? Mm. Sure.

Probably. Uh, yeah, we all, we'll all, you know, Trump will go to prison and we'll vote for RFK and have a very normal time. Yeah, I'm voting like, like split ticket, Marianne Williamson, RFK. Oh, my god. No, so he's been what he's been a jacksmith, the federal prosecutor, like their Trump guy has finally like hemmed him up. It's finally like pinched him on charges of doing the stuff we all saw him do. Of course.

Still the election Openly talking about doing election fraud and stuff like that Yes, you know, this guy does not have the grace and elegance of Lyndon Baines Johnson. No, no. No, flapping your dick on the table and just... No, so he's up for conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy to violate civil rights, both of which he has clearly done. He's up in front of a judge who does not like him and has sent every January 6th rioter before her to jail,

which is, you know, I approve of that. That's cool. Like the carceral state when it does stuff like that. Oh, Alice. Listen, I don't like when the Liberal State defends itself against the left, but I love when the Liberal State defends itself against the right. Yeah, okay. And, you know, I'm hoping for more of the same, hoping for a speedy trial. And yeah, I hope he has to run from prison and then I hope he loses again. But what's really curious to me is like, you get like, I think it'd be funnier if he won from prison. That's also true. The white house, the white house pan the White House, Panatentiary, yeah. What strikes me though is that like his numbers are going up amongst Republicans.

He's still like dead even with Biden overall. And you get all these Vox pops and swing states where it's like, yeah, I actually think that they're like harassing him for like putting him on trial for the crimes that he did. And so I wish I had people that ride or die for me. Yeah, he's the only viable Republican candidate is the thing. None of the other ones got any maxi. I mean, that's the thing. The Sanctus is washed. That happened quick. Yeah, I, I, if they, because very few people,

I think, have the amount of maxi that Trump does. But so he's just gonna win that primary, even if he is in prison. I'm excited for it. I'm very, very excited for this, as I've discussed our previous episodes. I wanna see. Thomas of all possible timelines. Yeah, yeah.

It's country so dumb. Because the worst possible timeline is they don't get any of the trials in before he wins again and he just has his new attorney general just shut it all down. That's the least satisfying one. Yeah, the least satisfying one, which is probably okay. I guess that one could happen then. The most satisfying one is he goes to prison, runs from prison and loses.

And somewhere in the middle is he goes to prison, runs from prison and loses and somewhere in the middle is he goes to prison runs from prison and wins. I'll tell you, you should get a bunch of prison tattoos. Just like the tear drop under water. Yeah, because it killed Rod to Santa's. Yeah, just like Trump coming out of prison with like a shell out of like Russian prison tests He's a war now. He's like We said we said Trump to Russian prison somehow Yeah, cuz he loves Putin so much. We put him in prison in Russia. I'm gonna do like yes. Yeah We just for this fine. We did it. Yeah, uh, we fucking yeah, so so Trump's gonna do live what dreams come true and it's just like Putin and Trump kissing which is

Funny for some reason. I mean, I mean the thing is right you if you remember that thing where he had one of his supporters Like photoshop his face onto like a wrestler or some shit like that that sucked Well, I want to see his Trump's face on bigger Mortensen's character and the like bathhouse fight scene and Eastern promises Great movie. Yeah. Yeah Um, we're you on the coach. I want to talk about some point. But yeah, so that's what I want to see happen. Thanks.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, so good luck to Danny from Queens. And uh, yeah, Danny from Queens. Like jammed up by the feds. Yeah. Uh, anyway, that was the goddamn news. Oh, it only took us 20 minutes this time. Let's say. Okay, so we have to ask a question.

What is a transcontinental railroad? Sometimes a railroad identifies in a way the difference. Way better than a ciscontinental road That's um ciscontin that is a thing. I mean especially in like Well, any railroad down like one side of a continent Goes from the mind to the port like the like you know cis alpine or whatever. It's like, yeah, of course, it doesn't cross anything. Um, classic colonial, uh, uh, railroad configuration. Hmm. But this, this is like a, also colonial railroad, but in a different way. In a different way, yeah. So the transcontinental railroads, there were several of them.

Of course, the most famous was the central Pacific and the Union Pacific, which, you know, that was the first transcontinental rail road that Abraham Lincoln commissioned. You know, these are sort of as much national projects as they are civic projects because they were usually, you'd have a couple boosters from like a town on the west coast who were like, we need a transcontinental rail road. Let's do it. Yeah, because San Francisco was like, fuck being a port, we hate it actually. Yeah, exactly. They're funded by land grants, you can see on the slide,

these various land grants that were given to various railroads. Basically, they sell off the real estate to farmers, I assume, and... Yeah, so you're the land in land in land? Or land in land? Or land in land in land? Or land in land in land in land? Or land in land in land? Or land in land in land? sell off the real estate to farmers I assume and yeah, so you're granted land and land or something. You're granted land in a checkerboard pattern. Well, I know what is going to, I know what got a fucked here.

Well, so this is exactly not on the, I guess it's the Illinois said, no, so much is done like some coloring in in Michigan. Yeah, exactly. Well, this is actually a map of land grants that could have theoretically occurred rather than actually. Okay. So the actual amount of land granted in Iowa was much smaller than what the entire state as it appears on this map. Yeah. This was actually I believe derived from a I forget which party made this as a propaganda poster showing, it must have been the Democrats, how the Republicans have squandered the public

land by granted it all the railroads, but this is not actually the land that was granted. This is sort of what could have been granted. What could have been granted. It could have been great. Political misinformation. What could have been great political misinformation? And then you, and then when you actually built the line, you got something that was like 10 miles each side of the actual railroad you built. So that's the idea of Iowa. Well, I mean, listen, if the if Union Pacific wanted to build like a sort of like

Pacific wanted to build like a sort of like haptodecker, dodecker, like track section that's like 15 miles wide, you know. They did cheat the system like that. They like made the survey in one place that like bypassed a town, Tom Storant bought up a whole bunch of land south of there and then changed the route to go south and left everyone on the original alignment to dry and just made it, she pocketed a shitload of money from that. We love our railroad barons, don't we folks? And then like the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific when they were supposed to meet

at a promenade very summit, they actually started building past each other to get a little bit more land. Oh, back around. That's incredible. That's so fun. The level of chicaneery, and especially in the first two routes, was unbelievable. I say nothing of credit, mowbleyay. But you know, this whole thing is funded off the free real estate system, right?

It's free real estate. Real estate. Yeah. Well, such hacks. Yeah. Terrible. So there's one down here. An important one.

We're going to talk about a little bit. The Texas and Pacific, which went from Texas to Pacific. Hey, I mean, from what I've learned from you about American railroads, it's a miracle it reaches either of those. Yeah. No, I didn't do that. That's touching Texas. That's touching Texas. Yeah, that's touching Texas.

Yeah, exactly. It is touching Texas. And later again, Pacific not really living up to its name. I'll tell you that. Yeah. We won the others a little bit. It's a stretch call, you know? Yeah.

A little bit more, a little bit more Missouri over here. So the Texas Pacific was chartered to build to San Diego, right? And San Diego was notable in that it, you know, if they wanted to transcott Nettle Railroad and they didn't really get one from being a Pulse, we don't want to do it. We want to be a railroad town. I think I got a pretty good natural harbor there. Yeah, you got like, you know, Navy SEALS, like a half drowning themselves doing set ups. You got like, you can see some like, some shed. No, it's all part of the house.

No, setting fire on. Something, something fire to you. You can see like, um, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a bunch of people right there. Yeah. Yeah. setting fire out something something fighter you can see like yeah yeah yeah see the the railroad station which is very pretty mm-hmm you could ride the terrible streetcar which is not very good yeah you can go to the museum you can learn that San Diego Spanish was Saint Diego San Diego. You wrote this not explain about the big floor. All right, so yeah, with Sacramento and San Francisco getting the majority of port traffic over the central Pacific later the southern Pacific and with the

southern Pacific also building south through Central Valley to Hatchpee and then on East through Arizona and Mexico as well, they saw San Diego as a competitor and basically did not want any of the trans, you know, trans continental traffic to go through San Diego because that would mean that it would go over competing lines. Yeah, so there's a bunch of political shakineries here. But the real political, this is like railroad conspiracy against the Sissy of San Diego. Pretty much. Yeah.

It's like, fuck these guys, particularly. And if this had gone the other way, it'd be like Los Angeles and San Diego, like reversed in prominence, which is a really funny idea. Fuck you Noah. Yeah. You're a Padre's fan now.

All right. But yeah, it is worth going into a little bit some of the political shicanery surrounding the Texas and Pacific Railroad, which was supposed to go to San Diego, which means we have to talk about Tom Scott. I'm here in San Diego. I can't do a Tom Scott. I sound a little bit like him, but like,

I'm here at the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Oh, we're talking about the other Tom Scott, right? Thomas A. Scott, where I was in the Pennsylvania Railroad. Scrabbed like way fewer numbers, you know, it probably doesn't even have a plaque. He's not even on YouTube. Regardless. I mean, a number of YouTube channels, by person, Tom Scott, like at least two. This guy,

as far as I can tell, none, pathetic. Pathetic. Very brave. Didn't even know what YouTube was. Yeah. It's the worst. It's the worst. It's the humour.

Yeah. He was the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was the first non-engineered to hold that position. Is this part of the... Railroad, he was the first non-engineered to hold that position. Is this a man? Yeah, he was a schmoozer. He was very well spoken. He was good at getting government to do the things he wanted it to do, so he could do the thing he needed to do.

As we've learned, being president of the Pennsylvania Railroad is a job that kills you instantly. That's right. No, it kills you slowly over a long period of time. It does kill you, right? And the PRR presidency is a death sentence, but it doesn't mean he can't have some side houses, right? Well, I mean, you're basically kind of like a French king of the 18th century installed in like the Eastern United States.

Yes. So one of them was to try and get his Texas and Pacific built, right? Because he became president of the Texas and Pacific, shortly after it was chartered. But he runs into a problem, which is he doesn't have enough money to do it. And the government doesn't want to lend him money to do it, except through the land grants, right?

See, you or I would consider these problems to be insurmountable, right? Like, no, no, no, not a friend Tom Scott, who that's why he's president and we're not. Yeah. Yeah. He's the Pennsylvania president, yes. Quite literally. So in the meantime, you know, reconstruction is going on. This is the 1870s, right? The Southern economy is in shambles. The election of 1876 went sideways.

There were contested electors, which insured that neither candidate had a clear majority. And Tom Scott sees this and he says, ooh, I can work some shit happen here, right? So he helps negotiate the compromise of 1877. Southern Democrats would recognize Republican Rutherford Hayes in return for Southern Democrat

appointments to the cabinet, the end of Union Army occupation of the South, the ability to do racism again, and infrastructure investments into the South's underdeveloped canal and railroad system, including specifically the Texas and Pacific. Fantastic. He puts America into the big gas-along shirt. This is on Get-a-Long shirt. is just that I will you to come to Sherman. Exactly. So it worked.

Rutherford Hayes became president. Southerners were allowed to be racist again, but the new government decided to not do the last thing, which was the infrastructure investment. Oh, someone trust the federal government after you used it to end reconstruction? Imagine getting outplayed by like noted like chess master of the mind, Rutherford B. Rutherford's. And it reconstruction, like, got with a slousy t-shirt. We could not sell it, but I was possessed with a vision for a second. They're selling that as merch And I'm like, who would buy? Why would?

Who would buy? It's what? Just wearing my eye-ended reconstruction shirt to the pung. Like your slap, don't you? By our shit. You get nothing and we'll like it. Don't you? By our shit You get nothing and we'll like it Oggs

Anyways, there was no money the Texas and Pacific couldn't really build outside the relatively flat terrain of Texas it ended in El Paso Okay, that is in Texas at least Texas at least. Yeah, it was halfway there. Scott's charter to lapsed the land grants dried up. No railroad went directly to San Diego, but instead the Southern Pacific stepped up those same land grabs and they built to Los Angeles. Yeah, and all of a sudden it's fucking sunset, Boulevard, and yeah, the Los Angeles that we know and love. Could have been San Diego instead, you know? Could have been a housing development there that took off and made movies, but... Well.

What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. We learned nothing from this entire railroad. And so then, yeah, after Texas and Pacific goes under as far as not promising delivery of half of its name, San Diego does eventually get a real connection by the California Southern, which was later the Acheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe. But this is really just a branch line. They ran really small light trains between San Diego and LA. So really San Diego just became like in appendix within the larger

transcontinental system. I kind of stayed that way, which is grim. Like you make these positions in like the 1870s as a way of like getting Rutherford Hayes elected president. And the result of it is that like San Diego is now a boring place to visit. Yeah. And sitting is nice. I like San Diego. Open car though. This is really nice. I listen, I'm willing to be, I'm willing to be in one of those situations where someone, like MicroFamous says something and soul thing about a place and then the Chamber of Commerce or the mayor or whatever is like, actually we don't suck dick here. Please take like a free vacation and see all of our stuff luxury style.

I'm willing to be persuaded. Why is it Diego? I'm like, no, I don't ask them where the charger just went. I'm just, I'm working, I'm working an angle here, I'm working a sketch just working an angle. Just leave me to San Diego dog shit, absolutely no interest in business. I am able to be convinced. I'm able to be convinced.

That's right. Absolutely no interesting business. I am able to be convinced. A horrible sitting for horrible people. That's right. I don't think there's like any destinations there that I would go to, unless it was like free. Yeah, please don't put me in the big hotel by the coast. Oh, long beach, you also want to notice. But at least with the California Southern reaching San Diego that at least opened up, you know, Pandora's Box ever so slightly to where they could start having

local lines that served, you know, regional communities. You got a whole bunch of these like itty bitty little quarter saddle tank locomotives with open sided cars that just look absolutely horrifying. But the Randi these. Fantastic, given the weather. I would be pretty happy in this actually. You just got sandblasted, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a big misconception we're going to cover in this up.

You know, everyone thinks, oh, San Diego's weather is perfect or some say it doesn't have weather. We'll get to that. Yeah. But basically, these small railroads start sprawling out around San Diego, the San Diego and South Eastern, the National City of No Thai. There was a proposal for a three-foot gauge, narrow gauge railroad to build from San Diego east over Warner Pass, which he would have been wild.

That's like sort of like if you scaled up like all of the little Welsh heritage railways a little like tiny narrow gauge ones to just go like up and down valleys and stuff. Oh like the Fistini organ all that. Yeah. Yeah. Just like what if you did that like 10 times longer. Or maybe a narrow gauge would have been better suited to the terrain, but they ended up changing last minute to doing standard gauge in order to avoid issues of translating and all that. It's a shame because I find it now our gauge whimsical is the main thing about it. Oh, they're whimsical. Yeah.

Right until you go corining into the valley and you are stuck there with the whimsical talk. It's like, yeah, true. But yeah, the San Diego, Queamac and Eastern changing to standard gauge ultimately sealed its fate. It never got further east than a town called Foster and wasn't able to go into the mountains at all, basically. Yeah, I mean the thing about like dying in a narrow gauge train accident is it's a little bit like getting shot in a Wes Anderson movie. You're like, yeah, okay, you're still dying and it still sucks, but you're like, you know, imbued with an air of whimsy about it that really of like, I would imagine takes the sting out of it. The fucking island of Sodor type situation, you know.

It's like I'm dying, but at least it's in a really nice Jackson and sharp coach. Yeah. Yeah, so other than these little feeder roots, there still wasn't any promise of something to the east until John Sprekels comes out and say. Oh, Sprekels, yeah. John Sprekels, incredible name on this guy first of all.

John Dedric Sprekels, which is spelled dyed rich, which I always thought was funny. The Sprekels part is honestly so baby so baby girl like genuinely and like he sounds like a my little pony and then you've just got the like John D. Drake stuck on the front of it. So, spread call's got his money from his father, Klaus Breckles, she's a good plantation empire. Sorry, sorry, sorry's really funny names in this family. Like Bruce or Bruce, a industrial exploitation on the Sprackels sugar plantation, but I can only picture

a happening to Oampalompas is the problem. Oh, no. That's Sprackels famous for his sprinkles from the good fact. Yeah, yeah, they call them John hundreds and thousands across the pond. Yeah, you send San Diego business better, you know, kind of pissed. They're not getting a railroad except by way a Los Angeles San Diego is being left behind. It's an underdeveloped port. It's economy is

dependent on links to the north and not to the east. And this was despite, you know, some clear advantages with the natural harbor and so on and so on. Yeah, the less important, say, in Southern California, and that there was like, yes. Yeah. So John D. Drich, uh, Spreckles decided to take Madison to his own hands. He was going to finance his own railroad with blackjack and hookers, right? And it would proceed directly east from San Diego to connect with the Southern Pacific

of Yuma, Arizona, thereby providing freight and passengers away to the city without having to change trains in Los Angeles and providing an alternative to the Atchison to Peaconsanife, the California Southern, which at this point had a monopoly, right? That's Michael's incorporated the railroad in secret since other railroads like the black this stuff. Oh, secret railroad. Did we lose Liam? Liam.

Liam? Liam. Liam, are you there? Liam. It was a headline in San Diego, Union, December 14, 1906. Railroad from San Diego to Yuma is now assured. Oh, that broke the secrecy like yeah, yeah, hey back. Oh, yeah, I saw Liam's last reading said I'm fine I have good thoughts. I'm not thinking of building a railroad east from San Diego

This is what Gaddafi was doing right right before he died Gaddafi was like planning to build a railroad from San Diego to Yuma Yes Stop do stop trying to build the cursed route. We keep saying it It says a big flashy letters. This is the cursed route. I have information that will lead to the construction of a railroad between San Diego that will lead to the construction of a railroad between San Diego and Italy. Don't.

So this guy is speckles over here, but he has a friend who's helping him. Edward Henry Hariman, who is this Walrus guy over here. I feel like I know this name. Do I know this name from somewhere else? He was in charge of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific at this time. Right. A perfect haircut apart from anything else. Yeah. Yeah. But he wants big railroad. So Hariman had just visited the Imperial Valley as part of his

supervision of the containment of the brand new and rapidly growing salt and sea. It's going to turn out great. It's going to be a California river era. The thing about California is that it doesn't have a bunch of beautiful coast already. What we need is a giant ski to swallow. What we need is a salt and sea. Yeah. And he's like, okay, maybe having a direct route from tidewater to the interior imperial

valley. You did like the break of young thing. He's like, this is the place to build like a shitload of meth labs. Yeah. But also that weird soda place that has dirty sodas because what I want in my sodas is of course milk. Yeah. So we are state.

So he thought, you know, maybe we should invest in this thing. I'm not direct route to tidewater from the imperial valley Which had a lot of farms and irrigation and stuff like that very good soil Would be a good idea and be quicker than the existing route by way of Los Angeles Had been some surveys for this route that have been done previously So you know there was some work you could build on here San Diego was finally going to get us to the east. We'll see about that.

Before California did the imperialism on the whole rest of the US, it had to do imperialism on itself. And it started with Los Angeles, ensuring it's regional, regional, and regional. Or is just like stone brewing, just like... I mean, I think about this a decent amount because Fallout and Yvagan embedded itself in my head at a very early age And so now I just think about California as a like plausible regional power all the time

So yeah That's crazy One thing to consider as we got through this whole thing is the state of railroad engineering in 1906, right? That was a good. I assume it's very bad. Is it very bad? Better than it was. It's, wow, okay, much better than it was. Yeah, so that's like, okay. Your late 1800s railroad is an awful thing. You got wooden trussels and trusses and so on forth. You got tight curves, very slow speeds, no signals, train control devices, really bad track. By the early 1900s, you actually start to have experiments with things like

automatic electric signals, automatic train stop. You know, railroads are investing heavily into improving mainlines, improving structures, straightening curves, building expensive cutoffs to bypass the worst of the old engineering, like the lack of one to cut off here that was finished in 1916. You know, you have main lines that were as wide as six tracks. You know, four was more common. You know, you had, you know, stuff was being designed for speeds of up to 100 miles an hour, you know, grades were, the ruling grade, the maximum incline, they were lowering those, they were building really big tunnels, you know, not all railroads were capable of such

large investments, but the bar had been raised at this point. You know, a new railroad in 1906 was going to be much better than rinky dink stump from 1880, right? Uh, an age of possibility and optimism. Yes. And then what happened? I'm just like, man, imagine doing that now, crazy. Right, yeah. Soon.

Um, you know, you had competition from automobiles and trucks on their horizon, not even just on the horizon. They were already cars and they were already putting a dent into stuff at this point. You had your electric interurban railroads. We're also taking business away. So you know, the standard of engineering in 1906 was pretty high You know four-year big mainline railroad So the SGNA was not that it was not that

It goes into Mexico. Yeah, yes, so the surveyors go out and look at the route and it became very clear that it was it was not going to be that kind of operation Yeah, direct release immediately go south of the border immediately go south of the border There were a couple routes standing there a couple routes that were surveyed There were two that were all in the United States There was one that wasn't but appeared much cheaper So Spreckles went down to Mexico City, got a charter for the Ferro Carole, Tijuana, Iitacate, Essay, DeCV. I don't know what Essay DeCV is.

I'm probably like associated society, or society of associates of something, but like Essay is just like a corporate thing. I'm not actually, I can't like be snide about the pronunciation, but you can't roll my ass. There's fully a Spanish letter, or a letter for my cannot pronounce, which is, yeah, I physically cannot do it. It's like, I have a speech impediment in Spanish, but not in English. And so I cannot pronounce the word federal caril correctly, as far all two of those in it? It's OK, despite being half-quad or reacon, I can't roll my Rs. either.

Oh, Tom, buddy. I also probably can't roll my Rs. I don't know why. Give it a go. Give it a go. Say, federal caddy. Federal caddy. In a career of Tijuana, you hit the caddy. That's no mine.

Nope, nope. I'm going to embarrass the entire nation of Mexico. That's what Ross is for. I think this would have been cool though. Like I'm generally in favor of like more railroads in Mexico on the basis that I'm in favor of railroads and I'm in favor of Mexico. I have a whole lot of things going on.

I have a great house. Yeah, but you would love Amlo and his, his, I mean, I don't love my, like, genocide, and I don't love the, like, sort of, military patronage. But I like, I like there being trains in Mexico. I think that's a, that's a positive thing in general. What is neat about this route and sort of this era is that, like, international travel was much more lax.

Oh, you're a certain, your whole center is. In the past, but you know, yeah. And just, yeah, you could have a world where like, oh, the railroad just will dip into Mexico a bit and everyone's just kind of fine with it. Well, it's not a very logical border. It's like quite geographically inconvenient and a lot of places, it makes sense. And actually, this has the unique distinction of tunnel four between Ticate and Campo is the only international tunnel underneath the US Mexico border.

Well, the only legitimate one. Don't you have a story about that time? I do, but I don't know if I should say it. That's great. That you'll limitations is probably. So like I grew up in San Diego, I explored this railroad and what was left of it all the time. I was briefly a member of the model railroad club in San Diego and I was out collecting photos and like they're first, you know, doing scenery stuff with stuff from the actual location. And so I'm like exploring the route, walking along the tracks, you know, doing scenery stuff with stuff from the actual location. And so I'm like exploring the route, walking along the tracks, you know, parked my F-150 somewhere and started, you know,

just collecting stuff. And I'm going through and I started walking through this tunnel. I was like, oh, this is Nina. I could get really good reference inside. And then I remembered what tunnel it is. Like I was like 10 feet away from accidentally leaving the country. And so I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to bad spot. But now consider what I have to do to get out of this situation.

I am like a kid with no identification because I left my wallet in the truck. I'm a vaguely Hispanic looking person and the only way to get out of this scenario is to sprint from the border north. It's fantastic. Yeah. Incredible. And so, I mean, me being here to talk about this probably tells you how that went. But... Congratulations on evading your own nation's border patrol.

Yeah, almost had to sneak into my own country. Yeah. I'm accidentally in Mexico. I got to get out of here. So yeah, this is a, this is a big nasty route right here. You know, it makes this long steep climb from sea level

to an elevation of 3,660 feet before descending to L Centro down here, which is at an elevation of negative 43 feet That hmm. Yeah That hmm, hmm. Yeah. And the train is all big nasty mountains, very little water for men or the steam engines. It's gonna save us. It's gonna be a bitch to drive us. It's a very hard but very unstable broken loose granite.

Oh, cool. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll get to the pictures of that. The dirt is bad Hi, it's Justin So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to People are annoyed by these so let me get to the point. We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month and we give you an extra episode once a month.

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so construction begins 1907 they start awarding the contracts and then there's a big depression almost instantly. Oh, right. Hey, when this happens, yeah, they pause the project, right? Cool bridge, though. That's actually the one that burned a couple of years ago. Mm hmm. Yeah, the thing is, you know, the, you know, the, they show the pictures of like the Chinese bridge girder thing, you know, that rolls out and then drops the precast concrete. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, this is the same thing.

Concept. Okay. Yeah, but it's a very old concept. Huh. So, you know, once again, China is not innovating as much as you think it is. I mean, in fairness, you've got to to give them some credit on the other end of that for shit like gunpowder and paper, right? This is true, yeah.

Also, the fact that they actually still build stuff over there, and we don't know that there's five million miles of high-speed rail. I mean, listen, a much like Amlo and the trend Maya are building, you know, a 500 mile now in Maglev train directly through a like weger town is like, it's a land of contrast. That's right. At least they're doing something. Yeah, like, transcontinental railroad construction by this point, even though it was winding down, like, it was much

more advanced technologically than it was. You weren't having the car of everything by hand or have hand carts and wheel barrels to move dirt. You had big Derrick's steam shovels, steam cranes, a lot more mechanized industry behind it as far as the actual construction of it. But this railroad was plagued with setback after setback of trying to get it done. Yeah, 1908, economic conditions improved. Actual grading, you know, the actual building, the cuts and fills, was performed from San Diego into Tijuana and onto Ticate and then in 1909 Heraman died our wall was our wallress friend died and Sprechwells immediately lost his main source of financing the news Southern Pacific guy didn't like him

I wouldn't give him money for the San Diego and Arizona railroads. Yeah, it started raising his own cash It's tough being a sugar baby, you know? Yeah. Literally a sugar baby. Yeah. Fuck sake. There's more literalisms coming. Don't worry.

That's like a year ago. Quote that. There's more literalisms coming. Don't worry. I don't like the sound of that. So by 1910, they had put the rails to the Mexican border. Then 1911, the Mexican revolution came to power. Impeccable timing.

It's like Panchavilla going like, listen, you, I got to be on some shit. Sorry about your railroad or whatever, you know, yeah, but all the workers on the Mexican side walked off the job. How you go? Right each other. Yeah. Um, but that was only a stoppage of about six months. They started resuming the work, right? Outstanding. So in four years, a construction, they had made it a whopping 36 miles

and reached an elevation of 766 feet. Like, I have the holes in like a drama of the Mexican revolution shopping 36 miles and reached an elevation of 766 feet. I like it. The whole drama of the Mexican Revolution play out and they have this comic side show of a bunch of guys building the world's most annoying to build railroads. Yes. Just like in-shing clothes. The thing is just like, okay. You know, today building 36 miles of railroads in four years is impressive.

But back then it was not. This was, this is a very, very slow pace of work, right? Sure. In 1912, the Southern Pacific filed suit to get their part of the investment in the railroad back. No. Something like $3 million, right? Is it huge sum of money. And Chad Sprechel's fought the lawsuit. He eventually won it, but it still hindered the... So, mods help. I made a bad investment. I spilled my juice.

Help, help, help, help. I don't think he won the investment until the railroad. I don't think he won the lawsuit until the railroad was completed if I recall correctly. It was something that was sort of hanging over the railroad the whole time it was being built. And your engineering works are getting tougher. This is at the town of Redondo here. You see this track that comes down up, down over here. It actually has to make a huge balloon loop and come back over here just to gain elevation. This is an area where

they... There's like 10 miles of track to go four miles. Howard Switchbox, sure. Yeah, so that's like right around in this area here. Yep, and in memory, there's only been two trains long enough for a locomotive to like see the caboose on the lower track. Yeah, I will get to the horrible short trains. Yeah. Oh, good. So 1914, the railroad reached Akate. There was now regular freight and passenger trains running. They had started construction from El Centro at the other end of the railroad in the Imperial Valley, heading west. They did this by purchasing an inter-urban railroad

that operated out of L-Centro, and they just converted that to steam trains, right? And they extended that line towards the mountains. But apparently in 1914, it made sense to run an inter-urban railroad in the middle of a desert from nowhere to nowhere, and it just existed, so they used it, right? But another problem arose starting in 1914 that would cause major headaches for the railroad,

which was World War One. Oh, right. And a good chunk of this railroad was in Mexico. And Mexico had some questionable alliances in World War One, right? She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... Yeah. So a lot of the investments dried up, uh... She's a little bit...

She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit...

She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... She's a little bit... extremely loud incorrect buzzer. You as citizen of Iraq, you ordered out of Mexico, but the work somehow continued at a very slow pace. Until, all right, this is all Tom. So everyone likes to joke and say, San Diego either has perfect weather or some say it doesn't have weather.

The truth is it has weather once every 60 years and it kills you. Ah, okay. I mean, I respect that as a sort of temperament. The weather that kills you instantly. Yes. So in 1915, San Diego had some of the worst droughts it ever did. That will probably be changed in future years, but this is 1915. So it was severe drought. It was severe drought. Very comfortably cold. It was severe drought and they were so desperate that they turned to quack science to fix it.

They hired someone named Charlie Hatfield who marketed himself as a professional rain maker, which were less amounts to trying to do chem trails, but in a tree fort instead of an airplane. How, yeah, okay. So the way his contracts would work is that he would claim he would produce like X amount of inches of rain. He did this before with Los Angeles

promising 18 inches of rain. I can't find the exact number for San Diego, but that's how the contracts were set up. But he claimed he could do this between the months of December 15th, December 19th, 15th, and January 19th, 16, which happens to be the wet season of San Diego. It's like betting a kid's going to be born between 39 and 41 weeks. I mean, this is a good line of books to get into, right? Yeah. Like, so it's a great gift.

But the contract, similar to Elon Musk with the loop, would he would only be paid if like he hit the quota for rain that he had to do. I was by gambling on that at least. So January 27th, 1916. In early 1916, San Diego received a record rainfall, which overtops the sweetwater reservoir and bursts the dam, flooding everything downhill between East County and downtown San Diego. Oh, he did it too good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let's go over the hill that we're completely disappointed.

We're destroying the city. We'll get to the city in a second. He's saved the city. But much of the SDNA that was built up for that point had been just entirely washed out. Locomotives on their side buried in mud. You could see in the photo what was left was locomotives up to their grates trying desperately to maintain service just in a giant swimming pool of

its own. How deep and how deep also can a steam locomotive still work? Up until it hits the grates. So you have like the firebox which is above the wheels and at the bottom of that is either your bed of coal or in the case of these here oil Yet and so as long as that can still be above water and still get air flow through it Locomotives can run in flooded tracks and just keep going. Yeah steam locomotives are actually much better at waiting than diesel or electric ones Fun fact. So the thing is Hatfield seeing this town now with a surplus of water considered his contract fulfilled.

Yes. So I mean, he he walks, I or I guess swam into city hall demanding payment. If anything, I deserve a bonus. Right? I've exceeded expectations. Maybe a little extra for free. Are you not pleased? You seem angry with me. Yeah, and it feels mind he had done everything asked of him. And then, however, the city of San Diego never paid him, He was run out of town, forced to change his name, and more or less lived the rest of his life as a fugitive. San Diego in what's going to mind the crime of creating too much rain.

Yeah. For what? For what? For what? For what? For what? For what? For what?

For what? For what? For what? For what? For what? For what? For what? the bad. Exactly. Yeah, give me the biggest flood you have. No, that's too big. I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. But San Diego had received 30 inches of rain in less than a month, which is a personal problem. Scale his rainfall on record for the town before or since. Yeah, this guy really worked. Like, what do you want? Yeah. And when asked what to do about the entire line being wiped out, John Sprickles just replied, put it back. So with the weary air of like a unit director, he's like, reset. I got more.

I got more. I got more. I got more. I got more. I got more. I got more. I got more. I got more. unpunished. That's right. Asking you shall receive.

Kind of to a fault, even. So that was 1916. In 1917, the US enters World War I. Due to tremendous backups and sending men and material overseas, the government nationalized the entire railroad into the United States. Oh yeah, well, what a good illustration. Yeah, it was all backups at the port of New York. I mean, it wasn't even the railroads fault to some extent, but they did get nationalize the entire railroad system. The United States Railroad Administration embarks on this campaign of rationalization, standardization, modernization.

It revolutionized the railroad industry and it made trains faster, cheaper, quicker, so on and so forth, right? And the railroad executives never forgave them for this. And they quite literally took away that train set. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. One of the things was wartime construction of railroads

was banned, right? Just outright a blanket ban. No, I got to like the price of it before I can build this railroad. Exactly. So it's put him on a roll. Now, John Sprechle has a problem here. His railroad was under construction

and he didn't want it to stop. So he went to Washington. He made a case that since his railroad served a naval-based San Diego, it was a military necessity to keep building. 1917, which side was Japan on World War I? Ours. That's right.

Yeah, exactly. This is a national security thing. Somehow no one noticed that the line went through Mexico, which was the Zimmerman Telegram country, right? Very good, Ross. Yes. Yeah. And they they showed all that up with cut-ons anyway. It was fine. You know. So, Sparkle is actually managed to get an exemption to the blanket ban on railroad construction. The only one granted in the USRA era, right? The San Diego and Arizona remained in private hands and would be allowed to continue to build. Crews reached the foot of the Carizo Gorge by July of 1918. It's been seven long years of construction to get 92 miles done and now

they're at the hard part. Also want to point out like they were only kept open for the sake of getting the railroad down to San Diego and they have absolutely at this point not even started to get it done. Yeah, they got like completely missed that deadline. Like no traffic whatsoever at this point. I know this is never making any money. But in this slide, you can definitely see why that was the case. Yeah. So the gorge here, in terms of difficult terrain, the Carizo gorge is a real humdinger, right? Real humdinger is a technical term.er, right? Real humdinger, is that the technical term? Yeah, that's the technical term. Yeah. So the mountain is like a 40 degree slope, right? These are granite mountains with this dusting of crushed rock and

boulders on top, right? Oh, that sounds like fun. So they're both very difficult to tunnel through, but also very prone to landslides. Okay, I'm going to hang there, and I'm just like, oh, this looks like a good place to get killed. Yeah. It's very hot, it's very dry, in a winter, it's very cold.

Sometimes it snows even. You're men in your machines here, you got to contend with very limited water from very few springs in the area. The bench, which is where the track is laid, sort of the fill and cut there, had to be very narrow, very closely follow the terrain, which meant very sharp curves, very steep grades, lots and lots of tunnels and bridges. Oh, this looks like it's, I mean, building a railroad always sucks, right? Like, but no, you couldn't pay me. This is one of the worst ones.

What we'll get to, you couldn't pay me. So the Carizo Gorge was only about 11 miles long, with a section of track had 17 tunnels, all of which totaled just under one mile of length. And it was here that the San Diego Nair just under ran into one of its biggest problems, which is not just the terrain, but labor issues, right? Oh. Ooh.

So farm labor in California, then as it is now, is very seasonal. Unlike California now, there wasn't this sort of informal quasi legal, quasi legal indentured servitude situation where you have undocumented immigrants harvest on the produce, right? It was still relatively good work for relatively good pay. So in late fall, all the men would leave the railroad project

for more fruitful work in the fields So to speak I mentioned that Yes At labor was already scarce, but the war effort compounded the problem these men were either in the fields of California or the trenches of Europe So I would rather get like blown up in the Merz Agam Then dig another fucking mile of this railroad. Fashioned out, here I come. Tommy, you wrote this note, explain.

So the fun thing is another thing keeping people away from working on this railroad is that all of the encampments where bunks were, cook houses and beds were, had to be at the foot of the gorge where the only water was and this was very accurate, very bad water. It's just like a horrible little creek down there. And you had to hike, it says a hundred of the notes, but that should be a thousand feet uphill just to reach their jobs.

And this is in sometimes a hundred and ten hundred twenty degree desert heat, walking a thousand feet uphill just to start taking it all nice casual one thousand foot climb to start today it's bracing you know brutal I'm just imagining being like oh Europe can't be any worse than this and then you get to Europe. You still have ongoing Mexican revolution you also have skirmishes between the railroad and the industrial workers of the world. Hell yeah. Not someone who the railroad management was a fan of.

I don't know. How many railroad managers have been fans of the Wallblades? This is true. Yeah. Now, one of the tunnels was tunnel eight. It was the eighth one. It was about half a mile long. It was the second longest tunnel on the line. And it gave the railroad the most trouble.

This tunnel was long enough to require an actual fresh air supply that was provided by a steam air compressor Of course had to drink water from the horrible little creek 1,000 feet below You know, there's very very acute labor shortages very slow progress about 15 feet per week, right? about 15 feet per week, right? Oh, fuck that. Management accused the contractors of slow walking the construction this wartime price controls

were hampering their profits. The work site was about half staffed and during harvest season in the Imperial Valley workers had to be hired from as far away as Los Angeles. Hey, what a leave LA and come work in this horrible little camp. Yeah. Text to this horrible little creek. Would you like the worst job in the world?

Exactly. 15 right 15 feet a week or whatever the fuck. And so this bracket was kept switching contractors. We found one who did the work at a pace he liked. Yeah, you find a guy who like can climb up a thousand feet, hit one piece of rock with a pickaxe, and then climb another thousand feet down and go to bed. Exactly. So you have 90 seconds to understand your mission and stuff to explain it to you. I'm just banging the big pipe like Shinobu, yeah.

Then the Spanish flow hit. Oh my gosh. finish fluid. Oh my gosh. So by January of 1918, 28 men had died from influenza in the work camps and workers were being scared off by reports of just how disease they were. They were like, you do clean baths. By April 1919, nearly the whole railroad was finished except for this one tunnel. But eventually they managed the whole through. Amazing. Wow. Yeah.

And the railroad, once it was done, did not look pretty. That just on the left there, you have the grade profile. It's just hella steep up hella steep down. And then you'd see the actual these like double S bend curved trestles they had to build where they couldn't even cling to the landside anymore. Yeah, it's like one of those situations where one rail is on solid ground and the other rail has to be supported by a trestle. Incredible. Yeah. So, so they finished it.

It was a bad railroad, but they finished it. Yeah. Not so impossible now, I say as I die low. That's right. Well, thanks for coming. Safety third. Um. This mostly just you can see what the actual route looked like versus what it looked like

in its advertising. Yeah. Um, just trying to hide. Mostly just you can see what the actual route looked like versus what it looked like in its advertising Just trying to hide the fact that it is They are really direct route. Uh-huh. This is not the case. Yeah They made it like less Mexican than it is a lot more in, like, over the Mexican border that they've squeezed over it. Oh, yeah. It's nice. It's nice.

It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice.

It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. the other side. It's Calexico. I think that's a kid. It's fun, so

It's a shorter route, but it's a much worse route Next slide probably yeah, yeah So really good, but don't really railroad finally opens they had almost no fanfare when the first train left San Diego because to them the idea was They had almost no fanfare when the first train left San Diego because to them the idea was The the big deal was stuff coming from directly east. So the next day They had a big you know celebration big crowd came to greet the train as you can see in the photo there very first Yep, the railroad was finished San Diego had its connection But it was a slow windy steep connection with a lot of railroads They often take the acronyms and turn it into a Sly nickname.

Like the DNRGW was the dangerous and rapidly getting worse. In this case, the SDNA was the slow, dirty, and aggravating, which is a very after description. So this railroad was built pretty poorly, took 13 years compared to the original transcontinental railroad, which was finished in six. However, they did offer through Pullman service from San Diego to Chicago over the SP. That's about the only saving grace from it.

Yeah, it's like, okay, I can get a hor- I can at least get the Chicago over this horrible little railroad in one. And then a Pomanca so you'll be in like pretty decent like as you go through the worst railroad ever devised by man. Yeah, look out the window. And now we need to talk about how this railroad shot itself in the foot from day one. Like instantly, yeah. Yeah, but definitely a negligent discharge situation. Oh, good. So this top photo is what's called a cab forward. It's a 4882 locomotive, the Southern Pacific built for running over the original transcontinental

route on Donner Pass. They had a bunch of snow sheds and that required the stack to be behind the cabs so that they didn't suffocate crews. In the bonus episode about the seam locomotive, there's the picture of the guy with the breathing suit so he didn't die in the cab. But these are the size of locomotives that transcontinental railroads were going towards. In the photo below, you could see that the San Diego, Arizona was limited to only a 460 or a 280, which at this point was basically just branch line power. The second locomotive in that shot is the only known record we have of a

460 to Pacific going across the line. And they never tried that again. This was the largest locomotive possible. This was the largest locomotive possible. This was the largest locomotive available, yeah, I'm trying. And so, and that meant that every train going through the Gorge had to be double their triple headed, which doubled or tripled crew costs increased operational and maintenance costs significantly. And it just meant the railroad was never able to operate

efficiently and be able to upgrade itself to have locomotives like that top image. The SDNA required 50 revenue cars of freight per day to break even. They averaged 11. And in later years, much of that was hauling cement for the construction of Interstate 8, which now bypasses the route. Oh, real training your replacement moment. Yeah. If there was any Steven Grace of the San Diego, Arizona, it's that they never killed a paying passenger. Oh, that's not the posters.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is partially due to limited ridership. You won't. They just ran from nowhere to nowhere. You will live on the San Diego and Arizona. You'll hate it. You will be alive. You will. They just ran from nowhere to nowhere. You will live on the San Diego and Arizona. You'll hate it. But you will be alive. You will live. Hey, we guarantee you will still be a living human being by the end of this right. Next slide definitely shows even more of how bad

of a real world this was because God hates the San Diego and Arizona. Yes. So the picture, both of these pictures were not how the route was originally built. Oh, boy. Justin, do you want to take this one? Yeah, let me take this one. Okay, so, you know, the first signs of trouble here happen shortly after the railroad's opening, which is tunnel seven was covered in the landslide in 1920. Subsequent inspection found the whole face, the mountain had collapsed, it all had to be dug out and stabilized, this cost $250,000 and a month to fix.

This is also where I believe this particular curve originates from, to bypass the old Tunnel 7, you can see that these passenger cars kind of in a zigzag way. To get an idea of how sharp this is, there are portions of this where the right of way of the new San Diego, Arizona is sharper than the main line of the DNRGW narrow gauge. Yeah, this is like what a series of 26 degree curves. I think they widened it to 20 at some point, but yeah, these were insanely sharp.

Degree, a curvature here, I believe, refers to, what you call it, the amount of curvature in like a hundred foot cord. So the bigger number, the sharper the curve. Right now, I think in like railroad yards, the standard is 12. Is the worst curve you can do. And they're like, no, this is 26 degrees. That's fine. It looks uncomfortable. Hey, never killed anybody. So clearly it's fine that we're holding PCs. Okay, so then it was a bunch of flash flooding. Took out large sections of the railroad in 1926.

Then again in 1927, the railroad was at a service for a month each time. 1932, there was a fire that destroyed tunnel three, which had to be completely rebuilt at a cost of $157,000 in 45 days. And right when it was finished, heavy rains caused a landslide that blocked tunnel 15. This was deemed unable to be repaired. So instead they built a new alignment, including the world's largest wooden trussle,

the Gokanian trussle. This took three months. It is now all over Instagram and various other like abandoned places clickbait websites. Uh-huh. They built that in three months. Why? For like the failing non-professible non-specee jick railroad. Well, the thing is they built that but they also had to dig a new tunnel 15 to get around the mountain.

And when they finished it, tunnel seven caught fire. that, but they also had to dig a new tunnel 15 to get around the mountain. And when I finished it, tunnel seven caught fire. That was a bad. Catching fire and just on its own, they used the used timber tunnel linings. Okay. I hate that. Yeah. But the thing is, they had to use timber instead of steel or concrete in a lot of these cases, because they worried the temperature change in the Kareza Gorge was so extreme that any steel bridges or steel infrastructure would buckle.

They did so. They did so. They had to do all the beams. Yeah, they had to do it all out of California, Redwood, Timber. Oh, my God. Wow. It's okay. So we lost a bunch of California, redwood timber. Oh my God. Wow, it's okay. So we lost a bunch of redwoods for this.

Also cool. This is the real world that just destroys everything. Yeah, I can't have shit in San Diego. The real world that kills you in some light. I mean, like we've been joking about like the original power and Southern California. And we're all fuck you to Northern California. It's like we took about your red words for this. Yeah.

Now, John Sprechel's had died in 1926. At this point, as the states said, to hell with this, they sold the whole thing to the Southern Pacific. The Southern Pacific was unsure about what to do with this very slow and very expensive to maintain railroad, but kept it around. It was just barely breaking even until World War II and the massive surge in traffic that accompanied it. So all of sudden it was like, oh, maybe we do need this railroad. Anyway, that World War II ended

and all the traffic dried up. So it was still shitty. Passing your service was abandoned in 1951 and the line was dieselized in that same year. I think we also neglected to mention earlier, one of the early saving graces of the railroad was that prohibition happened, and everyone wanted to take the train to Teoana. Oh, I was like, you just get drunk at the race track there. Yeah.

But it's still running, right? So after that, you know, it suffers from obviously it suffers from being a late entry to the Transcantan Railroad game. Never received the sort of investment that other lines did that curves were never straightened. Structures were never really improved. And in fact, going to wash out the quality of the right away actually got worse over time which is a big problem because freight cars started getting bigger locomotives started getting heavier they could still run on the San Diego and Arizona but only very slowly they were very common derailments clean up those derailments was almost impossible. You saw those box cards left there for flue in theirs before. So the SDNA never really paid its way. And then in 1976, Hurricane

Kathleen managed to whack right into Southern California and severely damaged the whole line. Right? Everything was broken. God hates it. Which is hilarious, because like in America, we don't really think about Pacific Ocean hurricanes, because most of them just go away from the US. But in 1976, Hurricane Kathleen just did the ever given thing of Druid Dick in the ocean, and then went straight for police to go and do. Southern Pacific decided to hell with this.

They sold the line to the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which runs the San Diego trolley. And they at least did something called the Kyle Railroad. Yeah, a punches holes in drywall and runs trains through them. We'll get to drywalls. We'll get to trains through them. We'll get to drywall. We'll get to drywall. Yeah. So, yeah, trains were not running again until 1981, but they did fix it up and started

running the trains again. And then a landslide closed tunnel 16 in 1983. Why bother? Just let nature take it back? The American side of the line through Carizo Gorge stood dormant until 2004 when the Carizo Gorge railroad, at least it from San Diego, started rehabilitating bridges and tunnels and they ran trains full of propane and sand over the line. And this worked pretty good until 2009 when tunnel three caught fire and collapsed. Oh my god.

Tunnel six also collapsed shortly afterwards. I believe tunnel 21 is in the process of collapsing. Just leave it alone. Leave it right. Just leave it right. Just give up. The Mexican side of the line was until very recently, at least by the Baja California railroad, which is owned by a Mexican boxing promoter.

Cool. Okay. Question mark. You know, there's still some traffic on the line, but not over the whole thing, because you can't get over, you can't get through Carizo Gorge anymore. But at some point you have to ask, okay, why?

Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why with. Yeah. What do we left with? And we still have the Ticati brewery, which is still served by rail over the Tijuana, the Ticate section. Okay. It's kind of worth it. I mean, I'm going to go back through San Diego and up and then through Los Angeles and over. And again, you have an ocean like right there. Yeah. And the other side, you have the source of all of America's drywall, US gypsum plant at a glass of city. There's no massive determinism there for all of the other. Which, it's just, it's really funny to me that railroad servicing a massive drywall plant was served by Kyle railways.

Yeah. I like a great, great, great, great. Yeah. I'm just, this is like one of those, one of those things that you just learn about America. It's like, oh, yeah, you mean the one plant that makes all of the drywall. It's like what? Yeah. And their plastic city, narrow gauge loops back into the story because the only remaining three-foot industrial freight railroad in the US still runs between plaster city and the actual mine up in the fish Creek mountains.

Amazing. They run like three-foot alcoa diesels on that now. The whole American economy is centrally unplanned. You're just like, yeah, we're going to like have like a very slow, very lumbering way of making it completely unpredictable and vulnerable. But most importantly, we also have a city that for all of its money and resources dumped into every attempt to change this, still does not have a direct rail connection to East. Hopensies. I mean, like a genuinely live with being a port, just live with it.

Just like it's fine being a bit. It's quite nice actually. Have a lovely harbor, I think. Well, they do shipbuilding down there, and they have the Navy down there, but the port is kind of mediocre. Everything goes into Los Angeles. Oh, in the Kopen Seas.

Kopen and Seas. Sorry, you just have to enjoy excellent weather for 99% of the time until it kills you. Yeah, the time every 60 years when you get the fuck out of San Diego. Mm-hmm. Once again demanding, if you are the mayor or the Chamber of Commerce, the Lutorus Board of San Diego, you give me a bunch of free shits. I will say nice things about your sissy Well, your city sucks, and I definitely would not like to be put up Yeah, I would not enjoy an all expenses paid We are we have morals or whatever

So the San Diego Ne New Arizona is interesting because we know for certain that you can build railroads in the mountains and have them work. You know, Switzerland is absolutely crisscrossed by some of the best railroads in the world. It's just you gotta do the end. You know, you gotta plan it, you gotta do it right. It can't just be one person's you know pet project for personal enrichment. And for ego it has to be something with the cornerstone is properly laid to actually serve the communities. Yeah there's there's a question of whether there was ever an alternative future for the San Diego and Arizona. And, you know, if you look at like Swiss railways and like they had, they've had long-term,

continuous programs of modernization, as opposed to, you know, here in the United States, where it's like you build it once, and then it's like, that's the railroad you got. You know, there was an alternate future where this railroad worked. We just don't live in it. Oh, yeah, that was a real point of like major divergence, you know.

We would be living in the like utopian future society flying car picture had, you know, they modernized this somehow. Yeah, they had built a base tunnel, you know, like the Swiss did in the 80s for everything. I just always funny going through like the Swiss railroad network and you you find out there's this 10 mile tunnel they built in the 80s for a narrow gauge Yeah, you got to get the over onto the hint of gorente Berger Gabyogger Barn, you know that from one town of 3000 people to another town of like 1500 people that takes up like 10% of the federal government's budget And that's just the way it should be and it uh, yeah, and it comes every five, and it gets you there in like two seconds. Yeah, if you drop like a single, a single particle of dirt on the floor of the train,

they just vaporize you instantly. Instantly, and you deserve it. Yeah. First and it's cool. There's no core sucks. Doldy could be persuaded to change my mind for a sort of like hefty subsidized. Sort of this all expenses.

Yeah. I would not take that. Basically, I haven't had a vacation in about a decade and a half, like proper, like far and one, and I kind of feel like. Not enjoy being put up in a hotel in Zurich for two and a half weeks. No, I would hate that. No, really bad. Yeah.

Well, as you've learned, we have desert Switzerland at home. Don't want to go to deserts. It's a little bit home. I want to go to normal Switzerland. Now, what did we learn? Nothing. Don't absolutely. In God's eyes. Yeah. Please invite us to read the room. Yeah. Invite us at least me on heavily subsidized fact-finding missions. Yeah, please. I want to go with you. I can be your... Yeah.

Yeah. The system wants to pay you to climb a thousand feet to hit. Well, you don't think I can be Alice? Is this a cent dickhead? Who's rock with a hammer? Don't do it All right, well, we have a segment on this podcast called safety third Cool truck yes, hello Justin and yay Liam and Alice

Realized Hello Justin and yay Liam and Alice I realized The plausibly deniable guest I realized this story makes me look like an idiot That's the best ones. Yeah, I used to do concrete field testing and one morning as the sun was rising after a 1 a.m. Poor I was approaching the pump truck to grab the concrete truck tickets After 1 a.m. poor, I was approaching the pump truck to grab the concrete truck tickets. The tickets are generally on the left side of the pump truck for the tester, and I could see them. But one of the stabilizing legs of the pump truck was lifted. I was trying to figure out what kind of pump truck this was, and I don't know, and this

is just a picture I found. This wasn't totally out of the ordinary since the pump truck drivers would leave the trucks like that fairly often for whatever reason, but despite being an idiot, I still sculpt at the area a little. I watched for a minute or two. The leg didn't move. The truck driver was nowhere in sight. Maybe he went to the bathroom or something or saw the tickets on the side of the truck

and his waiting for me. I didn't know, but it seemed fine. The site was loud, but I'm sure I'd hear the legs if it started retracting. So I walk up to have a look at the tickets and page through them to make sure they're all there. And someone comes up behind me and puts their hand on my back around my shoulder blades. Oh, no.

I kind of laugh against the foreman or something or some worker being a weirdo and before I can turn around, I get shoved in the back. Did you do the Hollywood slash a movie, Billy, stop playing thing with a fucking hydraulic bomb? I don't like that. Yes.

Now I was really confused. I turned my head and surprised, surprised, is the stabilizing leg directly in my face. Uh-huh. Oh boy. I do a quick mental calculation and decide that trying to duck under would probably get my head crushed like a watermelon. I made a ridiculous attempt to push back against the leg with my back, which obviously had no effect. I looked by the left and I see no one. I physically can't turn to look behind me at this point. I looked to my right at the rear view mirror on the front of the

truck to check the cab and it's empty. I'm getting squeezed so I scream, hey, because I can't really form more complicated if I thought than that. And then I screamed it a few more times. I twisted my head to the right again as I'm starting to get really squeezed and right fucking there are 10 feet away slightly behind the other side of the leg is the pump truck driver. Oh boy. He looks at me like he saw a ghost. I start to really brace myself against the squeeze, you know, for what? And he runs five steps over to the side of the truck, where there is, thankfully, about eight-ish feet to my right in the emergency stop button on the outside.

I remember wondering how bad I was about to get squished before he could get to the cab to stop it. The leg stopped and then slowly edged back out. I lived. The pump truck driver healthfully relates an anecdote about forgetting a steel yeti cup on the side of the truck that got crushed by one of the legs retracting and SBY asked me why I went inside the legs when they were moving. I would like to reiterate that I didn't do that. I'm not that much of an idiot.

Now, my back hurts and I'm shaking. I fist bumping for saving my life. I get in my car and I call my parents on the way home. The end. Incredible. Congratulations on not getting squished like a bug. You survived human tetris. Yeah. What's up? Love the show.

Love y'all. Have a good rest of your summer from Rick. Thanks, Rick. Rick, please try to never have that happen again. Please don't say I have to happen to you. Yeah. Well, that was safety third. Shake hands with danger.

Someone does like a commercial. Yeah, this is where I asked for the commercials and Tom has a big one. Hi, I'm Tom and so I've been working with a whole bunch of other people who love Nairage trends on a new video game called Century Steam. It's a physics-based multiplayer railroad simulator and strategy game being made by myself, Mark Huber,

and many other devoted experts in the field, including locomotive engineers and crews, railroad historians and a team of 2D and 3D artists and coders. We are the first game to figure out polling, which Justin was super excited to see on Twitter. Yes, I'm very excited for the polling. Everyone should be excited for polling. This is a revolution in train simulator. We want to make a train game, we want to do it right and we have a Patreon setup. Also check out our trailer on the Studio 346 channel. If you want to see our

dev videos, we have one all about how Mark made the most accurate whistle simulation in any game. You can see that on patreon.com forward slash Studio 346 and get those vids early. We're also the first train game to have at least multiplayer train simulator of this type to have like runtime terrain deformation, actual plowing of snow that accumulates and can be plowed off the track. Funnily, no one really cared about that in the trailer. They all just lost their minds at the stick. And the amount of the pull. The amount of Teddy Roosevelt memes that we saw with the big stick just

Absolutely made our day. So we're excited to work on this We've still got a way to go before it's done But we're hoping that this is a train game that no one has ever seen or Fathomed before yeah, I'm extremely excited for it. I think this is a, you know, from what I've seen, this is already the greatest train simulator out there, even though I haven't played it yet. But, you know, this, this, it's good. It's going to be good. Bringing into us a good, well, if you would like to have a little taste of what it's like to run a train in our game, we will be at the National Narragage Convention in Denver in about a month.

So if you're going there, check out the Studio 346 booth, we'll have a demo where you can run a locomotive there. And that's all I got for this. Thank you so much for having me on. Oh, you being on Applesia. Yeah, it was very good. I was sober this time. That's all.

All right. Our next episode will be about Chernobyl. Does anyone have any commercials before we go? I'm listening to all of our other stuff. Sure, you know who we are. If you don't need to, you know, whatever. Bye. Bye. Sign up for the Patreon. you