Monday, November 5, 2007

Then It Gets Much Much Worse As The Day Goes On

Ignore the previous post. I've just discovered some kind of error on Blogger whereby the post regarding the Adult Swim anime bumpers failed to register its labels under 'Thematics' after I deleted an early draft of the post. And to boot, the damn thing won't register the same labels if I change that post to a draft.

SHIT.

In a way, this reminds me of an obscure anecdote from the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The electrified rail lines from New York City to Washington D.C. were their territory while they were in business; one of the electric locomotive they operated was known as model P5a. Let me focus on their running gear-the important bit of this story. These engines had three large-wheeled drive axles between two pair of load-bearing axles with much smaller wheels.

The center pair of drivers was blind (had no flange) so that these locomotives could use tighter curves than otherwise intended. Thus, without proper alignment, the center wheels ran the risk of derailing and causing general havoc. Large pins were used to hold said wheels within the proper tolerances.

Well, these things wore out (and fell out or broke) more often than was expected. On occasion, a P5a would come into the shops, I believe, at Enola, PA missing a pin or two. Instead of putting in a new pin and making the locomotive serviceable for another few months, the shop men would dig up a dead D-cell battery, about the same diameter of the pin; hammer it into the pin hole with a mallet; slap some grease over it and pray that there wasn't a Federal Railroad Administration inspector for about a hundred miles. All in order to get 'one more run' out of the locomotive before it really needed to come in for a scheduled inspection or needed more work.

Sure is confidence inspiring, isn't it?

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