urbanism

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This was supposed to be c/traingang, so post as many train pictures as possible.

All about urbanism and transportation, including freight transportation.

Home of train gang

:arm-L::train-shining::arm-R:

Trainposts highly encouraged

Talk about supply chain issues here!

List of cool books and videos about urbanism, transit, and other cool things

Titles must be informative. Please do not title your post "lmao" or use the tired "_____ challenge" format.

Archive links for reactionary sites, including the BBC.

LANDLORDS COWER IN FEAR OF MAOTRAIN

"that train pic is too powerful lmao" - u/Cadende

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Door (hexbear.net)
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https://nmm.pl/en/crane/historia-obiektu/

spoilerJust like the Neptune fountain, the Crane, a former port crane, is one of the most famous symbols of Gdańsk, especially if it comes to its maritime past and glory. Therefore, no other place is more suitable for an exhibition devoted to activities of the former Gdańsk port.

Inside the Crane, we have prepared information on the work of people who were inseparably related to the port – carriers, dockers, merchants, skippers, sail makers, rope makers.

We have devoted much attention to port-related objects by presenting the interior of granaries, models of wooden wharfs, ships, fairway dredgers and finally, cranes.

It is well worth visiting reconstructed Gdańsk interiors: merchant’s counting house, pile tax office (a place where port fees were charged) and a room in a burgess’s house.

The mechanism of the Crane, the biggest port crane in the medieval Europe, is the exhibition highlight. It consists of two pairs of wooden treadmills. Since the Crane also served as the town’s gate which led the way from Szeroka Street to Długie Pobrzeże Street, the bottom treadmills, situated in the place of a vault, are visible from the outside.

However, it is worth going inside the Crane to see the upper treadmills. A walk up the narrow wooden stairs to the highest storey is a real attraction. It is a perfect viewing spot for those who want to take a closer look at the size of the mechanism which was based on a very simple principle. To make the Crane lift goods from ships (e.g. wine and beer barrels or millwheels), its treadmills had to be set in motion. This way, a rope was rolled up onto a treadmill. But what could set them in motion? Well, workers made the mechanism work by getting inside the wheels and walking on the built-in boards (the Polish name for a treadmill, koło deptakowe, reflects the walking activity conducted by workers). As a result, four people could ‘lift’ the weight of up to two tons.

While admiring the treadmills, do not forget to have a look outside. You will find yourself standing around 27 metres above the ground, looking at an amazing view of the Motława River, Ołowianka Island and yachts in the marina.

Today’s Crane, made of brick and wood, differs from the original wooden port crane built in the same place. The first source mention of this building dates back to 1367. We also know that the crane burnt down in 1442.

A new crane was built in the period of 1442-1444. It consisted of two brick towers which had the abovementioned wooden lifting mechanism installed between them. The Crane belonged to the town and was managed by a crane master.

In the 19th century, the Crane lost its importance as a port crane and was used mostly for setting masts on Vistula vessels. A century later, it had one more function: it was used for extracting sterns of motor powered vessels from water for repair of helms and screws. The Crane’s last master died in 1858, and its towers were occupied by residents. A shoe manufacturing business, a hairdresser’s salon as well as other local businesses were set up within its walls.

During World War II, the Crane was destroyed – its wooden structure burnt down completely and only 60% of the brick part remained. Reconstruction documentation was prepared in 1956 and was followed by reconstruction works. In 1962, the Crane was handed over to the Maritime Museum, which was granted the name of the Polish Maritime Museum in Gdańsk 10 years later, and the name of National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk on 10th December, 2013.

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https://fortune.com/2024/02/25/office-commercial-real-estate-crisis-doom-loop-conversion-housing-subsidies-demolition/

“At the end of the day, I think the problem is that we have too much office relative to our future needs, and a lot of places have too little housing. So I think one way or another, we’re going to have to turn some of that office space into apartments,” said Van Nieuwerburgh. “That might have to partially happen through demolition. But it would be nice if we could have at least some of it through conversion. It’s sort of the environmentally friendly way to go.”

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Door (hexbear.net)
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cereal2

Check out this steam engine in Sakhalin, and look at the cab.

Sakhalin is a Russian island that was reclaimed from Japan, but the Soviets kept the trains.

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This is the Aizu Railway KiHa 8500

There is ample recline

And of course like most Japanese regional trains you can turn around the seats

This is the standard for regional passenger train interiors that all train-builders should strive to follow.

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City lights (hexbear.net)
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archive.today • Why Is Everything So Ugly? | Issue 44 | n+1 | The Editors

After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city's 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Again environmental concerns necessitate this scale of change, and again we wonder why, when it comes to its light bulbs, New York has chosen to back the blue.

Inertia, disinterest, thoughtlessness, yes, but also the promise of increased police vigilance. Still, what is most striking about New York's ominous glow-up is the sense that the city has been estranged from itself: the hyperprecise shadows of every leaf and every branch set against every brick wall deliver a Hollywood unreality. New York after hours now looks less like it did in Scorsese's After Hours and more like an excessive set-bound '60s production.

The new ugliness is defined in part by an abandonment of function and form: buildings afraid to look like buildings, cars that look like renderings, restaurants that look like the apps that control them. New York City is a city increasingly in quotation marks, a detailed facsimile of a place.

MTA to install bright, white lights in every NYC subway station - Gothamist

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An incredible development for the US. Sadly surrounded by stroads and thus quite isolated, however, it's even connected to a light rail station.

Link to the landleech's website

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Buses in Hawaii... (hexbear.net)
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There is some China bashing but it's an informative article and it was hard to know what to quote.

Based in Shenzhen, the hub of China’s electronics industry, BYD has shown how Chinese carmakers can tap the country’s dominance of electrical products. No company has benefited as much from China’s embrace of battery-electric cars and plug-in gasoline-electric cars. These vehicles together make up 40 percent of China’s car market, the world’s largest, and are expected to be more than half next year.

Like most Chinese automakers, BYD doesn’t sell its cars in America because Trump-era tariffs remain in place, but BYD does sell buses in the United States. BYD is leading China’s export push in electric cars, and is rapidly building the world’s largest car carrier ships to transport them. The first of the ships, the BYD Explorer No. 1, is on its maiden voyage from Shenzhen with 5,000 electric cars on board, and is expected to arrive in the Netherlands by Feb. 21.

[...]

China has built enough factories to make more than twice as many cars as its market can buy. That has led to a price war in China, particularly between BYD and Tesla, with discounting that has inflicted heavy losses. One of BYD’s newest models, the subcompact Seagull, starts at less than $11,000.

[...]

BYD has a lingering advantage over Tesla: Mr. Wang’s decision by 2011 to develop plug-in hybrid cars, which account for nearly half of BYD’s sales.

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Yes (hexbear.net)
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Had my parents tell me how there used to be an elaborate trolley system that ran all over the county. They couldn’t tell me what happened to it though.

burgerpain

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the 1890s were a wild time

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Door (hexbear.net)
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https://fortune.com/2024/02/06/powell-warns-impact-of-commercial-real-estate-on-banking/

In the aftermath of the pandemic, many companies adopted a completely remote or hybrid work model, which has led companies large and small to shed a great deal of their office footprint. Take Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo, which both recently let go of hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space in Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, N.C., respectively.

That’s just one example of a reeling commercial real estate sector, where there could be 1 billion square feet of unused office space by the start of the new decade, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. And it’s likely to worsen as loans mature and more leases come to the end of their term.

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yea (hexbear.net)
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