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Local News

arthwollipot said:
This fantastic statue is right outside the building where I work.

Popular magpie sculpture officially swoops back into the city
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Confirming Canberran sense of humour. And why not a magpie? Swooping season just over, they are part of our lives - although I don’t like how our local magpies gang up and bully kookaburras. You would think they would be deterred by the kooka’s beak, but they swoop with intensity.

There are some great sculptures along Melbourne’s Eastlink, including an oversized bird.

https://www.eastlink.com.au/images/documents/EastLink-sculpture-park-booklet-July-2017.pdf
 
lionking said:
Confirming Canberran sense of humour. And why not a magpie? Swooping season just over, they are part of our lives - although I don’t like how our local magpies gang up and bully kookaburras. You would think they would be deterred by the kooka’s beak, but they swoop with intensity.

There are some great sculptures along Melbourne’s Eastlink, including an oversized bird.

https://www.eastlink.com.au/images/documents/EastLink-sculpture-park-booklet-July-2017.pdf
Click to expand...

Some of the aggression of Australia's birds has to be seen to be believed.

I watched two 'little wattle' birds take turns harassing a black rat in one of my fruit trees.

They eventually succeeded in knocking it out of the tree, and the chickens killed it and ate it.

New Holland Honeyeaters (tiny little birds) mob and harass magpies!

Amazing stuff.
 
I love magpies. As long as you respect their territory during swooping season, there's no reason not to live with them. The magpies in Garema Court, where this sculpture is, are very accustomed to people and never swoop. And they sing like angels.
 
Norman Alexander said:
I suspect it is a reminder to the local council to FIX THE ******* HOLES IN THE ROADS WHY DON'T YOU!!

ETA. We have the same problem in our council area. :(
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I have noted elsewhere that the ACT government is fixing the roads. But it's just such a huge and never-ending job that some locations go for weeks unfixed. Tillyard Drive is not a major road - it serves mainly as a collector for the suburbs of Charnwood, Flynn and Fraser, linking them with Ginninderra Drive, which is the nearest arterial, and which has had substantial work done.

For those readers who are far away, the roads are in such a bad condition because the truly ridiculous amount of rain we've had in the last two years has caused subsidence, leading to many, many road cracks and potholes.

Today is the Summer Solstice. It is raining and 15C (59F).
 
arthwollipot said:
I have noted elsewhere that the ACT government is fixing the roads. But it's just such a huge and never-ending job that some locations go for weeks unfixed. Tillyard Drive is not a major road - it serves mainly as a collector for the suburbs of Charnwood, Flynn and Fraser, linking them with Ginninderra Drive, which is the nearest arterial, and which has had substantial work done.

For those readers who are far away, the roads are in such a bad condition because the truly ridiculous amount of rain we've had in the last two years has caused subsidence, leading to many, many road cracks and potholes.

Today is the Summer Solstice. It is raining and 15C (59F).
Click to expand...
We have had such large, dangerous holes in the roads that the buses have had to change routes to prevent further damage to their wheels. Considering these are industrial-strength vehicles that can roll over Volvos with barely a bump, we are talking Grand Canyon sized washouts.


And in local news, a loaded freight train going through our locality derailed some carriages without the driver being aware. They were then dragged for about 10 kms down the line, pulling the sleepers out as they went. That whole stretch of line is now completely unusable in both directions (it's two tracks).

Which affects me because that's how I commute to work each day. They now have "rail replacement buses" running down the local highway from my town to the next major station on the line, adding 30 minutes to my 90 minute commute each way. Fun! :mad:

They said in this report it will take 2 weeks to repair. Nope. Decision was made that the whole section is to be replaced with concrete sleepers throughout and new rails, plus new ballast. Which means the whole line is up to the bedrock just now. Expecting February earliest... MORE fun! :mad::mad:

And to top it off, our town is usually a major summer time tourist destination, with the vast majority of tourists arriving...by rail. Local businesses are aghast: first COVID lockdowns for two years, now this. :mad::mad::mad:

https://transportnsw.info/news/2022...disruption-following-freight-train-derailment
https://www.bluemountainsgazette.co...tourism-hit-to-blue-mountains-over-christmas/
 
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Norman Alexander said:
We have had such large, dangerous holes in the roads that the buses have had to change routes to prevent further damage to their wheels. Considering these are industrial-strength vehicles that can roll over Volvos with barely a bump, we are talking Grand Canyon sized washouts.
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Our local government is paying out claims on wheel damage caused by potholes.

Norman Alexander said:
And in local news, a loaded freight train going through our locality derailed some carriages without the driver being aware. They were then dragged for about 10 kms down the line, pulling the sleepers out as they went. That whole stretch of line is now completely unusable in both directions (it's two tracks).

Which affects me because that's how I commute to work each day. They now have "rail replacement buses" running down the local highway from my town to the next major station on the line, adding 30 minutes to my 90 minute commute each way. Fun! :mad:

They said in this report it will take 2 weeks to repair. Nope. Decision was made that the whole section is to be replaced with concrete sleepers throughout and new rails, plus new ballast. Which means the whole line is up to the bedrock just now. Expecting February earliest... MORE fun! :mad::mad:

https://transportnsw.info/news/2022...disruption-following-freight-train-derailment
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The engineer didn't notice for 10kms! Holy oblivious driver, Batman!
 
arthwollipot said:
The engineer didn't notice for 10kms! Holy oblivious driver, Batman!
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Nope, he didn't. The total weight of over half a kilometer of loaded freight train means there would be no noticeable braking effect from derailed wheels unless a carriage actually fell over and snagged. We gather from rail staff they had to flag him down at one of the stations to stop him going further.

Should explain that some time ago NSW Rail decided to "save money" by removing the trailing brake car on the end of freight sets, which meant they did not have to pay a guard or brakeman at the rear. If there was one in this case, they would have stopped in a few hundred metres, and saved them millions of dollars in damage and repairs.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Nope, he didn't. The total weight of over half a kilometer of loaded freight train means there would be no noticeable braking effect from derailed wheels unless a carriage actually fell over and snagged. We gather from rail staff they had to flag him down at one of the stations to stop him going further.

Should explain that some time ago NSW Rail decided to "save money" by removing the trailing brake car on the end of freight sets, which meant they did not have to pay a guard or brakeman at the rear. If there was one in this case, they would have stopped in a few hundred metres, and saved them millions of dollars in damage and repairs.
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This really sounds like NSW Rail tried cost cutting a la North American railroads by dropping the caboose. But here they only did that after they had installed all sorts of Defect detectorWPs. The trains are continuously monitored as they roll.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
This really sounds like NSW Rail tried cost cutting a la North American railroads by dropping the caboose. But here they only did that after they had installed all sorts of Defect detectorWPs.
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I was about to ask why a simple sensor at each carriage coupling would be out of the question.
 
Norman Alexander said:
It would cost more than paying for a brakeman. Also, because he was going fairly slowly, the carriages did not separate even when derailed.
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The defect detectors I mentioned above are located beside the tracks and automatically report by radio to the train crew as the train passes them. I could not find how far apart they are positioned but I suppose to be useful the coverage must be pretty dense. (Every 20 miles apparently per my second url.

An example here:



More than you could ever want to know:

What Railroad Defect Detectors Do
 
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Gord_in_Toronto said:
The defect detectors I mentioned above are located beside the tracks and automatically report by radio to the train crew as the train passes them. I could not find how far apart they are positioned but I suppose to be useful the coverage must be pretty dense. (Every 20 miles apparently per my second url.

An example here:



More than you could ever want to know:

What Railroad Defect Detectors Do
Click to expand...
All good stuff. But this was in twisting mountainous track, shared with commuter rail, stations every few kilometres.

[IMGw=500]https://m.penrithaustralia.com.au/images/sendbinarynews.asp?path=DSC_0055.JPG[/IMGw]
 
Very very local news. In the last two months we have removed 10 cubic meters of rubbish. Mostly due to a very large landscaping project (much, but not all taken away by the contractors) but also the amount of rubbish collected under our house. We have a sloping block and there is standing room underneath. There was a lot of stuff the children wanted to store just because. Cots, mattresses, old electronic stuff (why), furniture etc etc. All now gone. I exercised muscles not much used lately.
 
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