Bar Table Train Set Station

If I had a full sized man-cave, I would be sure to have a wall mounted train set but the train would leave the wall mounted area and descend down into a bar table with a glass covering so people could sit at the bar and see model trains passing by and there would be a terminal train station in there but it would work differently to a normal terminal station because it would use a bypass rail to allow trains to continue moving forward. They would even use the bypass rail to avoid the station all together and head back the otherway if they need it.

The station would have two platform islands that converge into a café in the middle. This means there would be 4 platforms. In each platform the train doesn't change direction, it continues to move forwards and rejoins the bypass rail that causes the train to turn around without changing direction. If it was real people would find it very easy to use. There would be a notification screen in the middle area and the passengers don't need to go over a foot bridge to change platforms. The other end of the bar table would just be like a model village with small buildings  and with the trains passing through them. 

Wall Mounted Train Set

I thought it would be a good idea to build a wall mounted train set if you had a man-cave games room. The train tracks could be mounted on a flange or shelf that is attached to the wall and is slightly above the heads of people in the room. There would then be a spiralling helix shaped track that brings the train down into the stations, one in the bar and one on top of some cabinets and one on a general playing table. 

The bar table one would be special because it would show a unique terminal station design that would be relevant to me. The train set would be very big without taking up too much space. The bar table would be both a bar table and a train set in one. It would be a terminal train station but it would have a bypass rail that allows trains to continue forward without the need to reverse back to continue forward. I need another blog post to explain how it would work, but it is so cool. 

Keep the dream alive. 

Ages Well

I noticed there is one thing that ages very well is RPG computer games, you can play 'Role Play Games' that were made in the '90s and they would feel as good as many RPG games you find in the shops today. An RPG is a video game that behaves like a board game, you gather items and move through a world and they are usually turn based. You could have an emulator, the platformer games would drag on and feel dry but RPG games stay in good playing form because they were never about the graphics and sounds in the first place. 

Yesterday evening it rained for a few hours, it was the first time it rained in England for many weeks. The petrichor was lovely, the best smell in the world yet it stinks. Nothing else quite like it. The smell of wet soil that had been dry for a long time. It could be the reason people build a veranda around their house. They could sit there and sip tea on their porch while it's raining and breathe in all that fresh air with an earthy smell. 

Butterfly Airtime

Since the draught became established in Britain, I noticed many flowers perished and the butterflies need to fly longer distances to feed. They spend more time flying and they are more visible to people and their predators. The Butterflies need to fly all the way across a whole street just to get the next flower to feed sometimes. They spend more time flying, more air time. 

I was thinking about an articulated guided hovercraft in the imagination of my little world. I imagined if it were real I would get annoyed that people call it a train, it looks like a train but it isn't a train.  I would abbreviate the name to show it is a different type of vehicle; Articulated, Guided, Hovercraft : Ar Gu raft. Arguraft perhaps. 

It doesn't matter really, It doesn't exist and I need a space for a workshop to build test rig. 

Two Derailments

I learnt yesterday that another train derailed, the tracks were buckled because they expanded excessively in the heat. 

When I was younger, I didn't think global warming was a problem, I thought the fossil fuels would run out before global warming had become a serious problem. I think I'm wrong now because we had a winter without much frost, 5 heat waves and 1 drought. This isn't a one-off, it happens regularly. Every year now we are having droughts and bizarre weather. 

I noticed that regions with a lot of drought were facing stronger earthquakes. It was as if the fault lines themselves were not getting lubricated and extra force was unjamming them according to my own unproven speculations.

The whole planet is reacting to human activity. Climate change is real. 

  

Heatwave Eclipse

Yesterday there was a partial eclipse, I think about 90% of the sun was covered. Fifteen hours later the following day we were in a heatwave, the temperature rose above 35°c. This is the 5th heatwave of the year and there has not been a single drop of rain throughout the whole summer on this part of England. The draught is taking a toll on everything, some business that rely on water like hair dressers and various manufacturers have stopped making profit. The water companies are worried about running out of water for domestic use. It feels like we're in a desert. There is dead and dry grass and bushes everywhere. 

I learn something new every day, the last few days are no different. I always thought the river Thames : pronounced "tems" was a seamless flowing water mass, that a boat could just go from Windsor to Oxford; I was wrong. There are partitions in the river that are sectioned off by wiers and locks. You would have to bring your boat into a lock to make significant progress upstream. You would need to bring the boat into the lock, then shut the lock doors and wait for the lock to fill with water and then open the exit doors to the lock. 

The other thing I learnt is there is another BT advertisement board outside high Wycombe hospital, on the side of the board is a dial pad with a microphone and speaker in the panel, if you lost your things and found yourself stranded and far from home, you could make a free emergency phone call to a friend or family member to rescue you. You could even call the police or ambulance. 

I also learnt that some of the built in games on the Evercade-Alpha have a persistent score board. It's more than an emulator, they added some code to allow the score board to persist after you have turned the console off. I find that is useful because I would try to beat my best score every time I turn it on. 

Columbia near 8 quake

A few days ago on the 10th of August there was a very large earthquake in Columbia, it was what I call a near 8. The earthquake was 7.4 on the rickter scale. When the strength of an earthquake approaches 8, it becomes so strong that it would topple the strongest buildings and trees effortlessly. Those earthquakes are so strong that they can push vast volumes of water away from the ocean floor causing a tsunami. Near 8 earthquakes are like the 8 ball on the pool table; when they sink a near 8, it is game over. If the earthquake power is close to 8 on the rickter scale then the damage is devastating, it is game over for towns and cities. 

There has now been about 3 earthquakes that I call near 8 this year. In June there was a strong earthquake in the Philippines, then the same month there was one in Venezuela, now there is one in Columbia. 

I have my own speculation to why there are more powerful earthquakes occuring, I think that there are more droughts, water helps to lubricate fault lines so they can slide past eachother, when there is a draught, the fault lines become more stiff and smaller earthquakes get stopped, they get condensed into much larger earthquakes. More energy is required to dislodge the rocks when they are very dry so more energy builds up. When there are stronger earthquakes, they can trigger more energetic quakes. This is just a speculation though, I don't know if it is a fact.