Railroad track bicycle - photo

[Jon]

Railroad track bicycle.



Previously:

railway construction machine GIF
wartime railway and train sabotage techniques
Janney semi-automatic railway coupler - GIF and patent
Laying railroad cable troughs - GIF
Richard Feynman explains: What keeps a train on the track?
Rail moving robot - GIF

[mklotz]

In an ongoing effort to elevate bicyclists to demi-god status the California driver handbook

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/web/eng_pdf/dl600.pdf

on page 60 states...

Bicyclists have the right to operate on the road and may:

• Lawfully be permitted to ride on certain sections of freeways where there is no alternate route and bicycling is not forbidden by a sign.

In Sacramento there's already a bill in committee to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs. What's next? Perhaps making it legal for bicyclists to drift behind eighteen wheelers?

California already has a law that motorists must allow three feet separation when passing bikers on the left. I must presume that, when more bikers appear on the railroad tracks, that law will be extended to trains.

[Jon]

What's interesting is that bicyclists are heralded as being ecologically superior to motorists. AFAIK, four people riding in a modern sedan consume less energy to travel a mile than four people riding bicycles. It's admittedly a multi-faceted argument, but the inherent eco-superiority of the bicyclist is probably misplaced.

[Workshopshed]

OVer in France there's a "Velo Rail" where you can ride pedal-powered carts up and down the track.



VELO RAIL

[Jon]

Looks like fun.

[greyhoundollie]

Having lived in Californian for several years you become aware that the people of the state seem to want to include ALL people of the state in reaping the good things available in the state provided by the state government. Bicyclists pay taxes too. The state feels folks who use bicycles should be allowed to also use the roads that they have paid part of the taxes used to build them.

A friend of mine asked me to go to work for him to help out so to speak. He owned major real state master franchises. (Re/Max of California, RE/Max of Hawaii, Re/Max of Japan and Re/Max of the Pacific Rim) He was very careful to teach me things about California government functions. Where the differences between California and other states came from. Really interesting to find out things like why mortgages work different in California than other states. Why a check written on a Mexican bank can be cashed in a California bank but can't be cashed in a Texas bank. Bicycle lanes and walking paths among others he had knowledge of. Being in the real estate industry we were of course "color blind" to.

[Frank S]

Looks like fun.

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Yep right up until you come up to the trestle with only 1 rail

[IntheGroove]

Forest fires can eliminate wooden bridges...

[IAMSatisfied]

Some months back my wife and I watched a mini-documentary of Peter Hoffman's (the same gent as featured in the video Jon posted above) rail biking with friends in Patagonia. Gorgeous scenery and very remote...

[old kodger]

fascinating video, well worth watching and thank you for posting it.