[HN Gopher] Illustrations of 'Unseen' Japanese Maintenance Train... ___________________________________________________________________ Illustrations of 'Unseen' Japanese Maintenance Trains That Only Work at Night Author : zdw Score : 30 points Date : 2023-04-06 21:39 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.spoon-tamago.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.spoon-tamago.com) | poidos wrote: | Down for me. Archive link: | https://web.archive.org/web/20230406214102/https://www.spoon... | [deleted] | freetime2 wrote: | I was expecting this to be about "Doctor Yellow", an iconic test | train used to maintain the Shinkansen lines. | | https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-cult... | inasio wrote: | Spoon and Tamago is probably the newsletter I've been subscribed | to the longest, every single (infrequent) email is beautifully | crafted with very nice content, highly recommend. | VyseofArcadia wrote: | I wish we could just do maintenance in the US. Here in Boston, we | underfunded the MBTA for a decade[0], and now the system is | hanging on by a thread. | | Roads are falling apart, lighting poles are falling down, our | natural gas infrastructure is leaking like crazy. Why can't we | just take care of our stuff? | | [0] To pay for more car stuff which ended up being a boondoggle | in its own right, of course | https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/i-team-big-dig-root-mbta... | jacobsenscott wrote: | You can't privatize competently maintained infrastructure. | _dain_ wrote: | most japanese railways are privately owned and operated and | maintained, and turn a healthy profit | qiqitori wrote: | "Japanese trains are renowned for their [...] comfort" | | Yes, who doesn't love being packed into a tin can with some | fellow sardines? | freetime2 wrote: | You have a point - I find riding a train during Tokyo rush hour | to be quite miserable. But not everywhere is as crowded as | Tokyo, and lots of trains have reserved seating, and they are | very comfortable indeed. | whalesalad wrote: | I love the Tamiya style of illustration so much. This is awesome! | cryptoz wrote: | I saw a yellow maintenance train in Montreal metro once after | getting off the last train at night. I had a digital camera with | me (2006 or so) and I started to take pictures but I was | immediately chased away my multiple (several) very angry | employees shouting at me in French. I couldn't believe that they | treated it with such secrecy but also ran the train through while | people were in the station still. | neilv wrote: | The illustration style reminds me of a young children's book of | trucks or machinery that I had. | | IIRC, besides the normal fascination with big machines, the book | seemed to glorify the machines and the idealized and determined | workers operating them, a bit like propaganda posters from some | other countries. | | I think the book I had was from Japan. (Half my family is from | Hawaii, and there was a lot of cultural cross-pollination as part | of ordinary life.) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-06 23:00 UTC)