Lynch at Large

Amtrak will never have anything like this. These are shots of tne new Central Station in Berlin. The cost is around $1 billion - not too far off the entire Amtrak system budget for any fiscal year.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

The point is obvious. Germany has a modern and balanced transportation system. We have a transportation system that favors a few large corporations and the public be damned.

Here are some highlights from Spiegel Magazine.

* Grooves in the floor help blind passengers find their way to the platforms. For further assistance, raised numbers and Braille have been integrated into metal signs on the hand rails.

* Travelers will be spared some of the noise and bustle associated with train stations, since the approaching high-speed ICE and regional trains slide up to the platform with not much more than whisper. The tracks are embedded in concrete rather than the more commonplace gravel, reducing noise to a minimum.

* Engineers have also come up with nifty precautions against unforeseen accidents. If a train derailment, it will automatically slot into an extra track. Compact walls of concrete are in place to prevent the bulky carriages tipping onto adjacent tracks.

* A suspension system in the body of the platforms radically reduces vibration as the trains -- each weighing several hundred tons -- roll in. Thanks to this technology, the buildings close by at Potsdamer Platz and the government quarter won't shudder every minute as the locomotives trundle through.

But of all the fancy innovations, the fanciest may be the loudspeaker system. It's almost impossible to make sense of the garbled, barely audible announcements in most of Germany's train stations. But in Berlin's Central Station, sound engineers have created speaker system that make the computer-automated announcements crystal clear and understandable.

Now that I have this almost out of my system, photos of the UP 844 coming soon!