Built like a Mercedes (?)

Actually, Japan declared war on the USA, followed days later by Germany.
The USA didn't "enter" the war, they were dragged into it.

 

That's very odd. So if I add a couple of carriages to an empty train my

Hardly, but it works well with a fully occupied train. If you missed that
point, you are more daft than you suppose me to be.

I commented plenty on freight traffic by rail. Do some research, you'll find
that not only is it far more efficient by rail, but that our railroads are
investing billions to expand service.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

In short, rail has a place in the overall transport scheme of things, but

False. Your claims are based on loads and routes that would be catered to
had there been, or if there is, a demand.

You are claiming rail service is inefficient due to lack of use. That is
false. Efficiency is not determined by use, but by capacity and capability
on a given amount of energy.

In short, rail is far more efficient at moving freight and people than other
modes of travel. Personal preference dictates what mode is used, not
efficiency. If rail were pursued as much as our energy use indicates that it
should, all of the services you mention would exist, and at reasonable cost.

Fact is, most of you would rather spend less money and burn more energy,
than conserve energy at a slight personal cost while helping both the
environment and our resources.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Would it not be more correct to say "...their collective ass..."? (I'm
thinking a collective anything is singular.)

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Tell that to the families of the thousands of American military personal

How about I just ask my friends who have BEEN there?

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

That is at variance to what I hear on the mainly right wing American posters
on alt.autos.toyota where there is only one decenting voice to the
overwhelming majority who believe both Toyota and Honda are leagues ahead in
reliability and longevity compared with domestic cars.
Rust has been a thing of the past on Japanese built vehicles that have been
imported here in the last 15 years. There was a time in the 1970's that they
developed bodywork holes you could put your fist through within five years.
That is historical and not representative of recent products.


European vehicles fare a bit better, but

Mass sellers always have cheaper parts. If European cars sold in enough
numbers the parts prices would reduce in the same way that seldom needed
Japanese parts have.

I am aware that huge American vehicles have a very low payload in relation
to their size and weight compared to European vehicles but that is only a
symptom of poor design by the big American manufacturers. Could it be that
some of their problems and decreasing market share is related to poor and
profligate design?
Toyota is going to overtake GM this year in volume terms. In profitability
it has overtaken GM long ago and customer retention is very high, which is a
prerecuisite of increasing sales.

You are ignorant of wear factors affecting automobiles. A car reaches its
operating temperature and wear is minimised.


Thus our

Tell that to the owners of Toyota and all the other Japanese vehicles who
consistently lead reliability and longevity ratings all over the World.

Is that so? A whole lot of your country has a55mpg limit while ours is an
universally ignored 70mph. Italy is inhabited by looney drivers and Germany
has no speed limits on some roads. I know of one owner of a British built
McLaren there who regularly drives at over 200mph on his commute.
Here in the UK speeds are generally kept down to 90mph or so because the
driving license is lost if speeds exceed 100.





This is

Heard it all before about various cars trucks plant machinery and everything
and it is bollocks. Japanese and exotic European cars would not be so
successful in America if this were true. Fact is the big American barges and
smaller cars that just don't drive as well as Japanese and European cars are
like dinasaurs, out of time. This is the reason Ford and GM are in such a
hole.

Actually very many cars make it that far. At least European and Japanese
cars do. I have a Mitsubishi Shogun that has 165000 miles on it that has
towed highly illegal loads far higher than it was designed for that is only
now slipping its first clutch. My Toyota is just on 100,000 miles in eight
years and it has only needed bulbs [two brake lights] and a rear wheel
bearing so far. Even the exhaust is like new. A friends Audi Allroad which
was serviced every 20,000 miles if it was lucky crossed 200,000 miles and it
is still running somewhere probably.

Your assertion that conditions are harder on cars in the USA is just
nonsense as anyone who has travelled extensively will know for certain.
Conditions are only really worse where roads are not metalled and where it
freezes really hard for long periods. These things cause increased wear not
your ridiculous assertion that long distance running causes it, which is
laughable if it were not so sad in that you actually believe that you know
your ass from your elbow.

There are huge numbers of pickups sold in Europe though a lower proportion
of total vehicles than in America. Very few have a payload of less than one
ton. The market for half ton payload trucks is almost non existant. OTOH
very few pickups have more than a 1.5 ton payload and most then buy 7.5 ton
gross forward control trucks which are driven without a special driving
license.

Huw

 

So if left for 10,000 to 15,000 miles as is normal in Europe they would not
survive?

Huw

 

Like taking those nice straight roads that go on for miles and miles?
Yes of course conditions vary from place to place in the same way Europe
varies from Finland down to Swizerland to Hungary down again to the bottom
of Italy. European cars have no problem in these varied conditions and
neither is there a problem with a Polish built car run in Sardinia which is
as much of a contrast in conditions as you will get anywhere.
You really should get out more.

Huw

 

Fortunately, when most of the U.S. was opposed to going to

Well Alan, I guess you forgot about Lend Lease destroyers (the four
stackers, as they were called), and the huge amounts of supplies and
milatary hardware shipped to England from 1939 to 1941 PRIOR to Pearl
Harbor. Further, I guess you forgot the guys who died on patrol aboard the
U.S.S. Reuben James in the North Atlantic while escorting a convoy. They
died as a result of a torpedo attack on the ship, with a loss of over 100
men on October 31st, 1941. This was just the first of (IIRC) four USN ships
sunk prior to war being declared.

In addition, all of these events were part of the reason that there is a
theory that FDR conspired to get us into the war. In order to continue
sending supplies to England, if not increase the amounts, it has been
supposed that FDR deliberately allowed Pearl Harbor to occur.

It fascinates me that not only do you not realize so much was done before
WWII started for the U.S., but that you don't know it despite the conspiracy
to which the events prior to WWII have given rise.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

You actually only entered the war when it became obvious that the USA

More rubbish than one bucket can hold.

First off, Lend Lease was signed March 11 1941. Prior ot that, executive
order placed miltary freight on its way to England. Thus we supplied Britain
far before we entered the war. Second, we entered the war, not because we
saw Britain in danger, but because we were attacked. (funny how we get
pissed about that sort of thing.) It was enough for us to supply GB with aid
and funding (some $50Billion) at the time.

As to Pearl Harbor, most of the fleet was NOT sunk on December 7th. Not only
were the carriers at sea, but IIRC, less than 10% of the ships anchored in
the harbor were sunk. If 10% is "most", then certainly you are correct.
Obviously, most of the world has a different idea of "most". More
importantly, Pearl Harbor and its infrastructure were not significantly
damaged. In fact, in less than six months, the "sunk" fleet so severely
damaged the Japanese fleet that Yamamoto knew he had been correct in his
predictions of eventual failure for Japan.

You people should really try reading a little bit.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

I seldom watch it and did not see that episode.

Huw

 

The fact is that trains use more fuel per passenger mile than cars.
This takes into account the amount of waste by trains moving rolling stock
to where it is next needed. On top of this is the fuel used by the average
commuter just getting from home and back to and from the station.
If trains were more energy efficient than cars they could easily compete
with the cost of running a car as an alternative. They would not even need
fuel that was subsidised [in the UK] to a tenth of the price of car fuel
and neither would they need huge amounts of public money on top.

This is a reference to US energy efficiency which does not take account of
rolling stock logistics which is well known to be a significant amount of
traffic which demands energy which is 0% efficient. In other words it should
be added to energy use figures for fuel used per passenger mile.
http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/rail/rail_energy.html

Huw

 

by Roosevelt or churchill?


cheers

 

So if left for 10,000 to 15,000 miles as is normal in Europe they would

Mine survive just fine. I have three cars over 100k, two over 200k.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Well duh. I don't get $40 bucks an hour to sweep floors.

You allegedly work for the auto unions, so if you aren't getting paid
that much to sweep the floor, it must be because you get paid to
sleep.

*************************
Dave

 

wellifyouaretoostupidtofuckingknowhowtowriteasentencecorrectlytheniwon'tbotherreadingyourbullshitbutthenagainyouprobablyaretoostupidtoreadthisanyhow

*************************
Dave

 

Top posting ignorance corrected...

Really. Here I thought that you were supposed to use capitalization.
ohwelliguessiwillwritelikeamoronjustlikeyou.

*************************
Dave

 

Yes it is relevant. Averages mean shit.

But my point is that there are a lot of really shitty cars made in the
world, and if you compare the number made per employee to the number
of Accords made, it is not an appropriate comparison.

Yes, because complacency was paramount until the Japanese began
selling better quality cars.

Yes, but who cares. Look for real American manufacturers like Toyota
and Honda. Ford and GM can't make good cars to save their jobs.

*************************
Dave

 

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 21:27:47 -0500, "Christopher Thompson"

You may not know this, but there are actually good quality news
readers out there, and outhouse express ISN'T ONE OF THEM.

Who knows, but whether it takes a week or billions of years, it is
renewable. It isn't like they taught you in grade school - oil did
not just come from dinosaurs.

*************************
Dave

 

Only top posters do.

Exactly. Which is why there are three forms of posting, one of which
is unacceptable.

The first method is bottom posting. It is very acceptable as long as
the poster is not a moron, and he/she understand how to snip
irrelevant portions.

The second method is inline posting. That is what I did above.
Something top posters can't understand.

The last method, and the only unacceptable one, was propagated on
Usenet by the idiot programmers at Microsoft, and is called top
posting. Top posters are too fucking stupid to understand that nobody
has any clue what they are talking about until they read the entire
unsnipped post below. Nobody does this, so after a while top posters
are only replying to each other, because all intelligent posters plonk
them within a few posts.

*************************
Dave