You can learn a lot from trains

Trains are an apt metaphor for many things in life. I'll spare you the obvious ones.

I was at the Helenelund train station today watching trains go by and was noticing how the wire that contacts the pantograph goes left to right and right to left from pole to pole. As I mentioned in the "pantograph" post, this is so that the contacts wear evenly and last longer. But the analogy with politics came to mind. It seems we need to wave left to right and right to left to prevent wear patterns and preserve the contact with the government.

There's more. The insulators that separate deadly amperage from the ground are made of polished and glazed ceramic. The smooth surface is chosen to prevent dirt, grime, and dust from clinging to it, especially when it's wet. I don't know what happens when it's raining and the whole thing is wet. I suppose the electrical shorts arc and cause it to dry until it gets wet enough to cause the next short? If you look at the insulators, they look like stacked bowls with about an inch of air between each one. This is to increase the distance the arc would have to go since the current flows on the surface of the insulator (easily explained with Maxwell's equations). My colleague R. told me all this and pointed out that it takes about 100,000 volts to arc one centimeter so when you see static sparks from carpet, there's a lot of volts involved. But volts don't kill. Amps kill; amps= current. So the insulators for the trains must have a heck of a lot of current. So what metaphor could one derive from this?

Here's the thing. I probably wouldn't have noticed the structure of the insulators or even wonder had R. not pointed it out. Yet they are so common. We see similar familiar things in people but often stop to understand why they are the way they are. It makes since when all the facts are out.

The train station was pretty quiet today because most Swedes had left the city as part of the Mid-Summer tradition. This triggered a little melancholy which reminded me of Bob Dylan's classic song "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry".


Well, I ride on a mail train, babe
Can't buy a thrill
Well, I've been up all night
Leanin' on the window sill
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don't make it
You know my baby will.

Don't the moon look good, mama
Shinin' through the trees ?
Don't the brakeman look good, mama
Ragging down the "Double E" ?
Don't the sun look good
Goin' down over the sea ?
Don't my gal look fine
When she's comin' after me ?

Now the wintertime is coming
The windows are filled with frost
I went to tell everybody
But I could not get across
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby
I don't wanna be your boss
Don't say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.


I suspect he'd have sang something about pantographs and insulators except he mostly saw diesel power or coal powered trains that had lonesome whistles that make you want to cry. Funny thing, though, after reading this over, it makes me laugh so maybe Bob was wrong, it doesn't take a lot to laugh.

The Pantograph

The pendeltåg gets it's power from overhead wires. The apparatus that facilitates electrical contact to the wires is called a pantograph. There's a lot of science that goes into these things. First they are places on the train to minimize the effects of air turbulence. The actual contacts are aerodynamically designed and the spacing is such that the bouncing and loss of contact is minimized. The wires above actually zigzag from pole to pole to get even wear across the pantograph contact pieces.

Some trains have two engines and multiple pantographs. One of the pantographs is used to power the engine, the other for the cooling equipment which runs even when the engines are off to keep debris out.

How did Superman Do it?

If you're standing on the commuter train (pendeltåg) platform (spår) and the marque says "se upp för passerande tåg" which means the next train is coming by really really fast and if you aren't where you're supposed to be you will die. Whne this train does whiz by, the ground shakes and you remember the Doppler effect. You can feel the giga mega zillion units of momentum (mass times distance divided by speed, kg x m/s). As the photo shows, the speed tops out at over 200 kilometers an hour, about 125 mph. I wonder how Superman could be more powerful than a locomotive. I can easy beleive he was faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings, but being more powerful than the Arlanda Express is just too hard to believe.


America should have more mass transportation but I honestly don't know how we'd idiot-proof the stations. There are no fences to prevent idiots from jumping on the tracks or drunks falling on them. In America, idiots and drunks win multi-million dollar lawsuits killing good ideas senselessly and encouraging even more people to become lawyers.

Yes, occasionally a person is killed in Sweden by a train or subway - usually a drunk person or a suicidal person. However, nobody sues. So the trains and subways keep on rolling, as they should. (P.S. My apologies to whomever I stole the photos from on Flickr.com.)

Bridges We Hope to Cross

Oil rigs might despoil the wilderness but a good bridge gets a waiver -- that's my feeling. Bridges have physical and symbolic beauty and Sweden has some nice bridges. The Oresund Bridge connects the southern Sweden city of Malmö to Copenhagen, Denmark, finished in 1999. It's the longest bridge in Europe that has both rail and automobile traffic. Wikipedia says "The bridge has one of the longest cable-stayed main spans in the world at 490 metres. The height of the highest pillar is 204 metres. The total length of the bridge is 7,845 metres, which is approximately half the distance between the Swedish and Danish landmasses, and its weight is 82 million kilograms. The rest of the distance is spanned by the artificial island Peberholm (Pepper islet) (4,055 m), named as a counterpart to the already existing Saltholm islet, followed by a tunnel on the Danish side. The tunnel is 4,050 m long, a 3,510 m long buried undersea tunnel plus two 270 m gate tunnels. The two rail-tracks are beneath the four road lanes. The bridge has a vertical clearance of 57 metres, although most boat traffic across Oresund still passes over the Drogden strait (where the tunnel lies). The bridge was designed by Arup."

A bridge in Uppsala (shown to the right) is impressive because it goes under the the water to let boats through. Usually, the bridge would go up to let boats go under or have draw bridge.

I stoll the photo of a "Sweden Bridge" from www.flickr.com. (Actaully I stole all these from flickr). It claims to be the biggest bridge in Sweden. My friend Ulf S. says: "I think the bridge is along the coast in Norrland called Vedabron. That part of the coast is called Hoga Kusten (High Coast)." Thanks Ulf, for identifying the mystery bridge.

Stockholm Public Transportation

Getting around in Stockholm is easy. There is an excellent subway system that connects with a commuter train system (pendeltag). I stole the pictures from Google Images. Most of the trains are very modern but there are some old ones: the government is slowly replacing the old ones with modern smooth & quiet ones. The system is as punctual as any in the world. The train staff works hard to stay on time because there pay is reduced based on tardiness.