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| Re: Second Ave Alignment Change (637285) | |||
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Re: Second Ave Alignment Change |
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Posted by RonInBayside on Sat Jun 21 01:55:28 2008, in response to Re: Second Ave Alignment Change, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jun 21 01:39:39 2008. "I was only a motorman, but MY bet is that the design was allowed to clear interlockings south of the station, perhaps allow a short turn for perhaps the (Q) while the (T) did the "shuttle action" north of there, all sorts of possibilities. Given the limited scope of this project (let's face it, it's no longer than the old Culver shuttle with about as many stops - certainly not a gigantic project like replacing the lower Myrt or 3rd Avenue Bronx El) as a simple two -track system with layup north and a few crossovers, something as significant as a three tracked stop IS a significant thing."No, it's not. The shuttle services you're talking about are cute and can be useful, but are by no stretch necessary and are definitely superfluous with a limited budget. There are other Metro systems in the US that don't use three track stations and the sky didn't fall down on them. "Engineers don't put in superfluous things when budget is constrained." Even if always true (it isn't) this budget was NOT quite as constrained when DMJM+Harris designed the station. It is now more constrained, and three tracks at 72nd St is a "C" on the A-B-C order ranking. "First question out of any engineer is "how much you got?" Wrong! Depends on the engineer. Plenty of jobs have been overbuilt, or lost in competition, because the engineer insisted on gold-plating. Not every engineer does this, of course. But even in the current generation of SAS design, there was room to cut. "Bean counters of course never read the "technical specifications" as they just don't understand them" Actually, it turns out that the best engineering teams have the bean counters and engineers and customer working side by side, together. "I won't question you if you take an MRI of a kidney transplant patient, see apparent blurs and possible masses presenting forward of the vertebrae, and tell you that it's costly and inefficient to order a CAT scan for a visual overlay on top of the MRI and it shouldn't be done. Well, it was done anyway, and each of those spots was malignant. " Please don't spout nonsense at me. Doctors are just as capable of wasting money as anyone else with little or no benefit to the patient. Like engineers, not all doctors waste money, but some do, and they do it for stupid reasons. When doctors and system analysts work together, you actually get better medicine. "Bottom line, "gold plating" is done at the CONSULTING level, not where the metal meets the road." Wrong again. There are plenty of half-finished buildings (and all kinds of other projects, including airplanes and IT projects) in the US that suffered that precise malady. |
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