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D.I.Y. Trains

Jesse Walker | 7.6.2006 3:10 PM

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Hooray for human ingenuity.

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NEXT: Will Voters Feel Big Love for Mormon Mitt?

Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. Pro Libertate   20 years ago

    I think we've found the solution for Amtrak.

  2. jp   20 years ago

    I thought you were going to get that server fixed once I subscribed?

  3. Pro Libertate   20 years ago

    I know why they won't give up the slow server! It's the one Spock built out of stone knives and bearskins back in the 1930s. Reason keeps it out of sentiment.

    Hey, that's the best explanation that I can come up with.

  4. smacky   20 years ago

    They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris"

    Another testament to the sheer awesomeness that is Chuck Norris.

  5. Jake   20 years ago

    Egads! No safety features, no driver training, no licenses? Why DO the Cambodians hate children so much? 😉

    Jake
    (who says more power to em!!!)

  6. SR   20 years ago

    "Another testament to the sheer awesomeness that is Chuck Norris."

    Did you know Chuck Norris once single-handedly towed a line of 500 coal cars from Wyoming to his home in LA so that he could hold a BBQ for all of his friends?

  7. jf   20 years ago

    I wonder if these railroads allow pandas.

  8. mike in ftw   20 years ago

    Sweet, I wonder if BNSF would mind if I built a motorcycle that ran on rails so I could avoid speeding tickets and DWIs. I live quite near the tracks...

  9. AC   20 years ago

    Sweet, I wonder if BNSF would mind if I built a motorcycle that ran on rails so I could avoid speeding tickets and DWIs.

    There's an interesting thought. You would still technically be DWI, but it would be difficult to harm anyone but yourself--it's not like you could swerve into traffic and kill someone. Plus, it would really spice up some engineer's evening.

  10. M'   20 years ago

    MONORAIL!

  11. Rex Rhino   20 years ago

    When I was in Phnom Penh, I witnessed a family of 5 sharing a little motor scooter. Husband, wife, and 3 little ones.

  12. Isaac Bartram   20 years ago

    When I was in Phnom Penh, I witnessed a family of 5 sharing a little motor scooter. Husband, wife, and 3 little ones.

    And I'll bet none of them had helmets on.

    Oh, the humanity!! 🙂

  13. Rex Rhino   20 years ago

    There's an interesting thought. You would still technically be DWI, but it would be difficult to harm anyone but yourself--it's not like you could swerve into traffic and kill someone. Plus, it would really spice up some engineer's evening.

    Even if it's safe, it is still sinful.

  14. Larry A   20 years ago

    The moral of this story is if we had a couple of pieces of bamboo we could run rings around the server squirrel.

  15. cynical bastard   20 years ago

    Actually, motorcycles (OK, motorcycle-engined carts - called "beshenaya taburetka") that run on rails are not unusual in the Russian northwest where you find a network of abandoned narrow gage lines. Heck, if you trust newspapers, those people even spontaneously developed a signal system.

  16. Stevo Darkly   20 years ago

    Every time Chuck Norris posts to Hit and Run, his comment goes through on the first try.

    (And never more than once.)

  17. Eddy   20 years ago

    If only I knew of this when I visited Cambodia. It would have been a wonderful experience. Now... what do they serve on the dinner train?

  18. Pro Libertate   20 years ago

    I don't believe in Chuck Norris.

  19. Horn Dog   20 years ago

    Drat! I thought that this was D.I.Y. Trannies!

  20. Anon   20 years ago

    I've read about these trains before. The BBC article doesn't mention it, but undoing the Khmer Rouge's work did not simply involve clearing the tracks, but also clearing the land mines placed along/around the tracks. Not just an ingenious effort, but a downright brave one.

    Anon

  21. Stevo Darkly   20 years ago

    I wonder if they ever have problems with guys in black bamboo tophats and twirly bamboo mustaches who tie bamboo damsels to the bamboo tracks because they can't pay the mortgages on their bamboo houses...

  22. Pro Libertate   20 years ago

    Stevo, don't underestimate the power of the bamboo. Professor Roy Hinkley was able to build a generator entirely of bamboo, after all.

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