/lit/ - Literature

A great book. I would recommend it. If you enjoy trains, you will enjoy it. :)

>Although Churchward had retired in 1922, he continued to live in a GWR-owned house near to the line at Swindon, and he retained his interest in the company's affairs. He never married.[32] On 19 December 1933, now with poor eyesight and hard of hearing, he was inspecting a defectively-bedded sleeper on the down through line, when he was struck and killed by a Paddington to Fishguard express, pulled by No. 4085 'Berkeley Castle'.

He died doing what he loved

>>14692226
Tell us why you like trains anon?

>>14692240
What a great man indeed!

Saluted.

>>14692242
They are comfy. There is nothing like looking out of passenger train on a cold winter day and seeing the snow. I believe Yasunari kawabata wrote a book that opened with that very scene. The Snow Passage I believe is the name.

Unironically, trains are the best mode of transport of a society that boths want to respect the environment, but also wants modern convenience. They can be built easier than roads over long distances and don't disrupt the environment as much as paving over a huge two lane highway would. Obviously they are more efficient as well, given the fact you don't need a single car for each person. Obviously trains can't do everything, but we'd do better with a lot more of them and a lot less cars.

>>14692271
As someone who traveled in bursting full carriages to London for work every day, I would like to disagree. That commute was one of the worst experiences of my life.

the aeroplane retroactively refuted by yours truly

>>14692217
He's my third favourite rail and locomotive engineer—first and second being George (buried in my home town) and Robert Stephenson, respectively.

>>14692240
>He never married.
based

>>14692292
I don't think the issue is the train anon, it's the infrustructure that fails to keep up and the people who inhabit it.

>>14692240
/ourguy/

>>14692271
>Yasunari kawabata wrote a book that opened with that very scene. The Snow Passage I believe is the name.
snow country?

>>14692328
Yeah that's it!

>>14692271
>trains are the best mode of transport of a society that boths want to respect the environment, but also wants modern convenience.
Absolutely, and to take Heideggerian terminology into this, it is the travelling dwelling, at rest in itself, the significant change of which resides a heart of being in itself. But more sentimentally and eternally, it is a cherished moment through which we escape the cancer of modernity in all its ugliness, and even in general the reminders of society, to be faced with the beauty of countryside and the joy of a movement in this world. Truly, an ugly train-trip is no train at all, for it denies its very ideal and implicit design.

>>14692332
Absolutely based. I wish I knew German to understand Heidegger better. Any intro to him you would recommend anon?

>>14692299
Ugly and arcane. A pure mutuality of necessity.

>>14692331
Will read it.

>tfw this thread has me watching train rides through montenegro on youtube
>tfw closing my eyes and imagining that M.R. James story i read recently where he meets a nice gentleman on the train on his trip to the country and they become fast friends

>>14692331
sounds comfy, i'll check it out.

Favorite book.

>>14692332
also, its a whole lot safer than cars. i honestly can't believe cars are a thing, like if i had kids i would be scared to death of them riding in a car, let alone driving one on a highway. just the thought of a hypothetical wife and children driving alone on the highway without me gives me anxiety.

Hi, im really imterested in reading Col. Rogers books. Where should I start? can I jump right into GJ Churchward? Or should I start with Locomotive engineers?

>>14692347
>that M.R. James story i read recently where he meets a nice gentleman on the train on his trip to the country and they become fast friends
sauce?

I love multi day train trips, sleeping on a train is sublime. Taking a shower on one is a challenge though.

>>14692371
start with the greeks, or most of his work will go over your head

His idea to increase piston size was alright but in the long run probably more burdensome than just using smaller ones and dealing with the pressure loss

>>14692371
I recommend to start with his mentor, Joseph Armstrong. He was an English locomotive engineer and the second locomotive superintendent of the Great Western Railway. His younger brother George and one of his sons ("Young Joe") also became outstanding engineers in the employment of the GWR.

>>14692390
We need a chart on locomotive lit

>>14692410
Are there any good stories that simply take place on a train?

Public transportation should be free. Prove me wrong

>>14692413
this. i'm hungry for train lit now

Any anarcho-syndicalist train books?

>It's a /lit/-/n/ crossover episode

based

>>14692422
It can be free for the end user if you're willing to accept a more inefficient and costly service. It's usually not worth it. If a private company can survive then we should defer to it because due to market forces, they actually have the incentives necessary to provide the best service at the smallest cost possible.

You'll never see a private company laying excess track in roundabout ways simply because they get paid for the amount of track they lay down all while using the lowest quality iron and wood, unless of course the government opts to pay them for it which has happened. Those private companies are much less likely to hire unqualified people just to meet some diversity quota and those people they do hire can be much easily fired, so bad employees can actually be rooted out. This sort of thing is much more difficult to do with government employees, especially if they're unionized.

>See this thread
>Know exactly what's going on
>Can't tell if I love it or hate it

>waah! its coming right at us!!
Thumbs up if you got the reference. Also shout out to /tv/

>>14692344
Most people seem to go through a faze of amazement, disliking then acceptance of the things he was right/wrong about, and sometimes just autistic about.

You could do that book on time which is, if I can remember correctly, a collection of lectures he did in the mid-twenties and which later became Being and Time. But I have also heard it is incredibly boring, if you have the right knowledge of the history you can jump right into Being and Time.

Though I think his central value only really shows in his later works where in he seemingly rejected much of the systematisation in favour of a more poetic, truthful belief. Take this for example:
>"God lets the oppositional will of the ground operate in order that might be which love unifies and subordinates itself to for the glorification of the Absolute. The will of love stands about the will of the ground and this predominance, this eternal decidedness, the love for itself as the essence of being in general, this decidedness is the innermost core of absolute freedom."

>"Philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poeticizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering [Untergang] for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder. Only a God Can Save Us."
>"For us contemporaries the greatness of what is to be thought is too great. Perhaps we might bring ourselves to build a narrow and not far reaching footpath as a passageway."

For a secular man of had bound himself completely to a "questioning mode of being", no matter the sacrifice, to say such things, and of his genius, is truly amazing to read.

His fourfold way is also something very interesting which I encourage you to look into at least briefly:
>The phenomenon of dwelling was one research theme in architectural phenomenology. Much of the way it was understood in architecture was shaped by the later thought of Martin Heidegger as set in his influential essay: "Building Dwelling Thinking." He links dwelling to what he refers as the "gathering of the fourfold," namely the regions of being as entailed by the phenomena of: "the saving of earth, the reception of sky (heavens), the initiation of mortals into their death, and the awaiting/remembering of divinities." The essence of dwelling is not architectural, per se, in the same manner that the essence of technology for him is not technological per se[12][13].

>>14692502
Its called a flash meme. Ill give it a day or two

>>14692367
Well yeah when a woman's driving, but I suppose in a train it really is more of a journey, no real practicality, only the journey through somewhere. Streamline whereas a car is an active and necessarily focused activity. At least on a high way or something like that.

In the country, cart trips can be max-comfy as well if done right, but there certainly isn't really much of a sense of "dwelling", though sometimes in something like a long bush track there can be, the entrance into the halls of the dead appearing from afar, that otherworldly element of which you are driving towards but can safely be assured will not reach no matter how fast the car pursues.

>>14692413
This really should be called "The Track" because almost the entire book revolves around catching trains.

>>14692413
A lot of Japanese literature has train scenes.

>>14692292
Who the Hell do you think you are? Are you any kind of commuter? Anybody know who you are? Maybe everybody else wants to enjoy the peaceful scenery. This one of the most important forms of transportation in all of history, who are you? WHO ARE YOU?! You miserable, presumptuous, no-ticket. You're no commuter. A commuter respects the scenery that serves as the foundation of the journey. You obviously don't have a ticket. You don't have enough respect for yourself or other people, or what it is to transport yourself. And trains really are a form of creativity. And I'm an NYU Engineering School graduate, sucker! And the School of Transcontinental Rail, and the Academy of Transportation University of San Francisco. YOU SUCK! You're a no-ticket! If you really had a ticket, go travel. Get yourself a trip. Instead of ruining the ride to work for everybody in here. You're a DISGRACE! You are everything that's gone wrong in this world. You're a self-consumed, no-ticket, mediocre piece of shit! And I've earned my right to say it. Okay? I moved 200,000 people across this country in 1975. I gave Bob Dylan his first voyage. Who the fuck are you? I rode the Orient Express in 1966. Who the fuck are you?! You’re nothing. You’re nothing. You are nothing. And you will never be anything, never. How dare you? How dare you?

>>14692529
your blown out vagina is a flash meme. i give it a year or two before you hit the wall.

>>14692271
saw the pic and thought "oh wow. comfy train station pics that aren't in Japan".
I am disappointed.

>>14692610
filthy no-tickets, when will they learn? day of the ticket-check when?

>>14692217
I think it's based and redpilled

>>14692610
fucking BASED

>>14692653
>day of the ticket-check when?
soon

That feel when no comfy kotatsu train.

>>14692696

>>14692456
Sorry but this tram is out of business.

>>14692731
didn't post image

>>14692653
Nothing makes a fare-dodger freeze,
Like the conductor's cry of "Tickets please!"

>>14692271
Pure bliss. I wouldn't even want to read, just stare out the window and maybe listen to music

>>14692271
I love how dank the foliage is in Japan. Its just like a wall of greenery. Is it just because of all the steep hills or something?

>Bi-trackism instead of based mono-track
What trainlets

i just ordered a copy a couple minutes hoping it will be good. based locomotive enthusiast

Why didn't jet powered locomotives ever take off?

>>14692240
>never married
>did what he wanted to do and wrote about it
>died doing what he loved
/ourguy/

>>14692794
literally: they were too heavy

figuratively: too fast for rail, and inefficient besides. there is no replacement for displacement.

>>14692502
how could you not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgUEXe019l0

Who is the Nietzsche of train engineering?

>>14692840
you already posted it: amtrak.

treats humans like they deserve. like cattle, only existing to support it. it even makes the government serve it instead of the other way around.

>A provodnitsa prods at the ice forming beneath a carriage.

>>14692878
God I wish that was me

>>14692840
Why does new York have a giant train station right in the middle of the city?

tfw there are no comfy locomotive or passenger trains in your area or entire continent.

>>14692930
for transportation obviously
>anon are you a retard?

>>14692938
nigger?

>>14692956
no north america

read locomotive theory

>>14692962
there are trains all over north amercia, what are you talking about? sure they're not as comfy as tha japanese or alpine ones, but they're comfy still.

>>14692938

This is terrible disaster.

>>14692953
Look at how inefficiently large that area is though. Its like if you had a huge empty parking lot beside wall street.

>Pullman Express train carriage, 1929

Dignified

>>14692240
>On one occasion, the GWR's directors confronted Churchward, and demanded to know why the London and North Western Railway were able to build three 4-6-0 locomotives for the price of two of Churchward's "Stars". Churchward allegedly gave a terse response: "Because one of mine could pull two of their bloody things backwards!"

absolutely based

>>14692993
All the urban ones for daily commute aren't worth taking and all the comfy ones cost more than a plane ticket would

>>14693006
truly a sign of the times we live in where effieciency>form. industry>beauty. action>contemplation.

>>14693030
Only the wealthiest people could ride in those trains though and it's not like they don't still exist

>>14693060
JFC are there really trains like that? Looks like a goddam plane.

>>14693060
that looks so pleasant

>>14693089
Thats just the dining room

The train that single handedly ended WW1

Daily reminder that Camus's decision to take a car instead of a train like originally planned ended up killing him.

>Camus had not originally intended to return to Paris in that Facel Vega; his wife, Francine, and their teenage twins, Catherine and Jean, had traveled to Paris by train. Evidently, Gallimard had convinced Camus to ride with his family; the return half of a train ticket was found in Camus’s pocket

Cars, not even once

>>14692742
Based.

>>14692240
based

just ordered this legend's book.

>>14692240
>No. 4085 'Berkeley Castle'
He can't keep getting away with it

>>14692742
read to the tune of dulce et decorum est. based, anon.

>>14692299
Gave me a good one

>>14693180
Day of the crash?

Probably just a made up story about Stalin but I still get a chuckle out of it

"In 1939 Stalin watched a movie "The Train goes East". The movie was tedious: train rides, stops...
— What station is that? – asked Stalin.
— Dem'ianivka.
— This is where I get off, – said Stalin and left the room"

>>14693365
based Uncle Joe

>>14693365
thanks for the laugh anon

>>14693060
ugly and characterless efficiency of the "elite".

>>14693514
agreed desu, looks like a quonset hut

what the fuck is up with all the locomotiveposting
is this a guenonfag forced meme

>>14693514
Unlike
>>14693006

>>14693590
Yeah it came from a guenon thread. Someone was like "what will the next meme be? some obscure book on trains" followed by some anon posting the OP book and now here we are

>>14693590
>>14693684
the thread it came from is literally still in the catalog. Nice bait

>>14693699
Why do you think the thread was made newfag?

>>14693590
Trains are just cool. You have to have read the entire western canon to "get" it

>>14693590
>YOU CANT LIKE TRAINS. IT-IT'S GUENONFAG I KNOW IT HE DID IT
t. paranoid schizophrenic

You actually are, go to a psychiatrist, tell him to come here and tell him why you think all of this is just one person. He would commit you to the loonybin where you belong

>>14693790
he's right though, it's just been you and me on this board for years now
i make all the posts except the ones you make (which i can recognize because of the content and writing style, it's pretty easy to tell)

>>14693790
Its the same vein of meme

>>14692878
>when the provodnitsa has found the ice forming beneath a carriage, she asks the male crew to remove it

>>14692413
Harry Potter

>>14692413
something something Agatha Christie.

>>14692930
That's Chicago.

Anons, is this the best book about trains? Are there any good comfy novels/histories to read apart from this?

Ah fuck I ordered the wrong one didn't I

>>14693992
Same thing essentially

>>14694208
Indian thought is always superior. Even if written by a foreigner, the mere fact that he was in that mystical country when he wrote it is enough for him to produce a masterpiece, in the footsteps of Shankaracharya (pbuh).

>But canal traffic declined rapidly once coal powered steam railroads ramped up in earnest. Rail had the advantage of being able to cross long distances of completely dry land, climb mountains, maintain year round service regardless of weather, and dramatically increase delivery speed. Traffic and revenue along the canals dried up just as the aging infrastructure needed costly maintenance. Watermills were replaced by more productive coal fired factories that no longer needed to be located next to rivers. Whole new tracks of land along railroads gained value while property along the canals stagnated and declined. The canal network suffered a slow death by attrition and neglect. Many mill towns have still not recovered economically. The American canal era lasted for seventy years.

Fuck trains

>>14692765
It's because Tokyo Prefecture aside they didn't cover it all in cement.

The train is the most civilised way to travel.

>>14692765
i'd guess it has something to do with the poulation desnity of rural jaan and ther eal estate industry. most forests in europe and america are basically farmed to grow wood for building, and we're constantly building new houses so we need a lot of wood, plus most of america is grasslands, so the forested ares are small in relation to the entire size of the country and the amount of people in it. that does look like a mountainous are though, and mountainous areas in america still look like that. if you want a train ride around a thick forest like that you can do it in the white mountains of new hampshire and the pacific northwest as well. also a lot of the apalachains look like that but idk if they have a lot of trains.

>>14694335
i would argue that blimps are, though trains are probably more comfy.

>>14692413
Kruetuzer Sonata

>>14694398
>blimps
How's the 19th century grandpa

>>14694324
Rural areas still exist in other countries

>>14694335
Wrong. Its lazy rivers

>>14694659
Rural areas are also massively deforested

>>14694667
based

>>14692765
Yeah, its all the really steep mountains

>>14694670
Maybe like farm land and the semi populated towns but there definitely isn't a shortage of forests in places like North America

>>14694708
>he doesn't know

Anyone got the link to the Project Gutenberg copy?

>>14692292
maybe that has more to do with london and its denizens than trains

>>14693775
based superchief poster

i know nothing about trains and decided to check /n/. now look at these. how can other machines even compete?

1/2

>>14694799
needs more Shina Corporation logos

2/2

seems like train autists are really into something

>>14692299
Airplanes are actually one of the worst inventions of all time. If I could ban them, I would.

>>14694799
>>14694808
Yeah they are pretty dope. Wish I was a bit more autistic about it to appreciate them more because they seem like beasts of machines

ohnonono look at this dood

>>14694832

Is that Edgar Allan Poe?

>>14693905
Murder on the Orient Express

>>14694848
I believe so

>>14694822
yeah but like the rest of industrial technology they are bad for the environment. we should use manual rowing powered trains with teams of hunky chads rowing the train down the track.

>>14694392
well there are overgrown tracks in Appalachia, but i don't know about working trains. you can see this general aesthetic all around the Appalachians though.

>>14694799
>how can other machines even compete?
They can't and don't go to /n/, filled with urban bugmen who cannot appreciate true majesty. Their IP addresses are recorded and they WILL be sent to the country side one day.

>In The Innocents Abroad, Twain described Egyptian railroad companies using fuel “composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose.”

>>14694848
it's buster keaton, he was an actor and he's fucking based

>>14694889
/n/ is one of many interesting places ruined by pseuds and tourism

>>14694889
based mao poster

>>14694889
Ignoring that China's urban population boomed by the millions under Mao.
>B-but the 18 million that moved to the country during the cultural revolution (going to pretend you said this, don't grill me on this)
That number is peanuts when you are talking about China

blessed thread

>>14692217
>>14692240
Im in a railroad engineering class at uni. I feel bad for the professor in a way.
Dude is in his 60s at least and all of his family worked in rail and he clearly has a passion for it.
Now he teaches this class, that people take but don't pay attention in. Instead they sit on their lap tops and watch videos or look at social media on their phones. Me and only a couple others pay attention.

Guy wanted to meet with everyone individually to hear if they actually had an interest in rail. My meeting with him ran over by 15 minutes because he was excited because id had family who had worked in rail and actually had a couple questions about the industry. Are all rail road men doomed to be crushed beneath the weight of what they love?

>>14695240
no, we'll bring it back after the race war. scrap every can and grinf the roads to dust. use the steel to lay new tracks. condense towns to actual towns instead of atomized zoning jurisdictions. cities made of marble and stone. wheat fields fertilized with the blood of niggers, kikes, and heretics. massive monuments to God. it will be glorious, and it will all be thanks to G.J. Churchward.

>>14695312
And they say utopias are unimaginable

pdf?

this work just oozes the passion of the author

>>14694493
Ha, seconding this.

I don’t think I would have remembered this alone.

>>14695312
>G.J. Churchward
(pbuh)

>>14694302
I feel like someone has to call out how thick this chicks legs are. God damn

Anyone else notice the train wheel on this book by Guenon? Coincidence or message from ٱللَّٰه?

Have you guys ever noticed that riding the train is a pleasant and relaxing experience, and driving is the exact opposite? I wish my city had more.

>>14695466
>driving
>city
there's your problem

>>14695466
cars are fucking terrible. oh how i hate them so.

>>14695475
They're both super cancerous, but I am depedent on it for employment (for now). At least the trains make it bearable

>>14695425
guenonfag is extremely autistic
autists tend to look up to other autists
so guenon was probably an autist too
the train wheel was probably put there because guenon liked trains
ergo, guenon was a train autist
QED

>>14695240
you have to go to university to drive a train? the fuck?

>>14695696
he said railroad engineering. not train driving.

>when /lit/ and /n/ join forces

/fit/ is officially dumped

>>14695703
We hate /n/ because it's mostly urban bugmen. I also hate the bus, the bicycle and the aeroplane which they adore. /n/ can go to hell.

>>14695721
They talk about city transportation because thats where all the transportation is. Do you expect them to talk about your local school bus route in your 500 person town or something?

>>14692217
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdsgKp-ku0k

>>14695739
t. Urban bugman

>>14692512
people thought the train in the film was really coming towards them CRINGE BILLED

>>14692413
Ironically the Polar Express is a comfy read.

>>14694208
All books on locomotives are good books

Trains in my city, Brisbane, are quite shit and always packed. They are also designed by a retard. For instance emergency buttons are placed on the walls besides the door where people lean so they are always getting accidentally pressed. There are also always a slew of cyclist dickheads taking their bikes on during peak times and blocking the entire middle of the entrance.

However they are still far better than driving or catching a bus and they seem to run on time for the most part. Bless this thread and each of you.

>>14697249
is this true?

>>14692271
true we should have trains and bicycles and trains should have a set of compartments for people to travel with their bicycles for those who want to travel somewhat long distances

>>14692332
so do city metro rides don't count as train rides?

>>14692332
>it is the travelling dwelling, at rest in itself, the significant change of which resides a heart of being in itself
what does that mean

>>14692240
RIP

>>14692905
this

>>14695696
Kek
I know this was probably a joke post but it's track design

>>14694240
>indiantraincarryingpassengersluggingonroofsandsides.jpg
yep very superior

>>14695425
buddha, ashoka, all these weird easterners with their obsession with cyclical existence were all train autists

>>14697258
It's one interpretation which is sadly infected by 20th century scholarly intertia, but it could be partially accurate if one subscribed to those ideas. Personally I think Churchward deserves better than to be seen through the lens of outdated pseuds like Nietzsche.