> "TC" <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> schreef in bericht 
> news:4a8dfce7$1@news.povray.org...
>> Well, travelling with a steamer is an overrated experience - like most 
>> things we regard as quaint or romantic.
>>
>> Very nice if you do it from time to time, for pleasure, when you are in 
>> for a bit of romance. Beatuful to behold, especially on pictures.
>>
>> But when have you do it often, every week, then the charming experience 
>> becomes less so. I remember how everbody rushed off to close the carriages 
>> windows whenever a tunnel was near. If you forgot - or did not know the 
>> line - let us say it was not very pleasant.
>>
>> We all are longing for the past, but we tend to remember just the pleasant 
>> things. Rural life, 40 years past, was it nice? If in winter you had to go 

>> doing it in high summer, when the flies were swarming and the odour was 
>> horrible. No warm water boiler (you heated bath-water once a week on the 
>> coal stove), no showers, coal ovens as heating in the winter. That was 
>> rural life in East Germany in the late sixties and early seventies...
> 
> I certainly do agree with you, and in East Germany that experience remained 
> longer too. We (oldies) have now forgotten (younger generations never 
> experienced it) about how the cities smelled and looked in winter in the 
> 1950's in most parts of Europe: coal and wood burning in every appartment, 
> smelly cars and trucks (much more than nowadays), smog... We complain about 
> pollution but forget that already a very long way has been travelled.
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
Not by personal experience, but just by looking at old photographs on 
the Montreal skyline dating back to the 30's and 40's, then going to the 
approximate place from where those photos where taken can be instructive.

Back then, from the Mount Royal, you just can't see the horizon, in any 
direction. There was that low lying bank of dark gray smoke in the way.
Now, with a population over 20 time larger and largely more than 1000 
times more cars in the streets, you can see the horizon.
(most of the areas now covered by the city where fields)

Back then, the outer wall of any brick or granite house more than 5 
years old where mostly black.
Now, those same walls have recovered ther original colours, mostly due 
to the rain.

And, now, old peoples that lived during that time are complaining about 
the polution levels we expeiencing now... And say that in ther time 
there was no polution.
In my view, it's just that back then, nobody imagined that the polution 
could be mesured. Some did'nt even know of the word...

Now, there are trees in the city that bear some moss and/or lichen. 20 
years ago, NO trees had any moss nor lichen.


Alain

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You are completely right. While this was before my time, here is a link to 
"The great smog of London 1952", three days of smog causing 4000 dead, 
leading to anti-pollution legislation.

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/X20L/themes/1388/1111

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Alain schrieb:
> Back then, the outer wall of any brick or granite house more than 5 
> years old where mostly black.
> Now, those same walls have recovered ther original colours, mostly due 
> to the rain.

This is how the spires of the Cologne Cathedral look like today:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Koelner-dom-spire.jpg

And this is a photograph from ca. 1880:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Cologne_Cathedral_Tower.jpg

Note that the cathedral is - at least in parts - 750 years old. The dark 
color seen today is almost exclusively from soot, probably most of it 
from the nearby central railway station (the cathedral is just some 100 
meters from the platforms).

The soot has "eaten" its way so deep into the stone that any attempt to 
wash it off is futile. Only in the process of restoration of other 
damage does the cathedral regain its original bright color again in some 
sections.

Man, that must have been a beautiful building!

> And, now, old peoples that lived during that time are complaining about 
> the polution levels we expeiencing now... And say that in ther time 
> there was no polution.

Well, the pollution was entirely different. I'm not sure whether it was 
any better or worse back then: I'm sure it was more obviously bad, but 
given that we're consuming far more energy these days, I guess the grand 
total of today's emissions is just as bad.

For instance, there appears to be a correlation between particulates 
(which weren't that much of a problem in historic times, most of the 
emitted sold matter having been bound in larger, visible particles) and 
pollen allergies (i.e. people seem to more readily develop hayfever in 
regions with strong particulate pollution).

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> High!
> 
> Jim Charter wrote:
> 
>> You remember steam locomotives???  I'm gobsmacked!
> 
> 
> Here in (Western) Germany, the last ones were put out of operation in 
> 1977... so I would not be too young to remember regular steam trains, 
> but I hardly can remember any travels by train at all in my childhood 
> days, as my parents both had a driving license and for a family of four, 
> travelling by car was much cheaper than taking any train back then.

I also remember steam trains from my young days, but also not from 
riding them, rather from living near a train station (freight, not 
passengers, however).  Our house was about half a block from the tracks, 
and I remember that it would shake when the trains rolled by.  Of 
course, this got to be so normal it became barely noticeable.  But I 
also remember when we had out-of-town relatives visiting us who had kids 
around my age (pre-teen at the time), trains were a novelty to them and 
they'd run out to the street to be able to see them when they heard or 
felt them.

> Nowadays, I'm a die-hard train traveller (no car and no license - it's 
> my ecological creed!),

Well, I'm still not a train-traveler, and since I've lived virtually my 
whole life in Southern California I can't get along without driving a 
car.  It might not be politically or ecologically correct, but it is a 
reality.  :-)  I got my first license when I was 16, I'm now 72 and NOT 
ready to give up my car.

>                        but I never had the chance to ride on a "museum 
> train"... which would not please me that much, as I'm more into 
> hyper-modern high-speed trains (as you see in my current POV-Ray 
> project), zooming across France in a TGV or doing Japan by Shinkansen, 
> that's me!

One "museum train" I have ridden is in the redwood area of Northern 
California (spent MANY vacations camping in that beautiful area).  This 
is an old redwood logging train that is now strictly a tourist 
attraction.  It's called the Skunk Train -- it got that name in the 
logging days because they said you could smell it long before hearing or 
seeing it coming.  (It's no longer smelly, of course, but they kept that 
historic name.)  Check their website, www.skunktrain.com, to see the 
type of scenic area it goes through.

> See you in Khyberspace!
> 
> Yadgar
> 
> Now playing: Juan Charrasqueado (Mariachi Nacional)

      -=- Larry -=-

Now playing:  Art of the Fugue, The New York Woodwind Quintet

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> A long day's work. Pure SDL job so far. Still a looooooooooooong way to 
> go though.
> 
> Comments so far, anyone?

   Very good modeling... can I guess you did come up with the rad-proximity
hack just for this? ;)

   I'm trying to remember the name of the guy that years ago modeled some
very detailed and accurate trains with POV-Ray CSG... well, I give up... my
memory is usually good for names, but this time I had to google it: it was
David S. Merchant :

   http://www.nesys.com/images/pov/3d_berk.html

   Seems he is inactive for some years now: his page wasn't updated for 10
years. I hope he is doing well...

--
Jaime

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Jaime Vives Piqueres schrieb:
>   Very good modeling... can I guess you did come up with the rad-proximity
> hack just for this? ;)

Indeed. You gotta have dirt on these things - *lots* of dirt - and it 
must match the detail level of it, so it's probably a safe bet that a 
df3-based approach is prohibitive. Memory consumption should be ok (some 
300 MB of raw data should give me a resolution of 0.5 inch, which should 
suffice), but generating that data with a trace()-based SDL script... 
*DO NOT WANT!* >_<

>   I'm trying to remember the name of the guy that years ago modeled some
> very detailed and accurate trains with POV-Ray CSG... well, I give up... my
> memory is usually good for names, but this time I had to google it: it was
> David S. Merchant :
> 
>   http://www.nesys.com/images/pov/3d_berk.html

Duh. Not bad, just about what I'm going for (except that it's a 2-8-4, 
not a 2-8-2, but my choice was just due to what blueprints I could find 
on the net for free).

Though this work of his appears to be actually even closer to what I 
/really/ want:

http://www.irtc.org/irtc/irtc?_n&pg=ViewSubmission&id=StillImages_May-June1999_giants.jpg

Unfortunately I don't have blueprints of such a giant. And even more 
unfortunately, Dave didn't publish the SDL code... *DO WANT!* >_<

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> Alain schrieb:
>> Back then, the outer wall of any brick or granite house more than 5 
>> years old where mostly black.
>> Now, those same walls have recovered ther original colours, mostly due 
>> to the rain.
> 
> This is how the spires of the Cologne Cathedral look like today:
> 
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Koelner-dom-spire.jpg
> 
> And this is a photograph from ca. 1880:
> 
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Cologne_Cathedral_Tower.jpg
> 
> Note that the cathedral is - at least in parts - 750 years old. The dark 
> color seen today is almost exclusively from soot, probably most of it 
> from the nearby central railway station (the cathedral is just some 100 
> meters from the platforms).
> 
> The soot has "eaten" its way so deep into the stone that any attempt to 
> wash it off is futile. Only in the process of restoration of other 
> damage does the cathedral regain its original bright color again in some 
> sections.
> 
> Man, that must have been a beautiful building!
> 
>> And, now, old peoples that lived during that time are complaining 
>> about the polution levels we expeiencing now... And say that in ther 
>> time there was no polution.
> 
> Well, the pollution was entirely different. I'm not sure whether it was 
> any better or worse back then: I'm sure it was more obviously bad, but 
> given that we're consuming far more energy these days, I guess the grand 
> total of today's emissions is just as bad.
> 
> For instance, there appears to be a correlation between particulates 
> (which weren't that much of a problem in historic times, most of the 
> emitted sold matter having been bound in larger, visible particles) and 
> pollen allergies (i.e. people seem to more readily develop hayfever in 
> regions with strong particulate pollution).

Conserning hay feever and other alergies, there is a possible corelation 
with the general hygien levels and the use and over use of cleaning.

When a baby or chold imune system is not sufisiently solicited, it don't 
learn to make the difference between harmfull things, like virus and 
bacteria, and hamless things like odrinary dust, earth, polens and some 
food stuff.

Some studies seems to demonstrate that a baby who grew in a aseptised 
environment could be about 1000+ times more suceptible to devlop 
alergies than one who grew in a more hygien relaxed environment.



Alain

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"Alain" <aze### [at] qwertyorg> schreef in bericht 
news:4a907307$1@news.povray.org...
> Conserning hay feever and other alergies, there is a possible corelation 
> with the general hygien levels and the use and over use of cleaning.
>
> When a baby or chold imune system is not sufisiently solicited, it don't 
> learn to make the difference between harmfull things, like virus and 
> bacteria, and hamless things like odrinary dust, earth, polens and some 
> food stuff.
>
> Some studies seems to demonstrate that a baby who grew in a aseptised 
> environment could be about 1000+ times more suceptible to devlop alergies 
> than one who grew in a more hygien relaxed environment.
>

That seems indeed to be true. It is often adviced nowadays (to children 
*and* adults) not to be afraid too much of a little dirt... especially in 
the cities. Country people are far less subject to allergies and such. They 
have acquired a better resistance.

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> "Alain" <aze### [at] qwertyorg> schreef in bericht 
> news:4a907307$1@news.povray.org...
>> Conserning hay feever and other alergies, there is a possible corelation 
>> with the general hygien levels and the use and over use of cleaning.
<Snippage>
> 
> That seems indeed to be true. It is often adviced nowadays (to children 
> *and* adults) not to be afraid too much of a little dirt... especially in 
> the cities. Country people are far less subject to allergies and such. They 
> have acquired a better resistance.
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
Judging from personal experience, and comparing notes with another "old 
F***", in our families the allergies are few.  He has none, sharing this 
with most of his family, I have two, blueberries and penicillin.  Both 
of us were raised in basically a farm environment, he being raised on 
the family farm, me being raised next to several farms.  This included 
going into the old barns with floors of dirt and "other things", with no 
ill effects that we know of.  I go one step further than he, I have no 
sensitivity to poison oak, ivy or sumac.  However I am aware that if I 
expose myself too much, I could develop that.

And we both can remember the black smoke of steam trains, but I seem to 
remember that the first diesels we saw were also pouring black smoke. 
At that time, no coal, just oil burning for the steamers.

Rich.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> A long day's work. Pure SDL job so far. Still a looooooooooooong way to
> go though.
>
> Comments so far, anyone?
>
> (Anyone can guess the engine type already? Um, well, not bloody likely I
> bet..)
>
> Next thing on the agenda: Get the square-ish firebox fused with the
> round boiler... I wonder how I ever gonna make /that/...

This reminds me of a train I modelled several years ago (the royal scot) it was
pretty much the last image I did, in fact the effort probably finished be off..
;-) Hope it doesn't have the same effect on you..

The image and source is on the irtc site:

http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2006-08-31/oldroyal.jpg

I even had a go at animating the wheels..

Sean

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