Also, A METAL FRISBEE IS NOT A TOY
Ah, yes, BOOJUM! not remotely bothering with any of that piffle about peace and goodwill. That AMFINAT is a line from a song, cannot remember which song or artist, but it used to make Darling Daughter laugh, which is good enough.
We will get to the bit about TANK eventually, just be patient, because we're going to be going through literal trainwrecks beforehand. Art!
The Bob Semple. A Dalek and a John Deere had a baby -
This is a trainwreck of a tank. It is, without doubt, one of the worst tanks ever invented. Kiwis hang your heads in shame!
ANYWAY back to actual trainwrecks. One of the things that makes a train crash so devastating is the mass and velocity involved. A single locomotive can weigh 200 tons, and be pulling over ten times that in freight cars or commuter carriages. That's an awful lot of mass, which can be travelling at up to 75 PROUD IMPERIAL miles per hour, which means immense inertia, meaning a train cannot stop as would a car or even an 18-wheeler. A car travelling at 75 m.p.h. can take 400 feet to stop; a train travelling at that speed might take a mile, or 5,280 feet. Art!
This montage is instructive. In the first picture, thanks to a bend in the track, the driver cannot see what lies ahead. Thus when he comes around the corner he has only a few hundred yards to react and take action. The second picture shows when the brakes were applied, and the normal dull rumble sound of the train travelling becomes a thin metal screeching. Art!
The reason the truck is still intact, and not a collection of metal confetti, is because this was a commuter train, not a freight one, thus there was considerably less mass behind the hit.
"Yes but why no TANK yet?" I hear you question. PATIENCE! Also, Art?
Goose Creek, South Carolina, South Canada
This is the set-up, filmed from a bystander's car. In case you're not au fait with military hardware and 18-wheelers, allow me to point out that you're looking at an M109 'Paladin' self-propelled howitzer being transported on a lowboy trailer. Art!
THIS IS NOT A TANK
The Paladin is a 35-ton self-propelled howitzer. Yes, it has tracks. Yes, it has a turret. NO IT IS NOT A TANK. It's an artillery piece on tracks. The turret is so large because the artillery gun is a lot bigger than those used in tanks, and you needs lots of room to elevate or depress the weapon, as well as to accommodate the very large shells it uses. This vehicle's armour is a lot thinner than a tank's because it shouldn't ever be anywhere near the front lines. Art!
That, gentle reader, is a 'lowboy', it being a trailer that allows large items to be carried without the danger of hitting low bridges.
It may not be apparent, but that lowboy is stuck on the railway tracks and cannot move either forward or backward, which is bad news because - Art!
That's the locomotive arriving. Ooops. The truck driver, at the insistence of bystanders, had abandoned his cab, which is a good thing, because - Art!
It's not clear how long the train driver had to brake, but clearly it wasn't enough time, as he hits the lowboy. That's at least 35 tons being thrown aside as if it wasn't there. Art!
Part of the track infrastructure is destroyed, whilst the train keeps a-rolling. Art!
The Paladin's gun barrel is hit and causes the turret to whip around. Yes, a turret is designed to rotate, but under electrical power not train impact, and this will have stripped gears and possibly unseated the gun itself. Art!
Filmed by a different person, the train comes to a halt 23 seconds after impact, with the Paladin's turret having rotated three times before coming to a halt. The local news channel reported on this debacle, making that mistake all of you probably also made. Art!
NO IT DOES NOT! <pauses for blood pressure to adjust>. They did have a really good set of follow-up photographs I shall add. Art!
Despite happening over a year ago, Your Humble Scribe cannot find anything after that date about any consequences, which implies that the truck driver didn't suffer legal redress, possibly because witnesses said he tried almost until the train hit to release his kit.
Hopefully this has been a bit different from the usual military history, what book I'm reading, Mordorvia falling apart or malicious compliance.
On The Theme Of Railways
Look away if you're squeamish. This is another Darwin Award winner, concerning the unstoppable mass of a cargo train moving at 60 m.p.h. along it's tracks, and a doofus who chose to cross the tracks whilst futzing around with his phone. Art!
Conrad has seen idiots like this walking across the road, engrossed in their mobile phone, WHILST IN TRAFFIC. I keep telling myself that this behaviour will thin the herd of the mentally incapable; it's just I don't want to see it occur in front of me.
ANYWAY the entirely predictable happened and Doofus was spread along 100 yards of track when the train hit him, basically disintegrating his body.
Spare a thought for the cleaning crew brought in to clean up the tracks and surrounding terrain. There was so much - not sure what to call it, 'residue' or 'debris' - that it took them 6 hours to clean things up. Sounds like one of the worst possible jobs to have. Which is a whole other thread.
How Did This Ever Get Green-Lit?
No, not talking about how Uwe Boll made another movie, he gets tax breaks for filming utter tosh in case you wanted to know. No - I mean another entry from the 'Museum Of Failure' catalogue, this one being even more bizarre than usual. Art!
Here we see the Febreze 'Scentstories' CD player, which might not be the best way to describe it. You inserted a scent disk, then selected the aroma you wanted to - er - play? Nobody knew if it was a music or smells device, which meant it's appeal was limited and it died a death in 2004. Good. As you ought to know by now, Conrad has about 1% of the normal spell ability of a Hom. Sap.
Er - WHAT?
One of the things I like about researching stuff for the blog is that it introduces me to sub-cultures and communities I would never have realised existed. Here's one. Art!
Be honest, how many of you knew that 'Underwater chess' was a thing? 'One breath' sounds like there might be wriggle room, as people better at holding their breath have an innate advantage. Normally in a competition like this there would be clocks used to time each player's move but being liable to drown if you prolong your turn may, perhaps, adjudicate things.
Finally -
Conrad watched a Youtube clip of Franke Muniz being recently interviewed, and was somewhat horrified to discover that the young scamp who starred in 'Malcolm In The Middle' is now 40 years old. Art!
He's now a professional stock-car racer with NASCAR, having left Hollywood behind in 2006, and the normally churlish and truculent Conrad can only wish him well.
Still, 40. Dog Buns.
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