Rampant Paranoia and The Beech Grove Shops.

[videomaker]

Don't write off the tin hat crowd just yet.  Amtrak announced cut-backs in the jobs assigned to Beech Grove and impending layoffs.  (to make room for more prisoners)

  It appears that Amtrak has already wrote this one off, and either sold or leased it to FEMA..I guess we're getting ready for the next wave of earthquake or hurricane refugees,not to mention a suspected terroist holding facility...Then Amtrak can use them for laborers to fix the trains ! Ha 

[zugmann]

To be fair... how much stuff isn't made in china anymore?  Whomever controls the economy, controls the world... 

 

 I've read some of this stuff on the web and in the case of this particular strain of lunacy it seems to be more appealing to anti-Federalist/militia/survival types then the radical left/"NeoYippie" types, after all the latter tend to be pro United Nations. The two groups do seem to find common ground on some tin foil hat topics such as 9/11/01 conspiracies but it tends to be the White Nationalist/Impending Apocalypse/Turner's Diaries(Tim McVeigh's favorite read) followers that think the UN will invade the US (which from the perspective of many on the extreme left would probably be seen as desirable)....

 I read one guys rantings where he cited the number of Chinese containers (which he called "double stacked boxcars")going by on his local rail line as proof of an impending "one world government" takeover...

 

[selector]

Sonuvvaaa....!!   I watched the youtube video and made if for about four minutes.   Then, suddenly, there was a loud noise and I felt a horrific explosion in my face.  I realized I had fallen face first into my keyboard in sleep and splattered the keyboard with my nosebleed.

Apparently "saintbirgitta" didn't realize that if the government were intent upon smoking a great consipiracy past the great unwashed, she wouldn't have been allowed to stand in a surveilled parking lot in view of a stealth diesel on which someone had forgotten to cover or paint over the "US Airforce" stenciled on the side.  Oh, wait, she was the stealthy one...no one monitoring the cameras could see her.  That was how she managed to get all this great (yawn) footage.

Darn, now I have to clean up my keyboard.

[Phoebe Vet]

I am a trained dispassionate investigator. I do not look at claims of anything at face value, or from the point of view of the reporter. Nor do I automatically dismiss claims as paranoid delusions just because the reporter has and obvious agenda. (Like UFO claims.)

So let me tell you what I got from the film.

If the government was building a secret detainment facility to inter people for nefarious reasons, what are the chances that you would be able to film it from the parking lot of the facility?

If the government was building a secret detainment facility to inter people for nefarious reasons, what are the chances that it would have ONE security camera?

If the government was trying to pretend that it is an Amtrak facility, what are the chances that they would park a yard switch engine in plain view clearly painted in military colors?

Ten foot barbed wire topped fences are common around both government and civilian facilities and were even before the current level of paranoia.

A location along railroad tracks is common for manufacturing, and warehousing facilities, both government and civilian.

The type of entry restricting hardware shown has been common at both government and civilian facilities, particularly civilian facilities doing government contract work for 40 years.

Color coding or numbering yard areas is common in storage facilities.

The fact that a building has never been heated or air conditioned before does not make it suspicious that it is now.

And last but not least FEMA ???????

Now for the other side.

The razor wire on the fence is tilted IN. That is a fence designed to prevent climbing it from the INSIDE.

I find it very hard to believe that our government would build concentration camps and or extermination camps. But then, ten years ago you would have had a hard time convincing me that our government would kidnap hundreds of people from foreign countries and would torture POWs.

[SALfan]

Oh puh-leeez.  I didn't watch the video but did look at the picture on the link.  That isn't nearly enough fence for a decent detention facility.  Older prisons have 40-foot brick or stone walls with gun towers.  Newer facilities have DOUBLE fences around 20 feet tall, with a paved perimeter road outside the fence for roving patrols.  No decent detention facility would have buildings so close to the perimeter fence, or a parking lot outside so near the fence.  Those are just the off-the-top-of-my-head observations from a non-expert in prison design.   

[vsmith]

Wait a minute, were talking about FEMA?

FEMA ????

?

The same FEMA that before during and after Katrina acted with all the efficiency like it was being run by the Three Stooges being aided by the Marx Brothers???

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are some truely stupid people floating around in this country, and most of them believe this kind of claptrap.

A noted huckster once said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average american"

[listen2this]

LOL....I got to play in there as a kid

Father worked in the loco shops

...look at me now...a stressed out Train Dispatcher 

[SchemerBob]

I was about ready to post a thread about this beech grove video but it looks like everybody allready knows about it. I hope it'll continue to be used for train repair, but some of that stuff did seem out of place for a repair shop.

Where is everyone? I thought this was a real "happening" place. Kind of looks abandoned in this video. Not that I believe this concentration camp stuff ... but it does look kind of strange.

[Ster1]

I'll be honest with everyone, I think I'm dumber now having watch that stupid video, to think the U.S. goverment is using an old railroad yard for a prison, that really makes me laugh.

Or maybe there turning it into spaceport for aliens

 

[passengerfan]

Maybe it is true, at least Beech Grove would at last be doing something useful.

It is the most useless car building facility Amtrak could have chosen. A far better choice would have been the Sacramento shops that had more experienced workers who could have passed along their trades to the younger people coming along. Sacramento shops were rebuilding SP passenger cars right up to the beginning of Amtrak.And don't forget the domes they turned out.

Al - in - Stockton

 

[n012944]

Maybe it is true, at least Beech Grove would at last be doing something useful.

It is the most useless car building facility Amtrak could have chosen. A far better choice would have been the Sacramento shops that had more experienced workers who could have passed along their trades to the younger people coming along. Sacramento shops were rebuilding SP passenger cars right up to the beginning of Amtrak.And don't forget the domes they turned out.

Al - in - Stockton

 

Sure, I am sure that great central location that Sacramento offers a national system would be a planners dream.  While Indy is not overserved with passenger service, it is but a short ride from the hub of the system.  BTW, Beach Grove has a pretty good history at rebuilding passenger cars, prior to and during the Amtrak era.

[listen2this]

"BTW, Beach Grove has a pretty good history at rebuilding passenger cars, prior to and during the Amtrak era."

I have a photo of a Locomotive they built from scratch...  next time Im In town I will have to scan it for ya... 

[passengerfan]

Don't want to burst anyones bubble but Sacramento Shops built hundreds of fine Steam locomotives among them some of the best 4-8-2s anywhere and rebuilt almost all of the SP prewar streamlined cars from Pullman Standard as well as numerous Harriman cars.

And when the diesels needed rebuilding Sacramento shops were at the forefront. They redesigned electrical cabinets and improved all first generation designes they rebuilt including there famous PAs.

I realize it wasn't central like Beechgrove but it would not have been the first time cars were deadheaded across the country for major repairs. Afterall many of the Superliners were wrecked in the west closer to Sacramento then Beechgrove. The Beechgrove argument doesn't hold water. But then again if they keep getting the rains in the midwest beechgrove might be treading water. It would have been no more difficult to send a car to Sacramento then it was to send one to Beechgrove. And Amtrak power would not have been a problem at Sacramento either.

Al - in - Stockton

[Anonymous]

how about being put away for reading this thread. or posting to it?

[n012944]

 

I realize it wasn't central like Beechgrove but it would not have been the first time cars were deadheaded across the country for major repairs. Afterall many of the Superliners were wrecked in the west closer to Sacramento then Beechgrove. The Beechgrove argument doesn't hold water.  It would have been no more difficult to send a car to Sacramento then it was to send one to Beechgrove. 

It is not the major repairs that is the problem, Beechgrove handled regular maintence of many of the cars.  So with your idea, any Horizon or Amfleet car that was do for its regular maintence would have to be deadheaded from Chicago to Sacremento and back.  For a company that can barley fund its network, this I think would be a deal breaker.  While Chicago would have been the best place by far for a shop, by the time Amtrak was looking, there was nothing to get.  I am sure that Sacramento was a great shop, but its location was just not good for a national system.

[MOPACnut]

Now all we have to do is park some auto-max cars at beech grove.  That would get their heads spinning...

LOL yeah i just found a video of an auto train on youtube labeled as "FEMA cars"

Old topic but i have to post this. NOW the Auto Max cars have been identified as the prison cars .

And to think some people have models of these on their layouts.

 

[trainboyH16-44]

This thread needs to be ressurected every year for the lolz. I get a kick every time I see this video.

[john_edwards]

I actually watched the whole video.  But when they showed the 50 year old light tower and wanted you to think it was for guards I knew thay have excaped from someplace where I don't want to go.  Those people are nuts!

John

 

 

[bnsfkline]

I swear, no matter where the rails are, there will be the world paranoia and rail haters. They would do just about anything to give the railroads a bad name....

[Phoebe Vet]

I think that is where they are hiding Elvis and the UFO that crashed in Roswell.

[Modelcar]

.....And in speaking of Beech Grove....I hope that facility now will be able to do repairs needed to pass. cars and other rolling stock as it appears more steady money {I.6 B / yr..?}, will be funding Amtrak.....

[MOPACnut]

 Well somebody finaly got fed up with it and did their own video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRF_fiKdn8g

Kinda' blows holes in the other video

And here's another. Of cars being loaded into the "prison cars" (auto Maxes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4awAVvosBI

Anybody got some interior shots of the 2 types of articulated carriers and regular ones?