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Posted by MidlandMike on Friday, March 12, 2021 9:35 PM

The linked article says the box-jacked tunnel will be built under Route 528 just west if US 1.  Looking at Google Earth, this is where the expressway is already on a fill leading to a bridge that crosses over the FEC mainline and US 1.

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 11, 2021 10:29 PM

If I remember correctly we discussed the Goldenrod Road crossing a while back -- but I don't remember box-jacking being mentioned or discussed.  Same for the LIRR improvement project, where I remember seeing only bridge-raising projects.

I'd be interested to see the drainage plans for the completed structure.

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Posted by BaltACD on Thursday, March 11, 2021 10:00 PM

MidlandMike
 
Overmod
That they are essentially directional-drilling on a large rectangular scale implies to me that minimal clearance gage is in play... 

The linked article says "The underpass, once constructed, will measure 31 ft high by 43 ft wide, will be the length of a football field and will accommodate two trains side by side."

At 31 feet high it is being constructed to the current clearance plate which, I believe, requires 25 feet from top of rail to the bottom of whatever is over top of the rail.

I am wondering how far below Route 528 the jacked in structure will be?  I am GUESSING 10 or more feet below Route 528 so the bottom of the jacked in structure will be 41 feet or more below the grade of Route 528.  Wonder how far out the grade to the bottom of the structure will be extended from the structure?  With a 1% grade we are talking about 4100 feet in each direction.

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Posted by MidlandMike on Thursday, March 11, 2021 7:42 PM

Overmod
That they are essentially directional-drilling on a large rectangular scale implies to me that minimal clearance gage is in play...

The linked article says "The underpass, once constructed, will measure 31 ft high by 43 ft wide, will be the length of a football field and will accommodate two trains side by side."

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 11, 2021 10:37 AM

BaltACD
Which then begs the question - how much of a dip in the line of the right of way will their be and over how long of a distance?

Box jacking is inherently horizontal, although it could be started in a 'hole' or angled to a gradient.   That they are using box jacking in the first place and expect to be finished in 10 days implies that 528 at this point is on a berm of adequate height.  Obviously if the new line were to go 'over' there would be no need to 'tunnel'; they'd just build up embankments over time and just bridge the road at the end.  Looking at the aerial view you can see what a pain the necessary construction for a high-speed 'flyover' would entail...

Will the clearance plate only clear Brightline or will it be built to current Class 1 unrestricted clearance plates?

I can't imagine why freight would be operated on a HSR extension of this kind; if it were, the logical thing would be to regrade the approaches on 528 and install an actual overbridge at the crossing, not a particularly difficult piece of civil engineering even for MC's 'Highway bubbas'.  That they are essentially directional-drilling on a large rectangular scale implies to me that minimal clearance gage is in play...

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, March 11, 2021 9:55 AM

The clearance diagram may not be the biggest issue.  Considering that most of Florida is about 10 feet or less above sea level, drainage may be a bigger problem.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by BaltACD on Thursday, March 11, 2021 6:57 AM

blue streak 1
Bright line is going under 528

Which then begs the question - how much of a dip in the line of the right of way will their be and over how long of a distance?  Will the clearance plate only clear Brightline or will it be built to current Class 1 unrestricted clearance plates?

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Posted by rdamon on Thursday, March 11, 2021 5:34 AM
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Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 11:01 PM

Bright line is going under 528

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Posted by BaltACD on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 10:49 PM

blue streak 1
Brightline is going to build a tunnel under state route 528 by using a box jacking method.  They expect it will only take 10 days.  Does anyone know exactly how the method works ?  In a way it sounds line the way casings are jacked under RRs and roads but on a very big steriod ?.  The number of workers seem to indicate that workers will be working at the face ? 

Brightline set to make history with box-jacking method - Railway Track and Structures (rtands.com)

EDIT: Here is a link

Jacked Structures - Box Jacking

Considering the typical Central Florida elevations (or lack thereof) - who is going over and who is going under.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 10:27 PM

Brightline is going to build a tunnel under state route 528 by using a box jacking method.  They expect it will only take 10 days.  Does anyone know exactly how the method works ?  In a way it sounds line the way casings are jacked under RRs and roads but on a very big steriod ?.  The number of workers seem to indicate that workers will be working at the face ? 

Brightline set to make history with box-jacking method - Railway Track and Structures (rtands.com)

EDIT: Here is a link

Jacked Structures - Box Jacking

 

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, March 3, 2021 10:10 PM
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Posted by rdamon on Monday, November 30, 2020 11:54 AM

Spent the holiday with some windshield time in Central Florida.  Drove from Orlando to Cocoa along FL-528. Grading and bridge construction was in process along the whole route. 

There is a large stockpile of concrete ties at the intersection of 528 and Industry Road.

It is visible in the Google satellite view.

 

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Posted by CMStPnP on Monday, August 10, 2020 10:00 AM

Wow! Brightline ends agreement with Virgin Trains.    That was kind of sudden.   I guess they got sick of waiting for the capital pay in from Virigin.

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2020/08/08-digest-brightline-ends-marketing-agreement-with-virgin-group

 

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, August 8, 2020 4:49 AM

BaltACD
Human vision has a latency in the frame rate that the brain can handle.

This is almost completely different from the 'backward wheel' artifact.  You'd far better ask yourself the more basic question 'why does seeing backward-turning wheels at speed annoy me?'

As I recall from psychophysics, image-formation latency in people is about 19ms.  Substantial image change faster than that results in a blur, or due to human 'image processing' the disappearance of the thing changing faster -- hence the reason you can see the brake detail behind fast-turning car wheel spokes.  

Film on the other hand is shot not only at a fixed frame rate but with a shutter speed fast enough to eliminate more unpleasant motion blur as well as give varied depth of field and a couple of other effects.  Movies are a trick, a way of fooling the human perceptive system into thinking it is seeing smooth motion, but the actual information coded into the individual frames is massively reduced, and one very significant consequence is that phase information is lost.  The actual thing captured on the film at 'wheels backward' speed is like stroboscopic vision with the pulse rate slightly slower than the advance between identical spokes -- this being indistinguishable from the same wheel turned slightly backward at much lower speed at the same lighting repetition rate.

Far more 'fun' and annoying are some of the visual effects from CCD cameras, which can have really fast effective 'shutter speed' but long image-processing time and hence low effective frame rate separate from nominal resolution.  Propellers shot with these have all sorts of weird distortions in addition to what can be wildly varying perception of rotational direction.

Meanwhile there is a perceptual 'quirk' that recognition of a processed image in the brain can 'freeze' certain images; the original determination of that 19ms. acquisition was done stroboscopically to see how long an item needed to be illuminated for a subject to 'remember' details of it... the conscious memory taking much longer to form.  When I first joined SMPTE I had the bright idea that a vastly enhanced perception of dizzying speed might be produced by combining the two effects of blur and periodic capture, by shooting most frames with corresponding average blur but interposing periodic frames with high stop-motion resolution, a bit like the research into recognizable subliminals.  This worked remarkably well... at recreating precisely the confusion in image recognition that makes people disoriented and sick watching roller coasters and the like without vestibular coupling.  It certainly worked to enhance the thrill of speed ... the thrill of helpless speed where you have no idea where you'll be pulled next.

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, August 7, 2020 11:37 PM

CSSHEGEWISCH
The illusion is caused by the spacing and rotational speed of the spokes relative to the timing of film exposure from cel to cel.  Steam locomotive spokes are spaced differently and probably turn at a different rotational speed.

Watch a propeller aircraft engine after it has been started and try to visually figure out if the prop is moving clockwise or counter clockwise.

Human vision has a latency in the frame rate that the brain can handle.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Friday, August 7, 2020 9:51 PM

Something not entirely unexpected.  Virgin Atlantic declared Bankruptcy.  Bloomberg ( paywalled ) reports that Brightline has terminated its relationship with Virgin.  Virgin denies.

Brightline says it will go back to being called Brightline.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 10:02 AM

The illusion is caused by the spacing and rotational speed of the spokes relative to the timing of film exposure from cel to cel.  Steam locomotive spokes are spaced differently and probably turn at a different rotational speed.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by MidlandMike on Monday, March 9, 2020 10:26 PM

Flintlock76
That wagon wheels rolling backward phenomenon was noticed by Hollywood decades ago.  They figured out a fix but it just wasn't cost-effective, so they let it go figuring audiences would ignore it anyway.  They were right.

It occurs to me that I don't ever remember seeing steam engine driver spokes moving backwards on film.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, March 9, 2020 10:17 PM

Blue streak, the late Cole Palen, the creator of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome said the old engines were actually pretty good as long as you took care of them.  

Engine issues during the First World War were usually due to poor fuel, (the unleaded gas of those days caused carbon build-up on the spark plugs, cars had the same problem too)  poor lubricants, and iffy maintanance when parts didn't come through.

Same with the machine guns.  There was nothing wrong with the designs, but problems typically were due to poor ammunition or poor quality control during manufacture.  

And I concur, the pilots flying those triplanes know their stuff!  Great formation takeoff, expertly done!  

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Monday, March 9, 2020 9:55 PM

Flintlock:  another great video.  Do all our posters realize how hard that take off in formation is ?  Just one burp of any aircraft's engine and things would get dicey quickly.  Those engines are probably much less reliable than todays recips.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, March 9, 2020 9:42 PM

I'm glad you gents enjoyed that WW1 fly-past video I posted, but in the interest of equal time...

If that video was a good example of a German two-seater crew's nightmare, how about a British two-seater crew's nightmare?  Maybe this one's scarier?  Especially considering who it is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iJpzsbsD2M 

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, March 9, 2020 9:12 PM

Flintlock76
 
blue streak 1

Balt:  You can also get that moving back vision from the old westerns filmed at 16 frames a second and played at 24.  The wagon wheels look like they  are going backwards.  We had a terrible time trying to convince a boy hood friend of ours that it was not going backward. 

That wagon wheels rolling backward phenomenon was noticed by Hollywood decades ago.  They figured out a fix but it just wasn't cost-effective, so they let it go figuring audiences would ignore it anyway.  They were right.

And I've noticed that weird propeller spin phenomenon of various videos as well.  Since I know what's causing it I just ignore it. 

I get the backward rotation on the videos my Garmin VIRB Elite makes on my racing.  

The eyes and their pathway's to the brain and how the brain handles rotary motion can created the backward 'vision' even without film or video being involved.

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Posted by divebardave on Monday, March 9, 2020 6:06 PM

and Kung Fu movies there lips keep moving after they stop talking and David Carridine is not Asian

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, March 9, 2020 2:30 PM

blue streak 1

Balt:  You can also get that moving back vision from the old westerns filmed at 16 frames a second and played at 24.  The wagon wheels look like they  are going backwards.  We had a terrible time trying to convince a boy hood friend of ours that it was not going backward.

 

That wagon wheels rolling backward phenomenon was noticed by Hollywood decades ago.  They figured out a fix but it just wasn't cost-effective, so they let it go figuring audiences would ignore it anyway.  They were right.

And I've noticed that weird propeller spin phenomenon of various videos as well.  Since I know what's causing it I just ignore it. 

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, March 9, 2020 7:24 AM

blue streak 1
Balt:  You can also get that moving back vision from the old westerns filmed at 16 frames a second and played at 24.  The wagon wheels look like they  are going backwards.  We had a terrible time trying to convince a boy hood friend of ours that it was not going backward.

What is even more disturbing are those video cameras that make propellers look like they are bent at a right angle under certain circumstances.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 11:00 PM

Balt:  You can also get that moving back vision from the old westerns filmed at 16 frames a second and played at 24.  The wagon wheels look like they  are going backwards.  We had a terrible time trying to convince a boy hood friend of ours that it was not going backward.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, March 8, 2020 10:40 PM

Flintlock76
"Poetry in motion"  all right!  "If it looks good, it'll fly good!"

But it'll never hold a place in my heart like these birds do...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXXZYpGVaoQ  

WW I planes are great.  21st Century video and how their shutters work when taking video of propeller driven aircraft suck - depending upon propeller speeds the the video makes the prop look like it is moving in one direction and then an instant later it is moving in the opposite direction.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 9:08 PM

I know blue streak, wasn't that something?  Wasn't that freaking something?

The aerial heroes, the aces, of World War One are remembered, but you know what, in my opinion ALL those early aviators were heroes.  

Not too long ago I watched a video of a retired Air Force colonel, a fighter jock, who said "Once you've flown fighters nothing else compares!  But now I'm retired, and buying an F-15 is out of the question."

You know what he did?  He built a replica Nieuport 28 WW1 fighter!

"It's not an F-15, but it fills the bill!"  

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 8:27 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXXZYpGVaoQ  

You have no idea how that tugs at the heart of this old mainly jet jockey.  anther one is an over fly of 3 B-36s

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