Vintage Things That Have APPEARED In Your Lifetime

[Bruce Wayne]

I went to a gun show today and I saw a fellow who was wearing a seersucker suit.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In 2010 I attended the Left Coast Crime Convention, held that year in L.A. With great timing, during the convention the Angel's Flight funicular railway was reopened for the first time in many years and I got to ride on it. first operated in 1901 and closed in 1969, Angel's Flight was featured in many films noir and it was a thrill to ride on it. I believe it has been closed again for safety reasons, but it was a real blast from the past.

 

[dnjan]

Seatbelts appeared during my lifetime.
My dad actually added seatbelts to our car right before I took the driving test.

 

[GHT]

There is one vintage thing, well a person actually, that hasn't disappeared in my lifetime. On Sunday 19th March, I shall be at a birthday party to celebrate Dame Vera Lynn. The lady herself won't be there, she's much too busy, and here's betting that there will be quite a few other parties to celebrate The British forces wartime sweetheart's one hundredth birthday, which actually falls on Monday 20th March.

 

[Harp]

There is one vintage thing, well a person actually, that hasn't disappeared in my lifetime. On Sunday 19th March, I shall be at a birthday party to celebrate Dame Vera Lynn. The British forces wartime sweetheart's one hundredth birthday, which actually falls on Monday 20th March.

Congratulations Dame Lynn. Her successor Katherine Jenkins is adorable.

 

[sheeplady]

So I finally got my hands on some real buttermilk (not the cultured stuff in the store). I was all keen to try it, to have my first ever real sip of buttermilk.

Oh, I was so excited.

Imagine my astonishment when I took a swig from the big glass I poured and it's the same damned delicious "milk" I grew up drinking at my grandmothers. Yup, my grandmother apparently preferred real buttermilk to sweet milk. Sadly there's no one left to confirm this, but I'd put money on her serving this.

So apparently my first taste of real buttermilk occurred when I was an infant.

I'm still as happy as a lark sitting here with my glass of buttermilk...

 

[DocCasualty]

Seatbelts appeared during my lifetime.
My dad actually added seatbelts to our car right before I took the driving test.

+1.

The first car we had with seatbelts was my mom's 1965 Plymouth Valiant. Beyond the seatbelts I remember the aftermarket add-on seatbelt retractors like these:

 

[GHT]

Pictures from day one below. I have never, ever been in a cleaner NYC subway station (and probably never will).

If you are quick, hop on a plane, and get yourself across to our capital city. The first section of the new Elizabeth Line opens this month. See it while it's clean.
You mentioned two more phases of New York's subway in the 'pipeline,' if you will forgive the pun. Is the time it takes down to costs? Something I recall from many years ago was reading that for every mile of underground rail constructed in London, New York could only build a quarter of a mile for a similar cost. Apparently, the bed rock that easily supports New Yorks skyscrapers, is not so easy when it comes to tunneling through it.

 

[Fading Fast]

If you are quick, hop on a plane, and get yourself across to our capital city. The first section of the new Elizabeth Line opens this month. See it while it's clean.
You mentioned two more phases of New York's subway in the 'pipeline,' if you will forgive the pun. Is the time it takes down to costs? Something I recall from many years ago was reading that for every mile of underground rail constructed in London, New York could only build a quarter of a mile for a similar cost. Apparently, the bed rock that easily supports New Yorks skyscrapers, is not so easy when it comes to tunneling through it.

Looking at it one way, you are spot on: it is costs. And you are also correct that Manhattan "schist -" the brutally strong rock formation supporting our skyscrapers - does make tunneling a challenge.

That said, they built subways faster and cheaper 100 years ago and, yes, labor was cheaper and safety conditions for worker were much worse - and thank God those things are better today - but that is only one part of the issue. We also have incredibly advanced technology since the early 1900s that should shorten the time.

The real issue is political corruptions and political bureaucracy. And the two meet at points. The union work rules and government regulations make the actual construction time incredibly slow. But even before that happens, all the pre-studies - environmental, community impact, etc. - drag on for years and, sometimes, decades. Everything is challenged, studied, arbitrated, adjudicated and all of it happens several times over.

I'm all for worker safety and competitive wages; I'm all for environmental and community sensitivity - all of these are good things, but the process has warped out of control. The bureaucracy can't control it and even encourages it as many make their living off of it. Approvals take years and sometimes decades - "consulting" fees, "facilitator" fees and, (as the periodic scandals shows) bribes all increase owing to this government sclerosis.

The decision process and controls on balancing the risks of safety, of the environment, of wages, or approvals, etc., is broken - the gov't can't and won't fix it (and, as noted, makes money of the process), so it all just drags on and on. We need government - I am not a no-gov't nut job - but what we have now are bloated bureaucracies that can't and don't want to work. So subways cost insane amount of money to build, take decades and we "the people" pay for it all in taxes, fees, poor services and - in this case - no subway or no completed subways for decades.

 

[GHT]

That which you so eloquently described sounds exactly like a blue print for all our civil engineering projects too.
This might fascinate you, this link shows images of London's tunneling constructions, including the very first, by the engineer Brunel in the 19th century. He it was who designed a scaffold for tunnelers to work from. The spoil is transferred back behind them, whilst at the same time, a second team is bricking the tunnel walls to strengthen the tunnel and, hopefully, prevent collapse. Look at Brunel's invention, the same technology is still used today, except that it's become automated, and as Lizzie pointed out, made a lot of miners redundant.
You might also enjoy reading about The Elizabeth Line's project manager, one Linda Miller, a sassy, feisty American lady, if ever there was one. If it interests you, there are three, one hour programs about The Crossrail Project. Two have been screened, the third will be aired when all sections are finally opened. See here for details: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/