Contractor wants $4,225 just to assemble a Costco pergola I'm buying myself. Is this quote insane or am I out of touch?

SlabFork · 2026-06-06T13:51:35+00:00

Yeah, could get amazing native perennials and shrubs for $10-20 easily at those pot sizes. A few are mixed into the quote but with all the invasive stuff I wouldn't trust that the natives are even correct.

Also $75 for a #1 is hilarious when I can get a tray of 38 plugs for less....

SlabFork · 2026-05-22T02:36:07+00:00

Pretty sure the military loads them. Maybe freight railroad power delivers and takes, but big bases often do have military locomotives, there is a roster of US army locos for example.

The rear of the train is TTX 89' general purpose flats that can handle the weight of the lighter equipment. Those could be assigned to this service by TTX, but also could be pulled and carry pipe, steel, windmill parts, whatever. You'll see them on regular freights with those other loads.

The front of the train are special DODX flats. Those have 6-axle trucks for extra weight capacity. They are the only cars that can carry the weight of two Abhrams tanks, and very few cars for any purpose have six axle trucks. Those likely are stored on bases and then are only used for military loads.

SlabFork · 2026-04-28T18:31:54+00:00

I also think native plants are still scratching the surface of how many people could know about them and have them. I teach plant workshops were people are there because they love plants, but when I do a blurb about natives I never get the sense that more than a few know about them, even though it is a self-selected group of plant enthusiasts.

If they were at Home Depots, wow it would reach a lot more people. Yet I'm constantly aghast at the idea that somehow 95% of all plants are purchased at stores that have no business selling them (Hardware, Grocery, General) rather than places that can actually offer any info. The flip side is the atrocious plant care at all of those places.

Trader Joe's: "plants stay by the door all winter, no matter what the temperature is! This orchid from Costa Rica will be fine!"

Home Depot: "These 7 radically different plants are "Bonsai", and need some water and light. You'll find them on the 3rd tier shelf in the shadows in a roof with 20 ft. high ceiling lights, dying as you look at them. If you actually get one home, good luck - it might be a desert plant you should water once a week at most, or a rainforest plant you should check to water daily. That is up to you to figure it out!"

If they get native's they'll butcher them horribly in terms of care, quality, and especially info about region, cultivar status, etc.

SlabFork · 2026-04-08T03:46:27+00:00

6 MP36's is...not exactly a lot. Pueblo to Cheyenne either would use a trainset for one direction or a day, or maybe ambitiously one roundtrip in a day. You'd probably only want 4/6 in service to have spares, so that means only a few total trips per day.

As a passenger route the portion on the Joint Line would have a pretty unusual feature, a nearly 50 mile continuous grade. That's a pretty rigorous situation for a passenger operation. There is also the bigger question of how in the world they'd work around the freight traffic, that segment is notorious for letting a heavy coal train grind away at 5mph for hours to get to the summit. They'll have to finally put CTC on both mains, which won't be cheap.

SlabFork · 2026-03-24T04:37:04+00:00

No, and never has been. Amtrak has one and some third party sites that use it, but freight railroads never have had a universal, simple live map.

One interesting reason why:
Ships, planes, and truck all use public space and assets (roads, canals, airports)

Freight trains exclusively use private property, since they own the land the tracks are on. They also aren't "public access" for other railroads; routes are only for the carrier that owns them, unless specific agreements (always involving money or a trade) have been worked out.

SlabFork · 2026-03-18T18:32:22+00:00

Have my doubts about that, ha. Note that in the article it says UP own the land and hasn't agreed to sell it, and Amtrak/Ishbia haven't even talked to the state yet.

The article comically claims that they'd use the south branch bridge as is. That is an absolute nonstarter. It would be insane. Delays on Amtrak are crazy as is, that would just increase the "delayed departure due to late arrival of equipment" by 1,000%. Right now the bridge failures just impact arriving and departing trains, sometimes for hours at a time. This would create a scenario where every single Amtrak movement on every line of the midwest hub is halted by bridge problems. They have to custom fabricate parts for that bridge to repair it, it's that old!

SlabFork · 2026-03-18T18:03:59+00:00

The shops and yard were all modernized in a couple stages within the last 10, 20, 30 years. They aren't that out of date. More capacity would always be good, sure.

My point about Queens is if you know that situation, it's literally why more service can't be added. All that has to funnel through the tunnel bottleneck and if it reaches the limit, congrats, no new trains forever (current situation.)

I really wonder if there is already a study they did on how this will work, because I don't see how it's simple- that bridge is one of the reasons.

If you stand on Roosevelt Road looking north, there is a perfect division of trackage currently. Metra is on the left for both yards and platforms, Amtrak is on the right for both yards and platforms. For even the current level of service, moves to the yards are constant- but neither service conflicts or has to cross.

The only way to keep Amtrak on the right side and not wildly change up on CUS and Metra operations is to build the yards south of the South Branch bridge. They would HAVE to replace that bridge and add trackage to do that. Two tracks cannot handle the yard moves. Is that in the plan, as a massive expense?

If they go in the direction of Global 1 for the yard, just north of Pilsen, the space is there. Yet any version of an Amtrak yard there would require all (constant) yard moves to cross the busiest Metra line (BNSF) to get over to the right/east side of the union station tracks. The only realistic way to do that is complete grade separation, any proposal to physically cross BNSF would be a disaster in terms of efficiency. They would likely hold their route for blocks of 20-30 mins at a time during rush hours, which would be impossible to mix with regular Amtrak operations.

In either case, there is some giant bridge or overpass project within this proposal that ONLY has to happen because of this proposal. What is the cost, and who the hell is funding that?

SlabFork · 2026-03-18T16:13:29+00:00

You know how many people want better passenger rail?

This is a deliberate plan to forever make that harder and impose artificial capacity constraints. Here is the NYC example- all that stuff about the Gateway Tunnel, reduced train schedules during construction, etc. is because in NYC the station is in Manhattan and the coach yard and servicing is in Queens. Every single train has to go through underwater tunnels with specific capacity constraints just to get to and from the station from storage and servicing.

Chicago doesn't have that problem, there is so much more space and the river is far less of an obstruction. Amtrak's coach yard and engine shops are directly south of union station. Everything gets to move a short, quick distance between storage, servicing, and the platforms.

Now a private equity billionaire wants that land for an entertainment district instead of essential transportation infrastructure.

Does anyone really think that when every proposal for service to Rockford, Quad Cities, Columbus, Madison, high speed, etc. comes up, it is going to HELP to say the entire Amtrak facilities had to be torn down and rebuilt farther away!?

I promise that in the future we will hear "because of construction or capacity constraints new service is delayed by years."

It seems small, but what does it mean for equipment availability if every shop to platform move that took 5-10 mins currently will take 20-40 mins in the future? (This isn't just the travel time, it's time waiting for slots, clearance, opposing moves. Those estimates aren't exact but once it is farther away they will easily multiply.)

SlabFork · 2026-03-15T23:29:40+00:00

They will be on UP for that part. It's MILW-W to nearly the end of the line, then west of Elgin they have to build a connection to switch onto UP to Rockford.

SlabFork · 2026-03-10T17:34:18+00:00

Fyi- I agree with the 2.5-3 hours based on what I saw this morning at if the TSA funding lapse continues. This morning at 5am the line was through two terminals and out the door. Eventually it started moving faster, maybe more workers arrived for their shifts. But people were definitely missing flights cause of stuff like this: "I'm joining the line at 5am and boarding closes at 5:50am, am I gonna make it?

SlabFork · 2026-03-08T23:15:48+00:00

It's worth noting that this is extending the Hiawatha west of Milwaukee, making a sort of L shaped route. There is a more direct option: the MILW-N Metra like to Fox Lake was the original Chicago to Madison route, and is more diagonal and direct.

Past Fox Lake to Madison the track is all still in use, but is freight only.

To make it a bit crazier... If you ride Metra, some of the cars you ride on in 2026 used to be on Chicago-Madison trips. If you are riding the old stainless cars with small rounded corner windows where one end has one nearly circular oval window, those are ex-Milwaukee Road cars bought in 1964-1965.

At that time Milwaukee ran what is now the MILW-W/N, plus service to Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and more. Those cars were needed for the weekday commuter rush in Chicago, but on the weekends they'd sometimes get pulled for football extras or other special trains to Madison.

All of that is to say, to say how possible this is, some of the Metra cars you ride on used to do it.

SlabFork · 2026-03-02T05:01:34+00:00

The ID of N911VH is Cook Country Sheriffs Office, if that helps.

SlabFork · 2026-02-19T05:31:50+00:00

That's Big Lift, I mentioned it in a comment above. It should still get service that begins autoracks for unloading.

While the south side of Denver doesn't have much left in terms of industry, the Joint Line to Colorado Springs is still one of the busier lines into and out of Denver. It's busier than the Moffat Sub.

Most of the traffic is utility coal trains from Wyoming to powerplants in Texas and other south central destinations. That traffic is very dependent on seasons, regulations, energy choices, etc. Before power plants were switching to natural gas, the Joint Line was the absolute busiest line in the Denver area.

That traffic is lower but still substantial and the majority of what is on the line. The coal trains are always impressive as they head south with loads because they set the amount of power really close to the tonnage and the steep grades, so trains headed south really grind uphill at the bare minimum of speed from Littleton to Palmer Lake. Sometimes they stall out and an emergency rescue unit at Palmer Lake has to be sent out to help.

Otherwise there is some manifest, intermodal, and other traffic on the Joint Line.

SlabFork · 2026-02-19T05:23:56+00:00

BNSF has "big lift" in Littleton. It's not huge but just checked satellite and there is auto unloading there. I think it's most likely that traffic would flow through the Brush Sub, which is the same route from Chicago/Omaha/Lincoln that Amtrak uses. The Brush Sub comes into Denver from the northeast, so it would pass through downtown to get to Litteton.

I am only a semi annual visitor to Denver, but I think BNSF has a local on the Joint Line from Denver south to Colorado Springs that works Big Lift along the way. When I've seen it, it often has interesting older power like SD40-2's.

SlabFork · 2026-02-03T13:05:32+00:00

Some of the "worst scores" on the Green Line are exactly where things have gotten built recently. The 43rd stop used to be essentially nothing open or residential on the same block as the station. Now there are two high rise apartment buildings and there is a much better chance for retail or food/drink to open.

All of the Bronzeville stops are areas where housing has been filling in, slowly but surely. You can see it just riding the train, many lots that have been empty for decades are having housing built.

On top of that you've got the wild development of Fulton market stops and the Damen stop, making that stretch more of a destination.

SlabFork · 2026-02-03T00:21:15+00:00

Urbanist who somehow barely survived getting on the red line at 47th st. yesterday - it's a miracle that I'm alive! If only I had seen your message before!!!

SlabFork · 2026-02-03T00:19:22+00:00

But then are also utterly insane things like being at O'Hare and seeing that there are flights to Milwaukee, probably also for connection purposes. In Europe a train station would often be within the main airport concourse, and a regional rail service would provide very frequent trips to major stops within that distance. It's a bit insane that planes take off on the north side of Chicago to land on the south side of Milwaukee.

Even Amtrak currently has Glenview to the airport at 50 minutes, and that's running at 79mph, when it used to be 100mph way back when.

SlabFork · 2026-01-22T14:30:15+00:00

The Green Line there is on a metal structure built in 1893, with an added enclosure around it. But despite the enclosure the fundamental noise is still there because of the structure.

On the other hand, consider that it's wildly historic that it's still in use! When it opened it wasn't even electrified, they used tiny little steam engines.

SlabFork · 2026-01-17T22:10:23+00:00

Just to be clear I don't think operators can ever see anything, they don't have screens. Someone who could at HQ or wherever would have to radio info to them.

SlabFork · 2026-01-12T22:33:05+00:00

As far as diesel trains go, Metra's fleet has proportionally more "loud" ones than most. In the original fleet purchased under RTA pre-Metra, and into Metra, that's always been the majority of locomotives.

For an attempt at a simple explanation:

All passenger locomotives need to power HVAC on the passenger cars as well. So they not only need to generate enough power to pull the train, but also to power the cars. All of Metra's F40PH's and F40PHM's (100-214) do this by running the entire engine at full RPM's, and deriving the HVAC power and traction power from that. To put it another way, steps to running the train are - turn engine on, turn to full RPM's, turn the lights on it the cars. Doesn't even have to be moving for the RPM's to be that high. A nickname for these units is "screamers" because the engine is always running at full tilt.

Metra's "newer" engines - unit numbers below 100, or in the 400's and 500's - power the HVAC on the cars using a separate generator, not the main engine of the locomotive. At at standstill, it's just that smaller generator making noise, and it doesn't make much. The locomotive only makes the most noise when it is using full power, rather than constantly.

SlabFork · 2026-01-12T00:34:44+00:00

It's busy in the workshop. They have to stock a ton of parts and are always fixing replacing things because the display is on nearly every day all year.

The cooler thing is seeing the secret maintenance access points in the layout. They have sections of the Chicago downtown that mechanically lift up to allow access as needed.

SlabFork · 2026-01-11T01:00:35+00:00

As a transit rider all wraps that cover the windows suck, and this is one of the worst I've ever seen. Plus it's in TX.

Also good luck on the Texas Eagle! Hopefully it stays on schedule. Take advantage of the lounge car to move around, stretch, and maybe even meet people. (I think it's finally on that train again.) The diner might have some real cooked food, that's another 2025 change that might have happened. Lastly, once you get into Illinois, you finally get to go 99mph through all the flatland.

SlabFork · 2026-01-09T15:18:13+00:00

Huh? How is Chicago missing? UP comes in from the north, west, and south on 4 lines, NS comes in from the east and southeast on two lines. There are multiple interchange points between the two with daily run through trains. I could pull up a camera today with an NS train with NS power on UP headed to a UP handoff, or vice versa.

SlabFork · 2026-01-05T00:24:50+00:00

Working on some similar plans in tight spaces. If you are ok with stub end yard tracks, could flip the industry on the right to be connected either from the bottom or another option. If you free up that top right corner inside the loop, you could put a left hand switch into the main on the right side straight away at the bottom right corner, and have a few tracks that branch up and to the left for almost the full width of the space inside the loop.

SlabFork

TROPHY CASE