On Thu, 25 May 2006, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 04:42:36
on Thu, 25 May 2006, Tom Anderson remarked:
Overall (and uncontroversially), Amsterdam's public transport system is
one of the best I've ever used. Haven't tried the underground, though.

It loses points for not (yet) having real trains in the city centre -
it's an area roughly the size of the west end of London (Marble Arch to
Farringdon and Euston to Embankment), and all it has is trams and
buses.

And the underground.

One line! I know about the metro, but it basically serves the suburbs, not
the city centre; the lines do run in to Centraal, with some stops on the
way, but it's hardly comparable. It's basically Thameslink, or the Watford
DC line.

tom

--
Is this the only way to get through to you?

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2006, Neil Williams wrote:

...Very basic (and sometimes somewhat garish)
interiors, though.

Yes, they were very spartan - even the intercity trains. Maybe it reflects
some sort of ascetic tendency in the Dutch character. Or maybe they put
crappy trains on the lines tourists use .


Perhaps it reflects the fact that the Dutch don't have the love of
dirty carpet and grubby dusty seats that the British have?

PaulO

In message , at
14:27:37 on Sat, 27 May 2006, Tom Anderson
remarked:
It loses points for not (yet) having real trains in the city centre
- it's an area roughly the size of the west end of London (Marble
Arch to Farringdon and Euston to Embankment), and all it has is
trams and buses.

And the underground.

One line!

Four.

http://www.amsterdam.info/transport/metro/

I know about the metro, but it basically serves the suburbs, not the
city centre; the lines do run in to Centraal, with some stops on the
way, but it's hardly comparable.

Surely people want to get to and from the centre, not from one suburb to
another?

It's basically Thameslink, or the Watford DC line.

Conceptually and operationally it's closer to the DLR, I think.
--
Roland Perry

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li...
On Fri, 26 May 2006, Mike Roebuck wrote:

Arthur Figgis wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2006 13:51:38 +0100, Colum Mylod
wrote:

Swiss railway clocks

last-second-pause-clunk

the last-second-pause-clunk effect

?

The second hand on clocks on Swiss (and German) railway platforms sweep
round the face normally then stop when they get to 59 seconds until it's
exactly on the minute, then the second hand and minute hand "clunk" forward
to the next second and minute respectively...
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

Steve Dulieu:
The second hand on clocks on Swiss (and German) railway platforms
sweep round the face normally then stop when they get to 59 seconds
until it's exactly on the minute, then the second hand and minute
hand "clunk" forward to the next second and minute respectively...

Not quite. The second hand freezes for 2 seconds, and the minute hand
jumps in the middle of that interval.

On a normal analog clock with synchronized second hand, the minute hand
advances gradually from one minute mark to the next while the second
hand sweeps from the top around to the top again. On these clocks, as
noted, it advances in 1-minute steps. This means that if you're used
to a normal analog clock and think you see the clock reading 10:39:55,
the actual time is 10:40:54. At 10:40:59 the second hand will freeze,
the clock now seeming to show 10:40:00. 1 second later the minute
hand will then jump ahead to show 10:41:00, now meaning what it says.
1 second later the second hand will resume moving, making the complete
circle in another 58 seconds.

At least, that's the way I've seen them work in Switzerland. I don't
remember noticing them in Germany.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | WARNING: This Product Warps Space and Time
| in Its Vicinity. --JIR

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On Sat, 27 May 2006, Paul Oter wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 25 May 2006, Neil Williams wrote:

...Very basic (and sometimes somewhat garish) interiors, though.

Yes, they were very spartan - even the intercity trains. Maybe it
reflects some sort of ascetic tendency in the Dutch character. Or maybe
they put crappy trains on the lines tourists use .

Perhaps it reflects the fact that the Dutch don't have the love of dirty
carpet and grubby dusty seats that the British have?

I haven't seen many of those on our intercity trains in a while.

tom

--
I content myself with the Speculative part [...], I care not for the
Practick. I seldom bring any thing to use, 'tis not my way. Knowledge
is my ultimate end. -- Sir Nicholas Gimcrack

On Sat, 27 May 2006, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 14:27:37
on Sat, 27 May 2006, Tom Anderson remarked:

It loses points for not (yet) having real trains in the city centre -
it's an area roughly the size of the west end of London (Marble Arch
to Farringdon and Euston to Embankment), and all it has is trams and
buses.

And the underground.

One line!

Four.

We were talking about the city centre, where the lines run together: there
are four in the sense that there are three lines between Liverpool Street
and Baker Street, ie not a practical one.

I know about the metro, but it basically serves the suburbs, not the city
centre; the lines do run in to Centraal, with some stops on the way, but
it's hardly comparable.

Surely people want to get to and from the centre, not from one suburb to
another?

Sorry, i phrased that poorly - it gets people to and from the city centre,
but doesn't help people get around inside the city centre, apart from
between the three central stops it does have.

It's basically Thameslink, or the Watford DC line.

Conceptually and operationally it's closer to the DLR, I think.

You're quite right - with Centraal taking the place of Bank, Spaklerweg
instead of Poplar (?), and some extra stops between Shadwell and Bank. The
difference is that it's still focused on radial trips (i presume), whereas
the DLR isn't all about Bank - it's about getting people to Docklands. Is
there a Docklands equivalent in south Amsterdam? There is that World Trade
Centre stop ...

tom

--
I content myself with the Speculative part [...], I care not for the
Practick. I seldom bring any thing to use, 'tis not my way. Knowledge
is my ultimate end. -- Sir Nicholas Gimcrack

On Sat, 27 May 2006, Mark Brader wrote:

Steve Dulieu:

The second hand on clocks on Swiss (and German) railway platforms
sweep round the face normally then stop when they get to 59 seconds
until it's exactly on the minute, then the second hand and minute
hand "clunk" forward to the next second and minute respectively...

Not quite. The second hand freezes for 2 seconds, and the minute hand
jumps in the middle of that interval.

On a normal analog clock with synchronized second hand, the minute hand
advances gradually from one minute mark to the next while the second
hand sweeps from the top around to the top again. On these clocks, as
noted, it advances in 1-minute steps. This means that if you're used to
a normal analog clock and think you see the clock reading 10:39:55, the
actual time is 10:40:54. At 10:40:59 the second hand will freeze, the
clock now seeming to show 10:40:00. 1 second later the minute hand will
then jump ahead to show 10:41:00, now meaning what it says. 1 second
later the second hand will resume moving, making the complete circle in
another 58 seconds.

That seems really quite perverse. Is there a reason for all this?

I suppose it means that when you see the minute hand pointing to 29, you
know that the time is mumble-29 plus some seconds; you don't have to know
where the second hand is in order to disambiguate the minute. That doesn't
explain the strange behaviour of the second hand, though.

tom

--
I content myself with the Speculative part [...], I care not for the
Practick. I seldom bring any thing to use, 'tis not my way. Knowledge
is my ultimate end. -- Sir Nicholas Gimcrack

On 26 May 2006 20:42:41 +0100 (BST), Theo Markettos
wrote:

In uk.railway Mike Roebuck wrote:
[Euro accounts]
It's very easy for a company to get one. I write from experience.

Is that any old company? So can anyone get an account by being a Sole
Trader trading as Made-Up Company Name (which has no assets, income or
outgoings and isn't registered for anything)?

I had no problem getting Euro and dollar accounts for a limited
company, something which you can set up very cheaply in the UK. No
obligation to be registered for VAT, but of course the company name
has to be registered.

As I'm not operating as a sole trader, I can't say what applies to one
(but can ask).


--
Regards

Mike

mikedotroebuckatgmxdotnet

In message , at
01:37:17 on Sun, 28 May 2006, Tom Anderson
remarked:
I know about the metro, but it basically serves the suburbs, not the
city centre; the lines do run in to Centraal, with some stops on the
way, but it's hardly comparable.

Surely people want to get to and from the centre, not from one suburb
to another?

Sorry, i phrased that poorly - it gets people to and from the city
centre, but doesn't help people get around inside the city centre,
apart from between the three central stops it does have.

The City Centre is rather small, and most definitions would restrict it
to the part of the metro that's underground. To that extent, there's
just the one radial line, but you don't need a huge network to serve the
area as its so small (and has the trams).

However, they are building another line out towards Leidsplein, which
may one day be extended to Schiphol.

"Work on the new North/South line of the Amsterdam metro has
officially started in April 22nd, 2003. The line will run from
Amsterdam-Noord, underneath the harbour and the historic city
centre, to the railway station Zuid/WTC in the southern
(business) district of the city. Since the Spring of 2004, the
construction of the 6 new subway stations has started. The
preliminary work is more or less completed. Start of operation
is now foreseen in 2011. This subwayline connects in 16 minutes
the North-district (north of the IJ river) with the central
urban areas in the southern district (Zuid/WTC station).

At around £100m per mile, it's another useful build-cost benchmark.

It's basically Thameslink, or the Watford DC line.

Conceptually and operationally it's closer to the DLR, I think.

You're quite right - with Centraal taking the place of Bank, Spaklerweg
instead of Poplar (?), and some extra stops between Shadwell and Bank.
The difference is that it's still focused on radial trips (i presume),
whereas the DLR isn't all about Bank - it's about getting people to
Docklands. Is there a Docklands equivalent in south Amsterdam? There is
that World Trade Centre stop ...

Yes, sounds plausible. Although Hoopdorf (the next stop on the line,
where many of the Centraal-Schiphol trains terminate) is also somewhat
of an upmarket business park.

I don't think Amsterdam has an ex-docklands area quite like London. I
would guess that most of the country's port activity was serviced via
Rotterdam, rather than Amsterdam.
--
Roland Perry