Hey! I'm Ian, and I make models, maps, and all kinds of other things. Most of which are transit and/or Minnesota related. If that sounds interesting, give me a follow!

Today’s our birthday, but we’re giving you a gift — the brand-new Borealis service! Enjoy round-trip daily trips between Saint Paul, MN and Chicago, IL onboard Borealis starting May 21st.

https://t.co/WGVAMis3X1

I know I was one of those "Stick it out until the end" types but uh, in light of recent events I think it may be time. I'll still peek in occasionally from outside links but the posting days are over methinks. Find me here, or if you don't have it already ask for my discord

I am on the good twitter now. Come find me.

God I love Modern Marvels. It's like 40 minutes of Wikipedia in video form with some crank shit in the last 5 minutes. I'm watching the episode on Aluminum and the final bit is "Here's how aluminum foam could've stopped the OKC bombing"

I think I saw a few of these in my Calc classes

This is a good excuse to make a thread I've been meaning to make for a while about how the national network is what's keeping Amtrak alive

Currently like 4 squads, 6(?) cops and a state patrol helicopter outside Didn't even like walk up to the window just straight to "get out of the vehicle. Show me your hands."

uuuuh

https://t.co/FQd8zfNAXO

My father-in-law is a builder. He is insanely gifted. We were driving through the architecturally significant Taco Bell building years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build it today. I will never forget his answer… “We can’t, we don’t know how to do it.”

Grocery getter

Joined a discord call just in time to see the person streaming pass the fuck out

Something I forgot to add here: Dems have been pretty united around Amtrak recently (thanks Joe), but if 1/3 of the party loses service I think that'll change pretty quick.

Granted it gets a little caught in the culture war (no trains for those coastal elites), but I think that just demonstrates my point. No matter how much money the NN loses (which,🙄) or how many service issues it faces, its still a necessary part of our rail infrastructure.

And the thing is, passenger rail still has a little bit of cross-party support. Amtrak funding actually went up under Trump and the GOP trifecta, and there's a few ruby red places on that map that still retain service. Even the recent egregious proposal demonstrates this

Pink/light blue are those that would lose it, red/dark blue do not currently have one. Red shows a hypothetical "train vs no train" map. I thought I had one for the senate too but I guess I lost it. I think it's pretty obvious what the result is either way

So anyway, what you're left with is a system where like 90% of the geographic coverage is from about 15 routes. Want to see what that might look like politically? Say no more! Here's all the house districts that would loose their Amtrak station

Side note: some people complain that this is a bad way to design the network, but honestly the state of American passenger rail is such that as long as they're drawing a somewhat straight line between any set of cities it's probably a good idea to run a train there