'would you like to help me select a good real book?

Santa Fe GE B40-8 (Dash 8-40B)

This was built in June 1988, seen at Cosnino, Arizona in 1990. Santa Fe bought 40 of the 151 built, all transferred to BNSF.  They are a 4-axle (Bo-Bo) type with a GE 7FDL16 prime mover rated at 4,000 hp or 3,000 kW.

An Atlas HO scale model of the class.

fancy police cars in Dubai

The car on the left is a Lamborghini Aventador, a mid-engine V12 supercar capable of speeds up to 217 mph (349 km/h). The car on the right is a Ferrari FF, a distinctive V12-powered, all-wheel-drive shooting brake grand tourer. (Instagram pic)

Western Australia's 'Australind' train returns with locally built DMUs

Transwa’s Australind passenger service has restarted following the delivery of the first of four Alstom diesel multiple-units ordered for the 167 km route between Perth and Bunbury.

The 1067 mm gauge DMUs have been built by Alstom at its Bellevue site in on the outskirts of Perth under a A$54m contract awarded as part of a wider A$1.3 billion order which also included the supply and maintenance of C Series EMUs for use on the city’s suburban routes. The DMUs and EMUs are from Alstom’s X’trapolis family, part of its Adessia portfolio.

‘The ongoing investment and partnership of the West Australian government has been critical to restoring not just the Perth to Bunbury service, but the continuity of local rail manufacturing, the local supply chain and high skilled jobs in the state’, said Guillaume Tritter, Managing Director of Alstom Australia & New Zealand.

Trains have been replaced by road coaches since 2023. The phased reintroduction of train services began on June 29, with one return train a day running on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and taking 2½ h each way.

Services will be ramped up as the rest of the DMUs enter traffic by the end of the year.

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1980 Pontiac Bonneville

1952 Pontiac station wagon and trailer at a Shell gas station, early 1950s

return of the 'Bay Express' in NZ with steam!

Unfortunately it's a one-off, on 19 September, for the Hawke's Bay blossom festival, and it's being run by Mainline Steam in Plimmerston.

Details and online bookings

The regular TranzScenic Bay Express between Wellington and Napier ceased running in 2001.

Kiev airport, Soviet Union, 1960s

Named 'Borispil' at the time.  The aircraft are Tupolev 104B from the late 1950s, scrapped about 20 years later.

Dresden's Kugelhaus

 

It was part of the annual exhibition of Deutscher Arbeit Dresden – Die Technische Stadt (German Labor Dresden - The Technical City) in 1928 and had a diameter of 24 meters. The spherical body was mounted on a ball neck of 11.5 meters in diameter and 4 meters high. The total height of the building was 26.5 feet, at a constructed area of 110 square meters of enclosed space measured 7600 cubic meters. 

There were six levels and an elevator. The building could be through a circular, atrium-like opening up or look down. Only the top floor of the restaurant had a closed floor area. The windows of the restaurant allowed a good view over the nearby exhibition area.

The supporting structure of the building had been built in steel frame construction. The metal outer skin consisted of sheet aluminum. The construction work took Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG (Branch Gustavsburg at Mainz).

From 1928 it served in several exhibitions at the Municipal Exhibition Hall as a presentation space for numerous industrial companies, mostly in the field of electrical engineering and energy. The last verifiable involvement in an exhibition concept was within the realm Garden Festival of 1936. Terms of its architectural effect, it was located at a central location. The ball house stood between the so-called fountain and tower-yard, two self-contained Hallenkompexe at the exhibition site, and across from the concert venue, with its large restaurant area. In this way, it was located at the intersection of two main axes of the building and was singled out by a building within sight of many relationships.

The building was demolished in 1938, because no buyer or operator was found. Previously it had been attacked by the Nazi press as "degenerate art". According to others the ball home was destroyed in 1938 as a supposedly "un-German." 

Today, there is the station of the park railway and opposite the round tower of the Transparent Factory, where Volkswagen AG outsourced their manufacture VW Phaeton vehicles. In the foyer of the Transparent Factory, a spherical movie theater is reminiscent of the Kugelhaus.

1920 Overland car advertisement

The company was founded in 1903 and in 1912 with Willys formed Willys-Overland.  Info