The Longest Conveyor Belt(conveyorbeltguide.com)
conveyorbeltguide.com
The Longest Conveyor Belt
http://www.conveyorbeltguide.com/LongestBelt.html
71 comments
That's what I miss the most from pre-Web 2.0 Internet, the Geocities era: there were a lot of small and manually curated sites (as opposed to news aggregators and SEO spam sites) on any kind of topic.
Now our only source of knowledge is Wikipedia, which is great per se, but the vast amount of knowledge it collects is very shallow, there's no real depth and passion in it.
Now our only source of knowledge is Wikipedia, which is great per se, but the vast amount of knowledge it collects is very shallow, there's no real depth and passion in it.
> Now our only source of knowledge is Wikipedia, which is great per se, but
> the vast amount of knowledge it collects is very shallow, there's no real
> depth and passion in it.
One area where the personally curated sites continues to thrive is the time-nuts folks. If you have the slightest interest in all things metrology you can lose hours reading about anything from time measurement gear and GPSDOs to policy decisions regarding deccoupling civil time from the earth's rotation. Definitely worth checking out if you have some spare time:
- http://www.leapSecond.com (Tom Van Baak)
- http://www.niceties.com/time.html (Doug Hogarth)
- http://prc68.com/I/timefreq.shtml (Brooke Clarke)
- http://www.febo.com/time-freq (John Ackermann)
- http://www.rt66.com/~shera (Brooks Shera)
- http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/PRECISION (Murry Greenman)
- http://www.thegleam.com/ke5fx (John Miles)
- http://www.ko4bb.com/Timing (Didier Juges)
> Now our only source of knowledge is Wikipedia, which is great per se, but the vast amount of knowledge it collects is very shallow, there's no real depth and passion in it.
Mostly because the Wikipedians won't even allow it (whether due to a lack of references or because it's not "relevant-" or "notable-enough") in the first place.
Mostly because the Wikipedians won't even allow it (whether due to a lack of references or because it's not "relevant-" or "notable-enough") in the first place.
And for a good reason: your grandfather's recollection of WWII, for example, has no place in an encyclopedia, but it's surely more interesting and possibly instructive than reading about it from a history book. I'm saddened we're losing this.
It doesn't have a place in an encyclopedia, for sure, but I posit that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It was supposed to be, and ostensibly started as one, but the amount of content that gets placed into it (and then removed by the mods...) shows that a sizable amount of Wikipedia users use it as a "knowledge repository" instead, which I think is subtly different.
I mean, I wish we could collate the entire set of human knowledge into one place, however Wikipedia says that it doesn't want to be that place. The thing is, when you've already got 100,000 word treatises on Sailor Moon due to some Admin/Mod having that as his/her pet topic, it smacks of elitism, favoritism and hypocrisy.
I mean, I wish we could collate the entire set of human knowledge into one place, however Wikipedia says that it doesn't want to be that place. The thing is, when you've already got 100,000 word treatises on Sailor Moon due to some Admin/Mod having that as his/her pet topic, it smacks of elitism, favoritism and hypocrisy.
Wikipedia is rather disappointing, particularly on engineering and math topics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conveyor_belt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Spider-Man_(2012_f...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conveyor_belt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Spider-Man_(2012_f...
What more is there to say about conveyor belts?
It shouldn't be surprising that a major motion picture would have a detailed page written.
It shouldn't be surprising that a major motion picture would have a detailed page written.
[deleted]
A problem is that it's not necessarily more accurate. What Wikipedia wants to be, and which I think is valuable (though it's not the only valuable thing) is a summary of the best published information on any given subject, with references to that published information backing it up. So if I read a Wikipedia article on, say, Treblinka, I expect to get a summary of what historians think happened there, with references to where they say so. Where they don't agree or are unsure, I'd like a neutral explanation of any significant areas of uncertainty or historiographical dispute (with citations to the relevant sides), etc. I really don't expect to get a personal recollection by one Wikipedia editor's grandfather of what happened there... especially if that recollection contains information that isn't consistent with what's written in the mainstream histories.
It's possible that the recollection may sometimes actually be better than the mainstream histories, though in such a well-studied subject as WW2 concentration camps I think the odds are fairly low. But in either case I think that's a job for someone other than Wikipedia: Wikipedia's job is to summarize the current historical understanding. Revising the current historical understanding in light of new information or arguments is a different and very large job in itself.
It's possible that the recollection may sometimes actually be better than the mainstream histories, though in such a well-studied subject as WW2 concentration camps I think the odds are fairly low. But in either case I think that's a job for someone other than Wikipedia: Wikipedia's job is to summarize the current historical understanding. Revising the current historical understanding in light of new information or arguments is a different and very large job in itself.
[citation needed]
I've found that forums seem to provide much of the knowledge previously transferred through Geocities. Detailed, human, non-encyclopedified information about almost anything is available spread through a vast quantity of subject-specific forums across the Internet rather than across webrings hosted on Geocities and the ilk.
I think part of the reason for the shift is that forums have gotten much more advanced: most include a personal homepage, photo gallery, and provisions for making "uber/FAQ" threads that easily surpass the most meticulously curated Geocities sites.
I think part of the reason for the shift is that forums have gotten much more advanced: most include a personal homepage, photo gallery, and provisions for making "uber/FAQ" threads that easily surpass the most meticulously curated Geocities sites.
The problem is that forums aren't the ideal medium for collecting knowledge: how many times something you're looking for is buried in a 500 page topic, between non relevant, troll or deleted posts.
And for some reason every forum I've used has a useless search function: Yes, it searches, but it doesn't find or list results in a convenient way for someone who's looking for something specific.
And for some reason every forum I've used has a useless search function: Yes, it searches, but it doesn't find or list results in a convenient way for someone who's looking for something specific.
umm... tumblr dude. geez
Remember that when the next person says "when it is free then you are the product!!" or "the world wide web would not function without advertising!!". Intrinsic motivation goes a long way.
I shouldn't be surprised, but the second was already mapped in OpenStreetMap,[0] and I've now added the first.[1]
Unfortunately, the default renderer doesn't know how to draw a line of "man_made=conveyor_belt"...
[0] http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/202757736
[1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/278131952
Unfortunately, the default renderer doesn't know how to draw a line of "man_made=conveyor_belt"...
[0] http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/202757736
[1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/278131952
Imagine being lost in the middle of nowhere. Then all of a sudden, conveyor belt.
I'd probably hop on. It has to go somewhere, after all. Unless it's the world's largest circular conveyor belt.
i would try to follow it, but i would definitely not hop on. especially if it's carrying rocks. nothing good happens to rocks on a conveyor belt.
Something tells me a 35 km conveyor belt is moving slowly enough to give you plenty of time to hop off before the big crushing thing.
Likely true for those longer ones but the site notes a 54 km/h conveyor belt in Germany. That could be a bit risky...
Oh, my. Suddenly I want to go find one of these things and hitch a ride on it.
I think you're probably right, but devil's advocating it, the height of the conveyor belt could vary, and sometimes be high enough off the ground that you couldn't safely jump off. If the run-up to the limekiln at the end of the conveyor belt is elevated for a long enough stretch, you might not realize the point at which you should jump off until it's too late.
I'd break it, then someone will come to fix it and rescue me.
Jack Handy
This reminds me of one Rio Tinto executive's dismissal of their $70M dollar purchase of a set of autonomous Komatsu haul trucks as "a very expensive reconfigurable conveyor belt".
For those of you who, like me, didn't know that autonomous mining trucks existed, here's a video of them in action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHtMNFZLMWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHtMNFZLMWE
For those who have YouTube blocked at work: http://www.komatsu.com.au/AboutKomatsu/Technology/Pages/AHS....
I always wonder what would have happened if humanity had invested in conveyor belts instead of cars and roads for the last 100 years.
I can't shake away the sensation that it could have been a better call.
In Asimov's I Robot books, Earth has a public transport system based on conveyor belts. A 'highway' would have many lanes running next to each other, gradually getting faster as you moved towards the inner lanes.
When I first read that book, I thought it seemed like a lot of wasted space because of the amount of parallel lanes you would need to achieve highway speeds. Then I started driving and noticed how wide our highways already are.
When I first read that book, I thought it seemed like a lot of wasted space because of the amount of parallel lanes you would need to achieve highway speeds. Then I started driving and noticed how wide our highways already are.
It's not the "I, Robot" books, it's the quadrilogy sometimes called the "Robot" series (confusing, I know). "The Caves of Steel", "The Naked Sun", "Robots of Dawn", "Robots and Empire".
These are without a doubt my favourite of Asimov's books :)
Earth has evolved to a point where the population lives in Cities (capitalisation is important!) -- massive, hundreds of square miles completely enclosed with no outside areas at all. They might as well be space stations.
Transit within these cities takes place on 'strips' for local transport -- think of them as 'lanes' on a freeway. The first strip you step on to is an acceleration strip (onramp), which gets you up to speed to then step onto faster strips.
There's also an "Expressway", which is basically a metro, which you step onto from the fastest strip (I think there is an acceleration strip too) which takes over when you want to go longer distances.
Then for even longer distances you have aircars (planes!).
It's a really good system, but only for highly, highly urbanised areas. I think there's only 2 or 3 cities on the planet at the moment truly dense enough. New York, and perhaps central London.
These are without a doubt my favourite of Asimov's books :)
Earth has evolved to a point where the population lives in Cities (capitalisation is important!) -- massive, hundreds of square miles completely enclosed with no outside areas at all. They might as well be space stations.
Transit within these cities takes place on 'strips' for local transport -- think of them as 'lanes' on a freeway. The first strip you step on to is an acceleration strip (onramp), which gets you up to speed to then step onto faster strips.
There's also an "Expressway", which is basically a metro, which you step onto from the fastest strip (I think there is an acceleration strip too) which takes over when you want to go longer distances.
Then for even longer distances you have aircars (planes!).
It's a really good system, but only for highly, highly urbanised areas. I think there's only 2 or 3 cities on the planet at the moment truly dense enough. New York, and perhaps central London.
And in those stories, you can definitely see Asimov's New York City bias. History pointed like an arrow to a future in which cities are...hyper-developed versions of where you grew up and where you prefer to live!
Hmm, are you sure you aren't thinking of the short story "The Roads Must Roll" by Heinlein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll)? The setup you're describing sounds just like the one in that story.
I don't recall the same setup in the I, Robot stories (but it's been a long time).
I don't recall the same setup in the I, Robot stories (but it's been a long time).
I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the fact that within five seconds of reading this comment, Google took me from "Issac Asimov Conveyor belt road" to [1], and a ^F for "Asimov" later I had "The concept of a megalopolis based on high-speed walkways is common in science fiction. The first works set in such a location are "A Story of the Days To Come" (1897) and When The Sleeper Wakes (1899) (also republished as The Sleeper Awakes) written by H. G. Wells, which take place in a future London. Thirty years later, the silent film Metropolis (1927) depicted several scenes showing moving sidewalks and escalators between skyscrapers at high levels. Later, the short story "The Roads Must Roll" (1940), written by Robert A. Heinlein, depicts the risk of a transportation strike in a society based on similar-speed sidewalks. The novel is part of the Future History saga, and takes place in 1976. Isaac Asimov, in the novel The Caves of Steel (1954) and its sequels in the Robot series, uses similar enormous underground cities with a similar sidewalk system. The period described is about the year 3000." [1]
We might not have conveyor belts for roads, but we are defiantly living in the future.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway
We might not have conveyor belts for roads, but we are defiantly living in the future.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway
Hmm, funny, I also googled with similar terms, but did not find the Asimov story (which I read when I was a kid). I'm sure you're right, of course -- just amused at my leaky memory.
To your comment, yes, that is pretty amazing, to have my (our) intelligence augmented in this way. Because just writing it down, and reading it once, is not sufficient to remember it.
It took us a long time to understand the power of writing, and it could be that eventual understanding of the power of search will also have vast implications.
To your comment, yes, that is pretty amazing, to have my (our) intelligence augmented in this way. Because just writing it down, and reading it once, is not sufficient to remember it.
It took us a long time to understand the power of writing, and it could be that eventual understanding of the power of search will also have vast implications.
I definitely remember there being moving walkways in The Robots of Dawn, one of Asimov's later robot-themed books. I only learned just now that they're all part of one series. I think that's what gizmo686 meant by "I Robot books", as opposed to the individual stories within the original book.
Luckily, Wikipedia has our backs on this, with a convenient list of works containing moving walkways: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Science_fiction
Luckily, Wikipedia has our backs on this, with a convenient list of works containing moving walkways: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Science_fiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slidewalk
Several of Heinlein's other Future History books and stories reference the rolling roads.
Several of Heinlein's other Future History books and stories reference the rolling roads.
Cablecars are essentially a conveyor-belt form of transport. They require a lot of infrastructure and if there's a breakage, the whole system is down rather than just one piece. They also make noise everywhere, even when there's no traffic in sight.
Then, of course, if your conveyor belt is pedestrian-based, you have exposure to the elements (also meaning limited long-distance travel due to slow speed) and switching between conveyors would be troublesome (particularly if you're inform or have baggage). If you instead ride in some sort of pod, you can up the speed and protect yourself from the elements, but you still need to get it on and off the conveyor belt smoothly; it's be something approaching the complexity of a car anyway. How also would you prioritise/speed up emergency vehicle traffic, which often has to go as quickly as possible?
It's certainly an interesting thought experiment, coming up with the pros and cons.
Then, of course, if your conveyor belt is pedestrian-based, you have exposure to the elements (also meaning limited long-distance travel due to slow speed) and switching between conveyors would be troublesome (particularly if you're inform or have baggage). If you instead ride in some sort of pod, you can up the speed and protect yourself from the elements, but you still need to get it on and off the conveyor belt smoothly; it's be something approaching the complexity of a car anyway. How also would you prioritise/speed up emergency vehicle traffic, which often has to go as quickly as possible?
It's certainly an interesting thought experiment, coming up with the pros and cons.
Cable cars also have the benefit of (effectively) regenerative braking. when your loaded car is going down hill, you're adding energy to the system to help pull another car up. ski lifts too, for that matter.
> it could have been a better call
You assume that there was a call. Modern roads are just a long series of small, natural, incremental progressions on, essentially, a beaten path through the woods. Many of them are probably even in much the same places.
Cars are much the same. First, crude carts, then progressively bigger carts drawn by progressively bigger animals, then someone builds an "artificial animal", put it inside the car and so on.
There has been some non-continuous breaks, the most notable one is the railroad which present a new set of benefits and challenges. The biggest challenge is that railroads require exclusivity in usage (different kinds of road users can share the road, ultimately by temporarily stepping off the road) which is very difficult to allow without central planning. And central planning is really, really difficult.
You assume that there was a call. Modern roads are just a long series of small, natural, incremental progressions on, essentially, a beaten path through the woods. Many of them are probably even in much the same places.
Cars are much the same. First, crude carts, then progressively bigger carts drawn by progressively bigger animals, then someone builds an "artificial animal", put it inside the car and so on.
There has been some non-continuous breaks, the most notable one is the railroad which present a new set of benefits and challenges. The biggest challenge is that railroads require exclusivity in usage (different kinds of road users can share the road, ultimately by temporarily stepping off the road) which is very difficult to allow without central planning. And central planning is really, really difficult.
The coordinates listed for the single longest conveyer belt are a little bit off.
Here's the start: https://goo.gl/maps/X2jg8
And here's the end: https://goo.gl/maps/n0wvJ
(is there a way to get coordinates out of the new Maps?)
And while I'm at it, a direct link for the longest combined conveyer belt: https://goo.gl/maps/3kz4s
Pity, no streetview :p
And here's the end: https://goo.gl/maps/n0wvJ
(is there a way to get coordinates out of the new Maps?)
And while I'm at it, a direct link for the longest combined conveyer belt: https://goo.gl/maps/3kz4s
Pity, no streetview :p
Not much to add because the article doesn't say much, but I do love these feats of engineering. Those are pretty much 10 times as long as I thought they would be. Amazing.
The colors speak for themselves. ;)
It is amazing how long that is. My only experience with a belt was working at Walgreens on warehouse truck days. Even our 60 foot belt continually had product falling off of it. I wonder what kind of oversight is done to make sure the items stay on it.
It is amazing how long that is. My only experience with a belt was working at Walgreens on warehouse truck days. Even our 60 foot belt continually had product falling off of it. I wonder what kind of oversight is done to make sure the items stay on it.
None, that's why you can see the phosphate spillage from space.
Still, it seems a little counterintuitive that it's not worth putting up an edge or something.
If it's crushed rock, i'll bet a lot of the spillage is dust and small rocks. After a few years it adds up!
If they poured crushed rock directly onto the belt, not much would be left after only a few kilometers, what with all the curves, slopes, and vibration. The belt will also be damaged beyond repair if you keep rubbing rock against it.
So they probably put the rock in boxes and put the boxes on the conveyor belt. The tiny guardrails on either side should be enough to keep the boxes on the belt. Small pieces might spill over if the boxes aren't covered, but most of the cargo will arrive intact.
So they probably put the rock in boxes and put the boxes on the conveyor belt. The tiny guardrails on either side should be enough to keep the boxes on the belt. Small pieces might spill over if the boxes aren't covered, but most of the cargo will arrive intact.
They don't have it in boxes. There are also no guardrails. You might be looking at the conveyor belt in the picture with trees. That's not the Bou Craa belt.
Check out this video of a 10.5km limestone conveyor belt in China [0]. Notice the rollers have a tilt to them? I found a better photo of the belt itself on PBS. [1] if you look on the left hand side of the photo you can make out a cylindrical object beneath the belt. That is the roller, it has the a tilt to it, just like the Chinese belt. Any vibration will result in the load gathering toward the bottom the the belt. Most of what we see on the ground is small particles that are swept off of the belt by wind (Used to live near a port and a concrete factory. Lovely air quality, S&W Ready Mix.)
[0] http://youtube.com/watch?v=Iq5TN_H_C4o
[1] http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/12/21/...
Check out this video of a 10.5km limestone conveyor belt in China [0]. Notice the rollers have a tilt to them? I found a better photo of the belt itself on PBS. [1] if you look on the left hand side of the photo you can make out a cylindrical object beneath the belt. That is the roller, it has the a tilt to it, just like the Chinese belt. Any vibration will result in the load gathering toward the bottom the the belt. Most of what we see on the ground is small particles that are swept off of the belt by wind (Used to live near a port and a concrete factory. Lovely air quality, S&W Ready Mix.)
[0] http://youtube.com/watch?v=Iq5TN_H_C4o
[1] http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/12/21/...
How would you get the boxes back to the beginning?
Well, you put another conveyor belt going in the other direction of course.
Then you will have the TWO longest conveyor belts in the world.
Ka-ching!
[Edit: Typo]
Then you will have the TWO longest conveyor belts in the world.
Ka-ching!
[Edit: Typo]
Hang em on the bottom of the conveyer belt!
Re-use them for shipping out the finished product, so they become someone else's problem.
I'm not sure, but I would guess they could be either have V-shaped x-section or have sag in the middle to avoid having the material fall off the edges.
One can easily detect it by the phosphate spillage south of it.
As a teenager I worked at the end of a delivery conveyor belt for a supermarket. This was an unusual setup for a supermarket (but maybe for industrial or factory settings it's nothing special). The supermarket is located over a major highway. It's the Star Market over the Mass Pike/I90 outside of Boston (1). Customers had to take an escalator to the second floor, and after shopping and paying, 2-3 paper grocery bags were loaded into a small numbered cart. The customers were given plastic cards with the corresponding numbers.
The carts were swung onto the top level of a double-decker conveyer belt. It went down to the first floor (street level) and into a long, basement like room with a conveyer belt and a road paralleling it. Customers would drive their cars into this long room, pop the trunk, and hand me their cards. I would match up the bags, and place them in the trunk. The empty carts were placed on the bottom level of the conveyer belt, to be brought back to the Muzak-filled main level of the supermarket.
The room was filled with fumes and noise from the waiting cars and the interstate tunnel that was next to it. The incessant rattling and squeaking of thousands of metal rollers on the conveyer belts was irritating, although we got used to it (one thing I just realized -- upstairs where the customers were it was an actual belt, which was quiet, but down where we were it was those damn rollers, which were like 1950s-era metal roller skate wheels). We were paid $3.65/hour (minimum wage at the time). But the things that worried us from day to day was the cry of "mix" (human error, wrong bags placed in wrong car) or a spill.
Here's what happened with the spills. As the carts came from the 2f to 1f, they went through a series of turns, including at least one 90 degree turn and a full 180 at the bottom of a decline. This spot was where most of the spills took place. It was apparently unavoidable, owing to the layout of the store, the location of the slopes on the belt, the road and loading area, and the needs of the customers to get their cars loaded quickly. The nature of groceries (heavy/light loads, multiple packaging sizes, etc.) and the technology used at the time made it hard to find an easy fix to the problem. Watermelons rolling around the bottom of the carts were the worst.
I don't have any profound observations about this, other than spillage is a consideration for people who design and manage conveyer belts, and that the cost can be made manageable for both small and large systems. And these belts can be designed to last years or decades. The belt that we used in that market was in use for more than 20 years by the time I started working there in the 1980s, and it (or a similar system, using the same route) is still in use today, some 50 years after it was installed.
1. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shaw's+Supermarket/@42.350...
As a teenager I worked at the end of a delivery conveyor belt for a supermarket. This was an unusual setup for a supermarket (but maybe for industrial or factory settings it's nothing special). The supermarket is located over a major highway. It's the Star Market over the Mass Pike/I90 outside of Boston (1). Customers had to take an escalator to the second floor, and after shopping and paying, 2-3 paper grocery bags were loaded into a small numbered cart. The customers were given plastic cards with the corresponding numbers.
The carts were swung onto the top level of a double-decker conveyer belt. It went down to the first floor (street level) and into a long, basement like room with a conveyer belt and a road paralleling it. Customers would drive their cars into this long room, pop the trunk, and hand me their cards. I would match up the bags, and place them in the trunk. The empty carts were placed on the bottom level of the conveyer belt, to be brought back to the Muzak-filled main level of the supermarket.
The room was filled with fumes and noise from the waiting cars and the interstate tunnel that was next to it. The incessant rattling and squeaking of thousands of metal rollers on the conveyer belts was irritating, although we got used to it (one thing I just realized -- upstairs where the customers were it was an actual belt, which was quiet, but down where we were it was those damn rollers, which were like 1950s-era metal roller skate wheels). We were paid $3.65/hour (minimum wage at the time). But the things that worried us from day to day was the cry of "mix" (human error, wrong bags placed in wrong car) or a spill.
Here's what happened with the spills. As the carts came from the 2f to 1f, they went through a series of turns, including at least one 90 degree turn and a full 180 at the bottom of a decline. This spot was where most of the spills took place. It was apparently unavoidable, owing to the layout of the store, the location of the slopes on the belt, the road and loading area, and the needs of the customers to get their cars loaded quickly. The nature of groceries (heavy/light loads, multiple packaging sizes, etc.) and the technology used at the time made it hard to find an easy fix to the problem. Watermelons rolling around the bottom of the carts were the worst.
I don't have any profound observations about this, other than spillage is a consideration for people who design and manage conveyer belts, and that the cost can be made manageable for both small and large systems. And these belts can be designed to last years or decades. The belt that we used in that market was in use for more than 20 years by the time I started working there in the 1980s, and it (or a similar system, using the same route) is still in use today, some 50 years after it was installed.
1. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shaw's+Supermarket/@42.350...
My childhood supermarket! That conveyor system is probably one of the reasons I went into engineering!
For anyone interested, Bill Bryson's "The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid" describes a setup like this too. It's a very funny book as well if anyone is after a good read.
>It's a very funny book as well if anyone is after a good read.
I think that can be said for all of Bill Bryson's books.
I think that can be said for all of Bill Bryson's books.
> The supermarket is located over a major highway
Instantly I thought of the Star Market over the Mass Pike, before I read the next sentence. And I only lived in Boston for a few years!
Instantly I thought of the Star Market over the Mass Pike, before I read the next sentence. And I only lived in Boston for a few years!
This is weird. I've only been to MA once in my life, and it was about 2 months ago. I was travelling back to Boston on the I90 and went under that store. It was the weirdest looking building. It made an impression on me because it seemed like such a bizarre layout. I wanted to stop and check it out, but alas, I had no time.
I got in trouble for hitting the "stop" button on the escalator as a kid at that store (my little brother was racing up the "down" escalator at the time). My dad made me apologize to the manager.
I'd forgotten about that...
My hometown grocery store had an (by the sound of it) almost identical system. No vertical component though. Just a way to get groceries from the check stands to the pickup lane.
How did the store come to be built like that? Normally, when they run a major road, they'll buy out all the property owners to get a right-of-way.
It's a strange setup. Historically, the railroad lines existed 100 years before the Mass Pike was planned and built in the 1950s and early 1960s. When the state officials/national highway officials decided to expand the route to 6-lanes plus the RR, they basically leveled a bunch of neighborhoods in Boston and Newton (I assume via eminent domain). The turnpike authority developed a scheme (pushed by a large insurance company/developer in Boston) to lease "air rights" above the pike. That's why the Prudential Center in Boston and Star Market were built above the pike in 1963, and a few years later, the hotel in Newton Corner and some buildings attached to the Hancock tower in Boston.
The story is here:
http://www.edrgroup.com/pdf/mta-economic-v2.pdf
The story is here:
http://www.edrgroup.com/pdf/mta-economic-v2.pdf
A lot of fun can be had with conveyor belts. Unexpectedly turning one on whilst someone is standing on one is always funny, whether in an industrial 'dangerous' situation or in some made-for-TV scenario.
Incredibly there is good money to be made in conveyor belts designed specifically for film and television:
http://www.canningconveyor.co.uk/videos/c/4/tumbleator-video...
In the UK people of a certain age can remember the conveyor belt of 'The Generation Game', which always had a 'cuddly toy' on it, e.g.: http://youtu.be/pa4KoACYzyU?t=4m45s
Incredibly there is good money to be made in conveyor belts designed specifically for film and television:
http://www.canningconveyor.co.uk/videos/c/4/tumbleator-video...
In the UK people of a certain age can remember the conveyor belt of 'The Generation Game', which always had a 'cuddly toy' on it, e.g.: http://youtu.be/pa4KoACYzyU?t=4m45s
This belt crosses an international border. It would be interesting to see if there are any border security controls on a conveyor belt of its contents in both directions.
Anyone have any info on this?
Anyone have any info on this?
the phosphate trail the wind blew on the ground: http://goo.gl/maps/j9wnh
For the bay area locals there's a decent length conveyor system in the Santa Cruz mountains that runs into the cement plant in Davenport. It's hard to gauge the size of it with out trespassing, but you drive over it if you are on Bonny Dune Rd.
2 miles, more or less, at least that's what I get eyeballing it: http://goo.gl/maps/QQKqa
That's been shut down for a while if I'm not mistaken. The supports for the old loading pier are a pretty cool sight, though.
> "On 15th September 2013, the ConveyorBeltGuide has been online for 10 years."
Wow, that is some serious dedication. Assuming there are no ulterior motives--and I don't see evidence of any--it's wonderful to see someone so dedicated to sharing such intricate knowledge with anyone who's interested. And it's not abandoned, either; the disclaimer page notes that all videos on the site have been updated to HTML 5.