A Little Local Train In Hikone: Ômi Tetsudô Is A Private Company That's Been Around In The Area For

"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 2a - SNCF Turbotrains

Developed in the late 1960s and introduced in the early 1970s, Turbotrains were France's attempt at higher speed rail. Equipped with lightweight and powerful helicopter-based gas turbines, they were capable of 160 km/h service.

However, that introduction date spelled rapid doom for the ETG (Élément à Turbine à Gaz) and RTG (Rame à Turbine à Gaz) types. They were built so they had to be used, the noise and the 430 L/h consumption rate be damned (3 times the consumption of an equivalent Diesel train, and that's just for the prime mover, add another 150 L/h for the generators), but they were constantly moved away from more prestigious routes as soon as those were electrified.

This 1981 photo by Yves Broncard is one of my favourite "so 1970s" pictures: a gas turbine train at Boulogne Aéroglisseurs station, with a massive SR.N4 car-carrying hovercraft arriving in the background - "stick an aircraft engine in it" mentality taken to the max, on land and sea, a combination that seems irrational today.

The last RTGs were withdrawn in the mid-2000s, and one car, T2057, is preserved at the Cité du Train museum in Mulhouse (top photo). But there is another gas turbine train we need to talk about, the one that first bore the letters TGV...

Toba Castle ruins

After Hikone Sawayama and Numazu Nagahama, a final entry in my mini-series of castles that are outside the Top 100 and Next 100 lists - until I get to see more! - is Toba Castle, located on the glorious Shima coast, and of which little beyond a few walls and foundations are left.

Now a park, the top level offers some good views of the coastline, only a short climb up some stairs from Toba's attractions sea level. Admittedly, the best views require a longer hike, and when I visited, Shiroyama Park was at the end of quite a long day's walk!

Sangaku Saturday #4

In the previous info post, we went over the debate on the religious aspect of sangaku, and the fact that the absence of prayers on these tablets was more puzzling to some than the mathematics. As such, the tablets are not ema prayer tablets, but donations, which usually don't feature prayers on them. Case in point, some consecrated sake and French wine seen at Meiji-jingû in 2016.

Beyond wishing for good fortune and health, such donations serve two very worldly purposes: to contribute to the life and prestige of the shrine or temple (having a famous contributor makes the shrine famous by association), and to advertise the donor in return, as their name is on display. See this large torii at Fushimi Inari Taisha paid for by TV Asahi (テレビ朝日).

With that in mind, Meijizen's cynical comment from 1673 that sangaku aim "to celebrate the mathematical genius of their authors" may not far from the truth. The authors of sangaku are looking to gain notoriety through the publicity that the shrine or temple provides. But was the bemused Meijizen the target audience?

More on that in a couple of weeks. Below the cut is the solution to last week's problem.

The solution to the first problem (below the cut in this post) is the key. Name K, L and M the intersections of the three circles with the horizontal line. Then, by using that previous result,

Indeed, as in that problem, we can construct three right triangles, ABH, ACI and BCJ and apply Pythagoras's theorem in each.

Now, it suffices to note that KL = KM + LM, so

or, dividing by 2*squareroot(pqr), we get the desired result:

Inverting and squaring this yields the formula for r:

This gives us the means to construct this figure on paper using a compass and a marked ruler. Having chosen two radii p and q and constructed the two large circles (remember that AB=p+q) and a line tangent to both, placing M and C is done after calculating the lengths IK=CM=r and IC=KM=2*sqrt(pr).

Schauinsland

Since it's been mentioned in the comments on the previous post, we might as well have a look at the Schauinsland, a 1284 m peak on the outskirts of Freiburg im Breisgau. Only 7 km from the Schwabentor, the base is accessible by bus, before boarding a 3.6 km gondola lift ot the summit.

Opened in 1930, the Schauinslandbahn was the first gondola lift built for continuous operation, with the cabins running through each end station at slow speed to turn around while letting passengers off and on. The cable car takes the riders up the hill, offering panoramic views of the Black Forest. And then there's the view from the tower at the summit... I visited in summer, but it must be fantastic in winter too.

The cable car is not the only transport infrastructure to be found on the mountain, as mines operated there until the mid-20th century, so some mining railways with preserved vehicles can be found. Some of the tunnels can be visited (though writing this post reminds me, I haven't been inside yet).

I had to do Eckwersheim village justice on the way to the canal and the memorial shown yesterday, and took the time to walk through it. As it is part of the Strasbourg Metropolitan Area, buses go there, and it's a rather nice ride through several villages, nearly all of which end in 'heim. And all these villages, within easy reach of the city, have at least a few streets with charming, timber-framed buildings, some richly decorated, with flowers and ornaments like the one above. An Alsatian village in rose season is quite the treat.

This building is evidently a restaurant, with the menus chalked up on the gate! I was there on a Monday morning but no menu on display - maybe it was too early, or maybe they weren't going to open because it was a national holiday - kind of. Pentecost in France got weird after 2003 and I don't fully understand it. Let's enjoy that door some more instead.

And it wouldn't be a lovely day in Alsace without storks!

Statement on my Instagram regarding Meta's moderation policy updates

Meta's updated policy on hate speech can best be described as... "weird", I guess.

The highlighted sentence, which is factually inept, is what is causing the uproar. Political and religious discourse on homosexuality, or any other group of people for that matter, does not use, and has never used, unsubstantiated allegations of mental illness or the word "weird" in a light or "non-serious" way. They are always used with the ulterior motive to discredit and stigmatise, and make exclusion of said group, a core element of the law & order doctrine they aspire to. But this is now explicitly permitted on Facebook and Instagram.

The law in most European countries currently does not allow this double standard on hate speech. While this does offer protection to all citizens in the applicable countries, the fact that Meta is in open disagreement with these protections, regardless of the reason, is something to think about.

I will be evaluating my presence on this platform [Instagram] in the coming days and weeks. Meanwhile, a normal blogging schedule will be maintained on the companion Tumblr. Cheers.

Expo 70 Japanese Garden

While most of the pavilions of the 1970 World Expo at Osaka were demolished, a very large exhibit was preserved: the Japanese garden. Located in the North of the enormous Commemoration Park, it's designed as a stroll through the ages, with four sections inspired by different periods, Ancient, Medieval, Modern (Edo period) and Contemporary - kind of like the zones from The Crystal Maze, just without the puzzles and Richard O'Brien.

From rock gardens to ponds and rolling hills, from a bamboo grove to wisteria and maple trees, it hits the notes you'd expect from a summary of Japanese landscape styling, but allows one plenty of room to contemplate each tableau - I'm emphasised how big the overall park is, but the Japanese garden alone covers 26 hectares.

One of the few gripes I have with Koishikawa Kôrakuen, my favourite garden in Tokyo, is that some buildings are close and large enough to appear in the background. With the Expo pavilions gone however, most views in this park don't have that problem. Only the Tower of the Sun and the Osaka Wheel are able to rise above the park in this view towards the South.

Walking in on the Nagoya Basho

While I saw Tokyo's sumo arena out of sumo season, I stumbled on an active sumo tournament last summer. July is the month of the Nagoya Basho, and the flags of the various participating sekitori (officially ranked wrestlers, all the names on the flags ending with the character zeki, 関) welcomed not only the spectators, but also the visitors to Nagoya Castle. That's quite the entrance!

I did see one or two sumo wrestlers out and about, and made nothing of it until I noticed the flags. That's when I put everything together regarding what a man at the subway had asked. "Sumô? Sumô?" That's literally all he said, no other attempt to clarify. Yes, I know what sumo is, but it seemed unlikely to me that was what he was talking about - we were, after all, just standing in the subway tunnels waiting for a heavy shower to pass, the topic didn't fit the context and what I knew, I was just going to the castle. So I just stuck to looking a bit dim, like I didn't understand (which, to be fair, I was, and didn't).

As a footnote, the Nagoya Basho will no longer be held inside the castle walls from 2025. It moves to a brand new arena just to the North.

Hikone Sawayama: summit & castle

It's not about what is there today, as much as it's about what was there. Sawayama was the original location of Hikone Castle, and it is quite possibly the most important castle in Japan to have been completely lost, as it was the castle of Ishida Mitsunari, the leader of the Western Army which lost the battle to unite Japan following the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. There are so few traces of the castle, no obvious tell-tale structures... This small altar may trace its roots back to the days of the castle, or maybe not, but this is just about it.

Sawayama Castle was thoroughly dismanted after 1600 following the defeat of Ishida, as the new lord of the area, Ii Naomasa, appointed by the victorious Tokugawa clan, relocated the castle to a smaller hill closer to Lake Biwa. Hikone Castle, which still stands today, basically recycled the materials from Sawayama, and the view of the "new" castle complex and the lake is the main draw for hikers today.

The summit offers good views of the mountains on the other side too, with the industrial complexes near Maibara, most noticeably Fujitec and their 170 m-tall elevator test tower, in the foreground.

Rheinfall: a second look

The weather improved greatly throughout my day at Schaffhausen, and I'd read that the falls are lit up at night, so I decided to give it a second look. And this was the view from the scenic Neuhausen Rheinfall station when I got back:

The falls roughly face West, so the evening is actually the best time to photograph them as the sunlight hits them directly.

Also, the boats stop at 6:30 in the summer, so we get a clearer view of the pool below, and no-one standing on the rock in the middle.

The trail on the Laufen side remains open though, so people can still see the falls up close, as described in the previous post.

The bridge on the far left of the top picture and at the back of the second picture is a rail bridge carrying the line from Neuhausen (central) to Schloss Laufen. It's no doubt one of the most spectacular in Europe, and it doubles up as a footbridge, allowing people to walk alongside some Swiss Dostos.

Oh, and they do light up the falls at night.