GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Is that the DNA they recovered from what may be Richard III?

No, but is that an actual timetable that you've graphed? What a piece of work.

Its atleast three different timetables (Amtrak, NJ DOT Trenton-New York, NJ DOT North Jersey Coast Line), and several Conrail freight scedules (not all trains were listed in each schedule).

However, timetables are pretty meaningless. they're great for catching the train, but they don't give you the full picture of where every train is. This sort of graphing gives you greater insight. For example, a train like the Metroliner only stops in New York, and Philadelphia, skipping other stops. Where is that particular metroliner at any particular time? regular timetables won't tell you that, but if i check my chart, I can figure roughly where the train is at a particular time, even though its not necessarily on the schedule.

Given the huge number of trains moving on the NEC (somewhere just above 250 trains a day), knowing this kind of information is essential to modeling it. This lets me pick a place and time that I can model relatively accurately, while not becoming overwelming.


Its funny you mention DNA. These days, they have Next Gen sequencing machines that pretty much give you huge chunks of a genome at a time. They do come out multicolored, like this, but MUCH longer. What is the REALLY scary thing is the old way they sequenced DNA. They used to make these things called "Polyacyrlamide sequencing gels" You would have to manually read gel strips (which looked like 2 foot sections of masking tape), which had about 200 base pairs for each gel. An entire genome consists of millions of base pairs. Not only would calling out each A T C and G at a time be tedious, making the gels and preparing the samples themselves was also a tedious and long task.