08-08-2015, 03:42 PM
(08-08-2015, 12:58 PM)ookpik Wrote:(08-08-2015, 12:48 PM)Waterlooer Wrote: How come the rails in those last couple photos so zigzagy?
Either
1. you're smoking something stronger than tobacco
2. you're drinking something stronger than Coke
3. you're having trouble reading Canard's comments at the top of his postÂ
Perhaps more importantly, photos taken along a track tend to enhance any slight deviation from perfectly smooth because the content of the photo appears foreshortened. The same effect also results in train cars appearing much shorter than they really are. Essentially it is because the photo does not actually have depth. If you were to stand there and look at the wavy tracks, they would not appear wavy, although if you got down and looked right along them you could probably perceive the waviness.
A similar photo was dishonestly used in Toronto to complain about the St. Clair streetcar project. The tracks there are not perfectly straight for a variety of reasons (e.g., needing to work around left-turn lanes) but are as straight as they need to be for the design speed.
Having said that, photos taken exactly like these will likely look significantly straighter once the final alignment has been set.