Fact-Checking the "PRT Boondoggle" Blog
A project of the PRT NewsCenter

Thursday, October 26, 2006

His middle initial must be "W"

A hallmark of the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist's disinformation campaign is his frequent reliance on guesswork instead of facts.

The regular reader is of course familiar with his biggest solid-gold comedy hits, such as:

  • "PRT will lose traction in the rain," in which he ignores that wheel traction is irrelevant in LIM (magnetically-propelled) PRTs (#419 forward). Other times he has claimed that LIMs are used to hover (Oops, *** did it again, 6/22), or that LIM is a system name like Taxi 2000, ULTra or Vectus (Out on a LIM, 3/1).
  • "People don't like to ride with strangers," a Wikipedia thread in which he is unable to make his point without misquoting or mischaracterizing his claimed 'evidence.'
It's always entertaining, however, to go back and mock some of his lesser-known, "B-side" offerings. One such stinker is "PRT guideway can't curve." Let me hum a few bars:
I want to know how they bend their guideways. The PRT guideways are steel box frames... kind of resistant to bending. When you look at the PRT graphics the guideways are all curvey [sic] and bendy. The prototype guideway I saw was as straight as a ramrod.

Trolley rails and LRT rails are made to be bent into shape. Source (#432)

He just pulls it out of his butt! At the time I responded,
The actual real-world way is to bend the pieces first, and then assemble them into guideway sections. There's an explanation of this technique on pp. 7-8 here:
http://www.skyloop.org/cals/rebuttal/001-SLC-T2C-Rebuttal-to-CALS-DFR2.pdf
Source (#626)
And here's a recent picture to further prove him clueless:

A section of guideway under construction in the Vectus shop in Sweden. Next to it you can see pieces of rail that have already been bent, prior to assembly. (Vectus photo)

Another time, Ovendoor even layered-on more idiocy by speculating that guideway can't have banked curves:
Another consideration may have been the need to bank the guideway on curves. Ever notice that the PRT graphics and animations dont [sic] show a banked PRT guideway on a curve? Source
Another Rectal Reference* source!

In this new photo of the Vectus installation, the guideway is not only curved--it's banked too!

(Vectus photo)

Of course, Klog Openpore has never confessed to these or any other inaccuracies--still claiming to be right about everything he says. Some "transportation expert."

It's his way of staying the course. Hey Kenworth, there's someone here who wants to give you a shout-out:

"Keep stayin' the course, Mr. Skeptic!"

Related:

* ©2006 Mr_Blog



gPRT
Ken Avidor is a scam

1 comment:

A Transportation Enthusiast said...

But you know, I bet it happened this way:

The wacky PRT companies didn't think about curves until Avidor brought it up. They probably floated along for years thinking about a system with no curves at all, until Avidor came along and set them straight (so to speak).

Now, of course, they know how to do curved track, and even banked track. But if Avidor hadn't spoken up... who knows?

Thanks Ken.