Electric Bill

I worked out at the railroad yards my first summer starting college in 1976. I walked into a radar shack one day. This building had a radar that read the speed of the railroad cars and applied braking to control their speed. The whole thing was done with an analog computer. This analog computer was two long banks of cabinets full of vacuum tubes. There had to be a thousand tubes in all in those cabinets. An operator sat at a desk at one end and there was a small meter at the other end by a window showing speed in miles/hour. This was some cool 1950s technology. A large bank of wet cells was sitting in an adjacent room. I asked this guy if he was kept busy changing tubes all the time. He told me he hadn't changed a single tube in 15 years because it was never shut down. That impressed me. Still, I don't leave my stereo on all of the time or I wouldn't get anything else done around the house.

I would not care to be away from home if/when a tube failed.

Tonywinsc,

I'm sure, if they used some nice NOS tubes in those 2 long banks of vacuum tubes on that braking system computer, the sound of the railroad cars braking would sound warmer, more organic, more full bodied and with just a touch of bloom.

The current solid state braking systems sound just a little too neutral, accurate and sterile for my tastes. Weird but true.

Tim

Well, the railroad cars did make a lot of noise coming down the hill and hitting those braking bars. That summer was my only exposure to the railroad. Some pretty interesting old technology from their bygone days.
My system costs me $0.06/hour to operate; but in the summer I figure double that because I have to pump the heat out of the house. In the winter, I might leave the stereo on all weekend, but I just can't seem to leave it on as background music. The stereo sucks me in. I can't walk by without sitting down and turning up the volume and pretty soon a few hours have gone by and I haven't gotten anything done. I don't know what I will do when I go online with my music one day- especially HD Audio. That is what I am looking forward to next.