Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'

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Atlanta Rail System
This town is going places.
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Dig away the old fill dirt, and place the city of Atlanta on tracks. Then it can be pushed to the coast in the summertime. When there’s a tornado warning, push the city out of the way. Tracks can cross for movement in any of several directions. Move cities together for ease of commute, then back in their spots on the weekend.

When Atlanta, Georgia was razed by General Sherman, the town was moved a short distance and rebuilt. Later, the old town was buried for the creation of viaducts for the train hub, and then built over the fill dirt. This city has a history of travel, which makes it a good test case for this idea.


Amos Kito, Feb 10 2008


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       Croissant for grandeur.

baconbrain, Feb 10 2008
  

       Just don't bother with any buffers at the sea end of the track.... Once tested on Atlanta, build the next set under Texas and push hard.

xenzag, Feb 10 2008
  

       Are they doing this for New Orleans?

UnaBubba, Feb 10 2008
  

       I suspect that tidal motions might cause the entire city to rock back and forth.

bungston, Feb 11 2008
  

       James Blish came up with a similar idea in his book, "A Life For The Stars", although in that case the cities were capable of interstellar travel.   

       The idea of being able to evacuate an entire city by trundling it off to somewhere else is ingenious and worthy of further investigation.

8th of 7, Feb 13 2008
  

       The entry for mercury (Hg) in the Periodic Table of Science Fiction portrays a city moving over the surface of the planet Mercury to stay at a habitable temperature. Talk about baked!

Ford, Feb 13 2008
  

       ... and irrational, as Mercury's day and year are the same length; one hemisphere is continuously illuminated.   

       The place to build a city would no doubt be somewhere in the Twilight Zone.

8th of 7, Feb 13 2008
  

       //Mercury's day and year are the same length//   

       Time to orbit sun: 88 days
Time to spin on axis: 59 days
  

       One Mercury 'day' = 176 Earth days, or 2 complete orbits.

boysparks, Feb 14 2008
  

       Ooops, we were thinking of the other one.... errr, what's it called.... axis of roatation is in the plane of the ecliptic..... is that Neptune ?

8th of 7, Feb 14 2008
  

       I think it's more likely that you picked up transmissions of Earth science programs beamed out in the early 60's, when it was thought that Mercury's day and year were the same length.   

       I'm also guessing that the updated information probably took a long while to trickle into school text books, and that the 'day = year' belief would be a popular meme passed verbally.

boysparks, Feb 14 2008
  

       Not dissimilar to the one that contends Pluto is a planet... or isn't.

UnaBubba, Feb 14 2008
  


 
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