A eight mile, high speed tunnel connects Europe to Asia in Istanbul.
Oh great. Does this mean Christendom is going to have to mobilize and save Vienna AGAIN?
THE WAY EUROPEANS NEED TO SAVE CHRISTIANDOM IS TO START HAVING MORE BABIESl
Uh, well, OK Dave, let’s not go there, huh? I was just trying to be funny. I’d have brought up Prince Eugene of Savoy, the last savior of Vienna in the 18th Century from an Ottoman onslaught but I didn’t think many people would “get it.”
Otherwise, you’re not far wrong…
Wayne
The way I heard it the Istanbul Subway had a problem in that it was only one way…you could go to Istanbul but you couldn’t go back to Constantinople.
Does anyone have any idea what the track conditions are to the east ? Items such as track conditions, max speed, sidings, servicing facilities, distance to usable yards, where tracks are not good enough for main line operation, political probles, etc. ?
EDIT : clearances ? ? including this subway ?
Not sure you’d want to go back to Constantinople anyway, it was kind of a mess after the Ottoman siege guns got through with it.
I think I’m showing my age…I was recollecting the words to an old and possible Vaudeville song which was made popular again in the early 50’s by one of the “4” groups; 4 Lads, 4 Aces, 4 somethingorother…
Maybe not Henry, I love old 50’s groups but I never heard an “Istanbul-Constantinople” song. Must be really obscure.
Unless there’s a line in “In The Still Of The Night” that got left out.
You are thinking of “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” done by the 4 Lads circa 1952. I think there was also a Bing Crosby version.
For those of you who spend a lot of time watching reruns on ION Television, there is an episode of “Cold Case” in which the song in question gets a lot of playing time.
I was only familiar with the “They Might Be Giants” version, which I thought they originally wrote, till late last year when I read a thread on a different message board about songs cover as reinterpted by different bands (e.g. “Gloria Jones - Tainted Love”, “The Leaves - Hey Joe” and so on, including ones I did know such as “Bob Dylan - Along the Watch Tower” - the idea being not just a more-or-less straight performance of the original, but with different feeling, timing, genre, etc); the thread included the aforementioned “Instanbul” by the 4 Lads.
Sometimes there seems to be more officially released covers out there than originals…
Back to the Bosphorus straits tunnel - Lion’s cite seems to indicate it will handle both general Freight/Passenger trains AND subway , but the BBC seems to indicate it will handle general freight/passenger trains and Suburban service, which seems more reasonable - of course, Turkey may not have as strict a segregation of passenger train types as the US’s FRA requires…
The BBC article indicates the tunnel isn’t quite ready for prime-time yet.
Anyone remember the words to “Pakalafaka?”
If I don’t have a copy of it, I know someone who may have it. I remember William B. Williams at WNEW in New York City used to throw that on every once in a while…
Ihttp://www.songlyrics.com/four-lads/istanbul-not-constantinople-lyrics/
This 'tube claims to be the Soupy Sales version of Pachalafaka, with lyrics (more or less). Never heard of the song before, and doesn’t much sound like anything I’d normally like.
This is the 4 Lads version of Istanbul
This is the “They Might Be Giants” version of Istanbul (w/ Lryics).
And that should cover the Turkish music interlude in this thread…
Tiny Toons version
And, Constantinople was Byzantium–from whence the adjective “Byzantine.”
I remember the song very well; I was in high school when it came out. Balt, I guess you are just a toddler [:)].
And, as to why New Amsterdam became New York–when the Dutch realized that the English had a better force they had, and relinquished the area, along with the city, to the English, King Charles II gave it to his brother James, who was the Duke of York.
Charles was quite free with land that he had not seen–he gave a large tract of land that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean to a group of his friends, and they called it “Carolina” after him.
“Pachalafaka”- Didn’t Spike Jones and his City Slickers do that?