RE: Update: CSX train derailment

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer () mhsc com>]

Have you checked available rights of way lately? They haven't changed much
for quite a while. Telecom has not really any ability to build dedicated
bridges for telcom fibre. It uses existing facilities wherever possible.
Following the paths of least cost/resistance, this pretty much determines
that rivers and bridges become choke-points. The only real alternatives are
microwave towers (a cost/benefit argument I won't touch, even with your
ten-foot pole).

WRT the other comment about that MCI conduit on the tunnel wall, I have
reports that temperatures are exceeding 1000F, near the fire. I submit that
no amount of armor-clading is going to shield that cable, from those temps.
The only cable that might survive is whatever may be buried under the
road-bed.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Wallingford [mailto:brian () meganet net]
> Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 1:28 AM
> To: Sean Donelan
> Cc: nanog () merit edu
> Subject: Re: Update: CSX train derailment
>
>
>
> "Rivers and bridges"?
>
> Either Frank is sensationalizing his comments for the benefit of the
> press, or he's been asleep since '93.
>
> Seems to me the so-called "choke-points" now are more social 
> and fiscal
> than physical - I doubt rivers and bridges are much of an issue.
>
>
>
>
>
> :According to the Baltimore Sun, companies have laid 30,000 feet of
> :emergency fiber to patch around the damage in the Howard Tunnel.
> :
> :  "There was a ripple effect around the country with 
> corporate networks
> :   due to this Baltimore disaster," said Frank Stanton, an 
> executive with
> :   Lexent Inc., a New York-based company that repaired 
> fiber-optic cable
> :   after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. "Everybody 
> thinks they
> :   have redundancy, but these type incidents show people 
> there are huge
> :   issues. When you cross rivers and bridges, these choke 
> points are the
> :   Achilles' heel." 
> :
> :On the Washington DC to New York City fiber route, there seems to be
> :at least one train derailment leading to significant network traffic
> :re-routes every year.