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If you’re over twenty-five, or perhaps thirty, you may remember a time when you always made sure you had a t-shirt or something in your college colors. Perhaps you had quite a bit. At least those of us who went to a school where athletics were important you wanted to have something for game day. Most people age out of it at some point. At least the need to have enough for every weekend. If you’ve read other entries on this blog, you know that I am, quite obviously, a nerd about such things. I have a collection of t-shirts and other such things from many colleges and universities. Each time I visit a new school or happen back to one after a long period of time, I make sure to get something. Sometime ago, I shared that I even have a pair of red and black sneakers with the Texas Tech Double-T on them for my doctoral alma mater. Well, this week I nerded out in a big way and bought a second pair of Texas Tech-themed shoes. I was also going to buy a pair for my master’s and undergraduate alma mater Tennessee. The company who makes these shoes make two versions for UT. Both have the state and the “T” on them, with the only difference being that one style is orange on black and the other is white on orange. I would have bought a pair of the white on orange, but they didn’t have my size. Not wanting the black version, I will have to wait until my size gets in stock online. In the meantime, here are my new Red Raider shoes.
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Today’s post is a bit of an odd one, given that it centers on something meant for a college campus, but which never came to fruition. I had never heard of it and did not encounter it on the campus in question. This past weekend I was in Atlanta and during some down time in the suburb of Duluth took some time to visit the Southeastern Railway Museum. It’s a small but very nice collection of things railroad and transit. In fact, it has one of the best collections of city buses I have seen. While there, I happened to notice a small, indeed very small, transit car. It turns out that it was part of a prototype people mover system for the Georgia Institute of Technology called the Transette. The museum has a detailed history of the Transette on its website here. Be sure to follow the many embedded links in that page for some cool photos and the official reports on the project. I won’t duplicate that information, but the Transette was a pilot project on campus that never carried a regular passenger. A quarter mile test track was developed linking the student union to a parking lot and tests were conducted over the years from about 1974 to 1981. Funding for the Transette came in the form of a grant from the National Science Foundation. The system ran on something akin to a conveyor belt. Numerous issues were encountered, and many were resolved, but the project was not a success and when funding ceased the plug was pulled and the system was scrapped. Only two cars were completed and the one you see here is the only remaining one. I am surprised that it was not painted gold and white, but I suppose branding would have come later if the system became operational. The university utilized school buses for transit on campus at the time and they were adorned in the official colors. The system is similar to the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) system developed at West Virginia University a few years prior and which launched regular service in 1975. The WVU system was developed separately and does not use a belt system, but instead has more traditional on-board electric motivation. The PRT cars are also larger. Interestingly, Georgia Tech began utilizing a trolley bus system on campus shortly after the school-bus era and recently switched to standard transit buses. They rolled out two webpages on the new system and the history of transit on campus, but neither mention the Transette (see here and here). The photos below are from my visit. The Jack-o-lantern was part of the many Halloween decorations up during my visit.
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AboutUniversity Grounds is a blog about college and university campuses, their buildings and grounds, and the people who live and work on them. Australia
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October 2024
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