Canada's 100-Foot Freight Railway To Nowhere
Half as Interesting2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2022–2023
explainer · general · 2022–2023 on HN
A short, sarcastic Half as Interesting video about a tiny freight railway in Canada built to exploit a shipping regulation loophole. It explains how a track just 100 feet long counted as a railway.
HN recommends the channel for short, wry videos on obscure topics, and this one is cited as an example of gaming rules via a loophole.
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4 comments from Hacker News
I liked this short video from "Half as interesting" on Youtube on the railway itself if you're looking for a video on the subject. [0] ▶ this video
There was a video earlier this month on Half As Interesting about this railway: ▶ this video HAI makes interesting, short, sarcastic videos about obscure topics that HNers will probably enjoy.
It'll be interesting to see how it's gamed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try - you will get things like this: ▶ this video but they can be corrected for later. One solution would be to switch the tax to a tariff on goods that can be avoided if you prove reduced carbon travel. So if your goods are from China, you get the 100% whatever it is, but if you can show that they travelled from China on whatever is considered acceptable, it drops to 20% or 0% or similar.
> Someone figured out it was cheaper then to import unprocessed meat from Spain to Norway, turn the truck around as soon as they were customs cleared and drive the 3000 km or so back to Spain for curing. Ahh, those Norwegians and their customs evasions. ▶ this video (do note that I'm ascribing this to Norwegians completely in jest - tone is difficult to get across in text) ... Which recently had an update. link