plonq | The stupid. It hurts.

I don't mean to pick on lawyers, but some of the stupidest questions that land in my inbox come from them.

At their request, I dug up an old train consist sometime around the middle of last year for an incident that took place back in 1998ish. They poured over this data for about 15 months before sending me a list of questions this morning regarding the data. Some of the questions strike me as being a bit loaded, such as "what does HVM Equipped mean?" Other questions have left me wondering if the bar exam has some physical components to it; i.e., a lobotomy. There is one question in particular...

I will quote the question verbatim:

"45. Advise what six followed by three stars 2000 feet from the tail end of the train means."

This is the line that is causing them confusion:

6 *** 2000 FEET FROM THE TAILEND OF THE TRAIN ***

How can I answer this one without sacrificing my last remaining shred of faith in humanity? Part of my job requires me to be polite and politic, but it's all I can do to stop myself from prefacing my answer with, "At risk of responding to a question for which the answer should be painfully self-obvious..."

Maybe I could be passive-aggressive and give him the information in excruciating detail.

"6" - This indicates that this line in the consist is a 6-Card. This term is a carry-over from the days when the information was actually stored on cards. A card prefaced with a "6" indicates that the data therein is purely informational.

" " - This is a space. Its function is to make the rest of the information in this line more readable. You may notice more spaces interspersed throughout this line of data, but they serve a function identical to this one. If you encounter a space later in the line and are unsure of its function , refer back to this explanation. Hope this helps.

"***" - These three stars (or "asterisks" as they are also sometimes called) are designed to capture the reader's attention, and to differentiate this line of data from those above it and below it. They say to the reader, "Look at me - I'm an important bit of data!" Please note that the number of stars used is irrelevant to the importance of the data. The decision to use three stars for this function was based purely in aesthetics.

"2000 FEET FROM THE TAILEND OF THE TRAIN" - The term "FEET" refers to a measurement of approximately .3048 metres. The term "TAILEND" may be confusing, as the programmers appear to have combined two words into a single word. The term could also be expressed as "TAIL END". Regardless of how it is written, the term "TAILEND" refers to the opposite end of the train to which the locomotives are attached. Taken as a whole, this line of data means, "This line in the consist indicates a point on the train which is 2000 feet (or 609.6 metres) from the non-locomotive end of the train", or more precisely, "This line indicates the point in the train in which the sum of the lengths of the cars between this point and the non-locomotive end of the train makes its nearest approach to, without exceeding 2000 feet." Please note that fractions of cars are not utilized for this flag since we do not, under normal operation procedures, divide rail cars into fractions.

"***" - These three stars serve a function identical to the three stars identified earlier in the line. The three stars are simply repeated here in order to encapsulate the main informational point of the line between two eye-catching points of demarcation. They serve no other function beyond aesthetics.