City of Austin seeking ways to fuck up Zilker Park

[South Austin 52638]

16 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Improve Zilker?  Man, this is super easy.  Three words.

Giant

Fitlump

Statue

Would it be inflatable?

[Cajun 11754]

19 hours ago, ztejas said:

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/city-of-austin-seeks-community-feedback-on-future-of-zilker-park/amp/

Someone tell me this is satire. 

"Hey you know that awesome urban park that is one of the jewels of cities across America? That no one ever complains about and is only ever cited as one of the greatest, most quintissential things about the city? Let's tear it up to add a bunch of sidewalks, bike-lanes, and fuck up traffic"

I just don't understand what world these fucking morons live in. In what way is Zilker inaccessible? Let's put an interstate through Central Park while we're at it. 

This city's fascination with fucking up things that aren't, never were, and never will be broken is astounding. 

Weren't at one point they discussing turning South Lamar into a street with one lane going in each direction?

The reason you don't is because you're operating from a position of caring trying to "understand" people who absolutely do not care.  At all.  Zilch.  Zippo.  Nada.

But don't blame them, they are the symptom.

Blame the citizenry of the luney bin city who keeps voting 'em in to keep the entire snowball of idiotic feces rolling downhill smashing all that was and could be.  It's not going to change.  Shake hands with that absolute reality and GTFO.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

17 hours ago, Deej said:

Yet they struggle to find money to keep the neighborhood pools open every summer. 

Let's not kid ourselves though - they have the money for those pools, they would just rather close them and build a bunch of Bartholomew clones on the outskirts of town so they can charge people for mini-water park ripoffs.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

15 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Zilker is one of the most accessible places in Austin for bikes.  Some do that but most take a car because it's easier.  The LAB right across the lake is mostly empty.

1234.  I could hop on a single bus a few blocks from my house, and while it would take 20 minutes or so, I could be down there without having to change buses or anything.  I can get down there even quicker on bike, since I could go along Shoal Creek, etc. and skip a lot of lights (oh wait, on bike, traffic lights don't apply).

But when I go to Zilker, it's 99% of the time with kids, which means food/snacks/water, usually involves a trip to Barton Springs, which means towels/clothing/etc.

I ain't hauling all that shit on my bike or on the bus.  I respect parents who can get really minimal when doing stuff with their kids, I really do.  And in the pre-kid days, we'd ride our bikes down, go swimming in Barton Springs, then do stuff around Zilker and maybe canoe up and down the lake, and be dried off and could head back in the evening at our leisure without much of a change of clothes, and maybe a small towel, and everything we needed fit in one backpack.

But I also don't want Austin giving up more greenspace to parking or bike lanes.

[JimmyJames 12271]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Let's not kid ourselves though - they have the money for those pools, they would just rather close them and build a bunch of Bartholomew clones on the outskirts of town so they can charge people for mini-water park ripoffs.

Yep. Austin used to have a great public pool system with neighborhood pools all over town. Now they either don’t open them or open late in the season and shut them down early claiming they don’t have enough lifeguards, when the very simple explanation for that is they don’t pay lifeguards nearly enough anymore.  
 

Not sure if it’s deliberate or incompetence but that is definitely it. Austin easily has enough money nowadays to staff them. Hell they did in the 80s and this town had very little money back then, especially when compared to today. 

[dingleberryswitzer 2724]

Hey man, having a resident artist with the water company ain’t free.  

[DalTxHornFan 3121]

15 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Yep. Austin used to have a great public pool system with neighborhood pools all over town. Now they either don’t open them or open late in the season and shut them down early claiming they don’t have enough lifeguards, when the very simple explanation for that is they don’t pay lifeguards nearly enough anymore.  
 

Not sure if it’s deliberate or incompetence but that is definitely it. Austin easily has enough money nowadays to staff them. Hell they did in the 80s and this town had very little money back then, especially when compared to today. 

It is ridiculous that Northwest Pool didn't open this summer.  (Little known fact is that is where I learned to swim back in the 1960's -- got my turtle and duck patch there!)

[atomheartbevo 89858]

8 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

It is ridiculous that Northwest Pool didn't open this summer.  (Little known fact is that is where I learned to swim back in the 1960's -- got my turtle and duck patch there!)

I think that was the one that was heavily damaged by the February storm.  Like lots of busted pipes, equipment, etc.  

I could be wrong, but I remember somebody saying one of the pools on our side of town got really fucked up.

[JimmyJames 12271]

6 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

It is ridiculous that Northwest Pool didn't open this summer.  (Little known fact is that is where I learned to swim back in the 1960's -- got my turtle and duck patch there!)

I didn’t know that northwest pool didn’t open and that’s ridiculous. I was thinking just the smaller neighborhood ones didn’t open. My kids also learned to swim there and my Dad actually designed the place. 

[DalTxHornFan 3121]

5 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I didn’t know that northwest pool didn’t open and that’s ridiculous. I was thinking just the smaller neighborhood ones didn’t open. My kids also learned to swim there and my Dad actually designed the place. 

Northwest Park is a cool place.  Perhaps the earliest quarry in Austin.  Nicely reclaimed.  As was the one at Far West.

[CooterBrown 18034]

The first excuse is that Northwest was damaged but the last excuse we heard was that they couldn’t find lifeguards. Then they said it’d cost $30M to fix the pool. Guaranteed plenty of contractors could build a kick ass pool there for $5-10M with plenty of graft built in.

The truth is that the city would love to close all the central pools and build large regional swim centers out on the city edges that serve the suburbs but aren’t convenient to anyone actually living in the city core.

[Murfdogg21 4432]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

And in the pre-kid days, we'd ride our bikes down, go swimming in Barton Springs, then do stuff around Zilker and maybe canoe up and down the lake, and be dried off and could head back in the evening at our leisure without much of a change of clothes, and maybe a small towel, and everything we needed fit in one backpack.

Swimming followed by Zilker play, canoeing, and bicycling in your swim shorts? That must’ve been an Andy Bernard level of chafing to your inner thighs. 

[Updawg 2286]

Yep. Austin used to have a great public pool system with neighborhood pools all over town. Now they either don’t open them or open late in the season and shut them down early claiming they don’t have enough lifeguards, when the very simple explanation for that is they don’t pay lifeguards nearly enough anymore.  
 
Not sure if it’s deliberate or incompetence but that is definitely it. Austin easily has enough money nowadays to staff them. Hell they did in the 80s and this town had very little money back then, especially when compared to today. 

Never understood the pool problem

[Updawg 2286]

The first excuse is that Northwest was damaged but the last excuse we heard was that they couldn’t find lifeguards. Then they said it’d cost $30M to fix the pool. Guaranteed plenty of contractors could build a kick ass pool there for $5-10M with plenty of graft built in.

The truth is that the city would love to close all the central pools and build large regional swim centers out on the city edges that serve the suburbs but aren’t convenient to anyone actually living in the city core.

I’m circle c. We have plenty of hoa pools. So we don’t need the city for pools

I’ve never understood why the city doesn’t maintain and staff the city ones. It’s a disgrace. May be liability. But no way does it cost that much and it’s been going on forever. Pisses me off that kids are being deprived

[dcbc 14545]

Party at the moontower.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

50 minutes ago, Murfdogg21 said:

Swimming followed by Zilker play, canoeing, and bicycling in your swim shorts? That must’ve been an Andy Bernard level of chafing to your inner thighs. 

Stuff dries pretty quick in the summers and/or we'd have shorts.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

10 minutes ago, Updawg said:

Never understood the pool problem

I've always felt somebody was deliberately tanking the pool system.

Maybe we should lobby fit lump and tell her that there's a group of people who hate pools because of the chemicals or some weird conspiracy, and she could go on a rampage to get them going.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

1 hour ago, CooterBrown said:

The truth is that the city would love to close all the central pools and build large regional swim centers out on the city edges that serve the suburbs but aren’t convenient to anyone actually living in the city core.

And our chances of going to any large regional swim centers is between 0% - 5%.

[Biff Tannen 45751]

3 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Yep. Austin used to have a great public pool system with neighborhood pools all over town. Now they either don’t open them or open late in the season and shut them down early claiming they don’t have enough lifeguards, when the very simple explanation for that is they don’t pay lifeguards nearly enough anymore.  
 

Not sure if it’s deliberate or incompetence but that is definitely it. Austin easily has enough money nowadays to staff them. Hell they did in the 80s and this town had very little money back then, especially when compared to today. 

Advertising $15/hr at Shipe right now.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, CooterBrown said:

The first excuse is that Northwest was damaged but the last excuse we heard was that they couldn’t find lifeguards. Then they said it’d cost $30M to fix the pool. Guaranteed plenty of contractors could build a kick ass pool there for $5-10M with plenty of graft built in.

The truth is that the city would love to close all the central pools and build large regional swim centers out on the city edges that serve the suburbs but aren’t convenient to anyone actually living in the city core.

I suppose that could be it but it doesn’t make sense. 
 

In the past the neighborhood pools were free and the district pools like northwest, Bartholomew, and dittmar, etc, were cheap like 3 bucks to get in. What’s in it for the city to destroy that for regional pools unless there’s some big regional pool conspiracy to drive up profits in regional pools, which seems unlikely. Seems more like incompetence to me but who knows. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

Advertising $15/hr at Shipe right now.

Seriously?

[Biff Tannen 45751]

1 hour ago, JimmyJames said:

Seriously?

[demos 3012]

I've always felt somebody was deliberately tanking the pool system.
Maybe we should lobby fit lump and tell her that there's a group of people who hate pools because of the chemicals or some weird conspiracy, and she could go on a rampage to get them going.

Use her stupidity for good.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

1 hour ago, demos said:

Use her stupidity for good.

Exactly.  Just have to spin it as a part of some conspiracy.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Advertising $15/hr at Shipe right now.

Shipe has a lot of bored housewives/soccer moms in the neighborhood.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Time to round up,Alex Jones and a camera crew and head on over to shipe pool then.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Advertising $15/hr at Shipe right now.

Ok I’m a dumbass and just now figured out this was the pay for a job and not to pay to swim. My bad. I’m an idiot. 

15 an hour doesn’t work as a lifeguard even at an easy pool like shipe. You have to pay for training. You have to go through training, which takes time. 
 

You actually have to be good at your job and possibly save people. Especially kids. 15 an hour is not enough in Austin enough because otherwise you can just work at taco deli. Lots easier job, no paying for training and you don’t have to save some dudes life.

[Biff Tannen 45751]

2 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Ok I’m a dumbass and just now figured out this was the pay for a job and not to pay to swim. My bad. I’m an idiot. 

15 an hour doesn’t work as a lifeguard even at an easy pool like shipe. You have to pay for training. You have to go through training, which takes time. 
 

You actually have to be good at your job and possibly save people. Especially kids. 15 an hour is not enough in Austin enough because otherwise you can just work at taco deli. Lots easier job, no paying for training and you don’t have to save some dudes life.

Lol. Yes you are an idiot. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

22 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Lol. Yes you are an idiot. 

I’m fairness to me, the last 4 years have kind of fucked with my head to actually temporarily believe something that ridiculous, especially the last two years.

[UTexasFight 9556]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Shipe has a lot of bored housewives/soccer moms in the neighborhood.

I read an article about you the other week:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pools-oldest-lifeguard-36-year-old-dives-into-the-deep-end-for-a-dream-job-11626360562

[atomheartbevo 89858]

11 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

I read an article about you the other week:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pools-oldest-lifeguard-36-year-old-dives-into-the-deep-end-for-a-dream-job-11626360562

We were down at Galveston, and one of the beach lifeguards came out of his shack and was bitching at kids to quit swimming next to the fishing pier.

Dude had to be in his 50s, and reminded me of Sam Elliott's Lifeguard movie, only 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier.

I looked at Galveston County lifeguard pay, and it's...about the same as that Shipe posting (albeit it's a full-time job with benefits).

• Must be 16 or older
• Able to swim 500 meters in 10 minutes or less
• Pass a urine drug screen
• Pass the Lifeguard Training Academy (100+ hours of training)

Talk about easy to get hired on.  Should have done that after high school.

 

[UTexasFight 9556]

4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

We were down at Galveston, and one of the beach lifeguards came out of his shack and was bitching at kids to quit swimming next to the fishing pier.

Dude had to be in his 50s, and reminded me of Sam Elliott's Lifeguard movie, only 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier.

 

 

Hahaha. That sounds exactly like the guy doing the same thing when we were in Galveston June of last year.

glad to hear he put off retirement for another year to come back for his 41st season. 

[CooterBrown 18034]

I suppose that could be it but it doesn’t make sense. 
 
In the past the neighborhood pools were free and the district pools like northwest, Bartholomew, and dittmar, etc, were cheap like 3 bucks to get in. What’s in it for the city to destroy that for regional pools unless there’s some big regional pool conspiracy to drive up profits in regional pools, which seems unlikely. Seems more like incompetence to me but who knows. 

The city did a survey a few years ago in my hood (Allandale) and I’m sure others served by NW Pool. Every question had as an option “a large regional swim center”. It was pretty obvious what answer the city was trying to get residents to buy into.

[Underdog 28808]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Shipe has a lot of bored housewives/soccer moms in the neighborhood.

[Underdog 28808]

9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

We were down at Galveston, and one of the beach lifeguards came out of his shack and was bitching at kids to quit swimming next to the fishing pier.

Dude had to be in his 50s, and reminded me of Sam Elliott's Lifeguard movie, only 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier.

I looked at Galveston County lifeguard pay, and it's...about the same as that Shipe posting (albeit it's a full-time job with benefits).

• Must be 16 or older
• Able to swim 500 meters in 10 minutes or less
• Pass a urine drug screen
• Pass the Lifeguard Training Academy (100+ hours of training)

Talk about easy to get hired on.  Should have done that after high school.

 

GDit, what I get for not completely reading the thread.  Fuck it, not editing it. 

[Biff Tannen 45751]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Talk about easy to get hired on.  Should have done that after high school.

Shit, I'm considering it right now.

[atomheartbevo 89858]

13 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Hahaha. That sounds exactly like the guy doing the same thing when we were in Galveston June of last year.

glad to hear he put off retirement for another year to come back for his 41st season. 

Really blonde hair?  Like almost bleached?

[ztejas 43555]

On 8/12/2021 at 9:26 PM, JimmyJames said:

Ok I’m a dumbass and just now figured out this was the pay for a job and not to pay to swim. My bad. I’m an idiot. 

15 an hour doesn’t work as a lifeguard even at an easy pool like shipe. You have to pay for training. You have to go through training, which takes time. 
 

You actually have to be good at your job and possibly save people. Especially kids. 15 an hour is not enough in Austin enough because otherwise you can just work at taco deli. Lots easier job, no paying for training and you don’t have to save some dudes life.

Dude. Working at Taco Deli is not easier than being a lifeguard. Lifeguards do jack shit. Most of these people never have to save anyone in their lives. Maybe they have one "crazy" story about easily saving some kid. This isn't the beach in San Diego - these are very visible and not very deep public pools.

[ztejas 43555]

On 8/12/2021 at 5:51 PM, JimmyJames said:

Yep. Austin used to have a great public pool system with neighborhood pools all over town. Now they either don’t open them or open late in the season and shut them down early claiming they don’t have enough lifeguards, when the very simple explanation for that is they don’t pay lifeguards nearly enough anymore.  
 

Not sure if it’s deliberate or incompetence but that is definitely it. Austin easily has enough money nowadays to staff them. Hell they did in the 80s and this town had very little money back then, especially when compared to today. 

This is really sad. I swam at a ton of these pools as a kid and that wasn't all that long ago. World going to shit - CoA not helping. News at 6.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

30 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Dude. Working at Taco Deli is not easier than being a lifeguard. Lifeguards do jack shit. Most of these people never have to save anyone in their lives. Maybe they have one "crazy" story about easily saving some kid. This isn't the beach in San Diego - these are very visible and not very deep public pools.

I always figured at some pools lifeguards paid to work there ...

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

On 8/12/2021 at 7:56 PM, atomheartbevo said:

And our chances of going to any large regional swim centers is between 0% - 5%.

Might I suggest:

 

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

 

I was a lifeguard at Barton Springs from about '85 until around 94, from high school, all through college and until I finished grad school. For most of those years, I guarded year round. I frequently opened the pool at 5 am so the olds could come in and get their laps in. Other days I closed it down at 10 pm. In winter, if I closed, it would be just me in the office from dark until 10 pm.

 

Ask me anything.

 

[ztejas 43555]

17 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

I was a lifeguard at Barton Springs from about '85 until around 94, from high school, all through college and until I finished grad school. For most of those years, I guarded year round. I frequently opened the pool at 5 am so the olds could come in and get their laps in. Other days I closed it down at 10 pm. In winter, if I closed, it would be just me in the office from dark until 10 pm.

 

Ask me anything.

 

How many topless sunbathers got your wang hard in the stand?

[futureman 22559]

54 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

I was a lifeguard at Barton Springs from about '85 until around 94, from high school, all through college and until I finished grad school. For most of those years, I guarded year round. I frequently opened the pool at 5 am so the olds could come in and get their laps in. Other days I closed it down at 10 pm. In winter, if I closed, it would be just me in the office from dark until 10 pm.

 

Ask me anything.

 

did you ever bang a chick on the lawn?

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

 

More than a couple, but a quick dive in the water usually took care of that problem.

edit:

@ztejas

Edited August 26, 2021 by High Plains Drifter

[High Plains Drifter 11054]

12 minutes ago, futureman said:

did you ever bang a chick on the lawn?

 

Twice (same chick two different times). Used my key to sneak in through the back gate late at night. She was also a guard.

Also once in the guard break room. Girlfriend (different girl than above) was hanging out with me on one of those lonely dark to 10 pm shifts.

 

 

[ztejas 43555]

24 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

More than a couple, but a quick dive in the water usually took care of that problem.

edit:

@ztejas

 

21 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Twice (same chick two different times). Used my key to sneak in through the back gate late at night. She was also a guard.

Also once in the guard break room. Girlfriend (different girl than above) was hanging out with me on one of those lonely dark to 10 pm shifts.

 

 

 

[Steel Shank 9434]

Latest on how the City and the Austin Parks Foundation continue a series of poor decision making/fuck-ups:

(From KUT)

Zilker Park — the crown jewel of Austin's park system — used to be home to a miniature train amusement ride that delighted families for generations and became one of Austin's most iconic attractions.

"The first one I ever rode, I was about 10 years old maybe. It was really exciting," said Fred Britton, who was lounging at Zilker Park last week. "I've done it a bunch of times. I did it with my kids as well. Great history and memories of that little train."

 

City Of Austin

The Zilker Zephyr was the last mini-train to operate in Zilker Park, running from 1997 until May 2019.

But the little train hasn't run since May 2019, when a storm caused erosion that washed out the ground beneath some of the tracks.

A listener reached out to KUT's ATXplained project about the Zilker Zephyr: Why has it been almost four years since the tiny train toured Zilker Park?

After the erosion problems, the city handed control of the Zilker mini-train to the Austin Parks Foundation, a nonprofit that's helped raise more than $80 million for local parks since its founding in 1992. The city expected APF would quickly get the ride up and running again.

But APF had no experience running mini-trains and wound up buying a train that no longer works from a company that no longer exists.

The foundation paid almost $365,000 for the train and tracks and is now struggling to find someone who can fix the locomotive and coaches.

How it all began

 

Austin History Center

In this undated photo of the original Zilker Eagle mini-train, the Texas State Capitol can be seen in the distance.

 

A toy store owner and a railroad worker teamed up to create the first Zilker Park mini-train. The Austin Eagle, as it was called back then, started rolling on April 22, 1961.

The ride was a hit, according to press reports at the time.

"The grownups apparently enjoy it even more than the kids," wrote the Austin American-Statesman's Betty MacNabb. "Four adults actually climbed into one of the little compartments and rode together, jammed like sardines."

Fast forward to 1985. A lawyer named Charlie Beall bought the operation. A few months later, on Easter weekend, two trains were unveiled. Each was named after one of his daughters: Ashley and Jenny. The trains ran for about a decade.

Eventually, Beall's relationship with the city soured. Austin chose a new company to operate the Zilker mini-train: Texas Special.

 

Austin Parks Foundation

Former Zilker mini-train owner Charlie Beall helps his daughter onto one of two trains he ran. Each train was named after one of his daughters.

Texas Special ran the train for more than 20 years until it, too, had a falling out with the city. Heavy rains washed away some of the embankment supporting the tracks in May 2019.

Texas Special wanted a five-year contract renewal to guarantee the company would bring in enough revenue to pay for the estimated $286,000 in repairs.

The city offered less than what Texas Special wanted. The company declined.

"While our decision to turn down the offer was not taken lightly, we had to take into consideration that ultimately it would not have been a good business decision for us," Texas Special said in a widely shared Facebook post.

Texas Special packed up their train and took it with them. The tracks, too. No train has run since.

Who would restore this beloved Austin institution?

The City Council turned to the Austin Parks Foundation. City staff said putting the contract to bid would take months. So, that process was sidelined, and APF was awarded a contract.

"This is a highly unusual case," Council Member Paige Ellis said before the unanimous council vote. "The intent for this is just to get [the mini-train] up and going."

The contract calls for APF to construct, maintain and own the train. All profits from the ride are to support efforts to improve parks across the city.

The City Council said a competitive bidding process to find a train operator could wait until after a new master plan for Zilker Park was adopted. That Zilker Park Vision Plan has still not been finalized. A public comment period ended earlier this month, and the feedback is being worked into a new draft plan that will go before the council.

The all-new Zilker Eagle

Under political pressure to deliver a train quickly, APF researched mini-train manufacturers and asked for references. The nonprofit soon hired a Phoenix-based company called Railway Factory to build an all-electric locomotive, six coaches and new train tracks and switches.

APF would ultimately pay Railway Factory $364,963.

Railway Factory built the tracks and would typically lay them for an additional fee. But the Parks Foundation had the tracks installed by Herzog, a heavy railroad contractor more used to working on real train tracks than amusement park rides.

APF renovated the train depot, painted the train tunnel under Barton Springs Road with a rainbow mural and added a wheelchair accessible platform for boarding.

A contest was held to choose a new name for the train. The winning entry was the Zilker Eagle — a throwback to the original name of the amusement ride.

 

Renee Dominguez

/

KUT

The freshly renovated Zilker mini-train station, including a new wheelchair accessible platform, are among the improvements the Austin Park Foundation made to the attraction.

But when APF took over stewardship of the Zilker Park mini-train, the organization had no experience operating such amusement rides and underestimated how hard it would be.

"Everybody knew it was going to be a pretty big project, but I don't think anybody anticipated it being this difficult," said Joy Casnovsky, who was hired a year ago in part to work on the Zilker train project. She said APF thought it could be a great way to raise money for the parks system.

A broken train

Problems with the Zilker Eagle began almost immediately after the new electric locomotive and coaches arrived on Jan. 17, 2022.

Railway Factory drove the train and coaches from Phoenix to Austin. A forklift placed the vehicles on the train tracks.

"We were all super excited," APF Park Design Director Katie Robillard said.

A few hours into the work, the Railway Factory team had to leave the job site. This is where the versions of events differ.

"I told them, 'Do not, I repeat, do not touch this train or allow anybody on it,'" said Robert Scott, who was managing director of the Railway Factory. "Well guess what, they decided they were going to park it up in their tunnel a few hundred yards away."

APF says the brightly colored locomotive began attracting lots of attention on a cloudless holiday weekend in a busy park. Robillard and two others were trying to keep people off the train and coaches, which stretched more than 70-feet long.

"A few hours into it, we were just like, 'We've got to get this train to a more secure location,'" Robillard said. "So we decided to move it, and we thought the best location to move it would be the storage tunnel."

 

Austin Parks Foundation

The mini-train made by Railway Factory — dubbed the Zilker Eagle — features a modern-looking locomotive with a bright tie-die paint job. The coaches are vibrant shades of pink, orange, yellow and green. The only problem is the train doesn't work.

On the way to the storage tunnel, the train got stuck in a switch.

APF says the wheels of the mini-train were too big for the switch. Scott says the train got stuck because of wood placed inside the switch to accommodate a pedestrian crossing.

When the APF team put the train in reverse, the differential broke. A differential is a set of gears that allows the wheels to turn at different speeds. Wheels were also damaged.

Scott accused APF of running the motor full throttle in reverse and messing up the transmission and wheels.

“Of course, the first thing we did was put it in reverse, and it didn’t move," Robillard said. "So at the end of the day, [Scott] had to disassemble it and take the gear box, and he also took the wheels back to Phoenix to repair them. The [motor] was in tact. But the gearbox was broken. So that’s what happened. It was not great.”

The Austin Parks Foundation said it found other problems with the train, though, and ultimately decided to cut ties with Railway Factory.

Scott claimed he was owed about $50,000 for additional travel and repairs, but instead accepted $10,000 and signed a nondisclosure agreement.

"You have to have this included in your agreement that you can't say one thing about my companies or me," Scott said he told APF. "They agreed, and they signed it."

The Austin Parks Foundation showed KUT a copy of the document with Scott's signature. The contract prevents either party from suing the other but doesn't have a nondisclosure clause. Scott was issued a final payment of $10,000.

Railway Factory no longer exists as a company. But it's still listed as an "active" entity in good standing by the Arizona Corporations Commission.

Can the train be fixed?

The Austin Parks Foundation is determined to get a mini-train running in Zilker Park. The nonprofit hired construction project management company Square One Consultants to help.

APF and Square One said new problems emerged with the train. For example, the electric forklift motor that powers the locomotive doesn't work.

"Last time I saw it [running] it was smoking and cracking," said Marisa Love with Square One.

Railway Factory said the Parks Foundation requested too many coaches for the strength of the engine. Scott said they had to reconfigure the locomotive several times to increase its strength.

"That was like hooking a Shetland pony to the Anheuser-Busch wagon," Scott said.

 

Nathan Bernier

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KUT

APF says a forklift engine used to power the Zilker Eagle's locomotive doesn't work.

Love showed KUT the Zilker Eagle in storage and pointed to what she said were other design flaws. Among them, the coaches don't have brakes.

"They must have brakes," Love said. "It's a safety miss."

The locomotive has no door for a conductor. They would have to climb in from the top. The cars are not spaced far enough apart, Love said.

"The distance is a little short. I've been told that multiple times by everyone who's looked at this," she said.

 

Nathan Bernier

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KUT

Love says the coaches on the Zilker Eagle don't have brakes and aren't spaced far enough apart. "We need it to be just a little more forgiving," she said.

APF said the mini-train failed an inspection by the Texas Department of Insurance, at least in part because the train took too long to come to a stop. The failed inspection meant the ride couldn't be insured.

Love and APF have reached out to mini-train manufacturers across the country. But so far, none have been willing to work on another company's train because of liability issues. They don't want to get sued if something goes wrong.

"We build our trains to a certain standard, and that one just doesn't meet our standards," said Anthony Marquez with California-based Western Train Co., a mini-train maker who flew out a team to inspect the Zilker Eagle. "If we brought that one back, we have to pretty much just rebuild the whole thing."

The other electric mini-train in Central Texas

In Leander, Cedar Rock Railroad has been operating a miniature train since 2005. Owner Ken Knowles also owns Texas Bells and Whistles, which builds electric mini-trains.

"It was never clear to me why the train was such an interest to Austin Parks Foundation. They don't have any experience operating an amusement concession, like a train," Knowles said. "And also, [it was unclear] why the Parks Department wasn't interested in putting the train out as a request for proposals as is typically done with concessions."

 

Renee Dominguez

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KUT

An electric mini-train runs along the Cedar Rock Railroad in Southwest Williamson County Regional Park.

"I was disappointed, because I wanted to bid," he said.

Knowles was also invited to inspect APF's Zilker Eagle as part of the nonprofit's nationwide search for a train tinkerer to repair the ride.

"Bad choice of motor. Bad choice of gearing. No ethical manufacturer is going to touch the train without tearing it apart completely," he said.

Knowles still hopes to be involved in getting a mini-train up and running in Zilker Park. But he's pointed out other problems, including the continued threat of erosion.

The Austin Parks Foundation shortened the Zilker mini-train route to avoid the stretch along Lady Bird Lake where the 2019 erosion happened. The tracks now loop back at Lou Neff Point, which overlooks the downtown skyline.

Walking along the tracks today, the area near the Barton Creek Bridge underpass is washed over in soil.

 

Nathan Bernier

/

KUT

Parts of the Zilker Eagle tracks are covered in soil, and some erosion is occurring down the embankment.

 

"Even looking at where the track has been rebuilt today, those risks are still there," Knowles said.

So, what now?

 

The Austin Parks Foundation might not have had much experience operating amusement rides when it got the Zilker mini-train concession. But since then, the nonprofit has climbed a steep learning curve and learned the hard way about many peculiarities of the business.

"It's largely a hobby industry, and so there's various ways to do things," Casnovsky said. "There's not a book of like 'this is how you build the most perfect mini-train' that's codified by the Department of Transportation."

The existing fiberglass frame of the Zilker Eagle could possibly be gutted and replaced with working parts, or APF might have to start from scratch.

The Parks Foundation prefers to have an electric mini-train to avoid the toxic fumes that belch from diesel engines. But Love with Square One Consultants says they haven't ruled out running a diesel train, although that's considered a last resort.

Either way, parts and labor shortages stretch out the timeline.

"It's a very difficult challenge," Love said. "We want to give this back to the public as soon as possible."

 

[SubliminalHorn 6813]

Christ. Cliffs?

[Steel Shank 9434]

1 hour ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Christ. Cliffs?

Instead of getting proposals, CoA gives Austin Parks Foundation oversite to the train.

Despite having zero experience in this area, APF doesn't hire a consultant and just starts making decisions and spending money.

Builder for train that APF hires provides a piece of shit product that doesn't work and APF is stuck with. ($365K)

APF wants electric, but that compounds the issues. 

Experts in the area who run similar trains are baffled at why they weren't included in at least discussions/consultations.

It's been 4 years and we're pretty much at square one. Minus $365K. Minus another $10k for train manufacturer to not discuss publicly. Hmmm.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Steel Shank