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Wednesday, November 23, 1983AThe Batlalion/Page 3
Researchers develop
train rail stress test
issengen
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lan pilot:
Elephant hunters open fire
Mike Davis, Battalion staff
Juniors symbolically shoot graduating seniors,
affectionately known as dead elephants,
during El ephant Walk Tuesday. Dead
elephants wander aimlessly around campus to
symbolize the fact that they will soon be of
no use to the Twelfth Man.
froEs poetry reflects beliefs
by Tracie L. Holub
Battalion Staff
jice oftk ir. Paul Christensen, associ-
rks thatc e professor of English, is a
ofthepM m pi° n of mixed cultures.
Ih his poetry and short stories
Iries to express his belie! that
fceople are equal.
■There is no cult of purity in
le whatsoever,” Christensen
jys. ‘Most of what I write is ab-
lit mixed cultures, the merging
lares, merging of identities all
Jning some sort of highly di-
mtoniatitp s 'fied whole community
ler Exc(W e U P °h all the different ex-
pesof all who want to partici-
he futurtl
ted overl
inounceij
e infornil
oninthel
ry to cirt
jeforehi
anythinl
i is the!
to do tv
ters woi
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n anecoi]
low
<ed
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te heniar
1. On tk
■It’s not a melting pot. I don’t
believe in a melting pot. I want
everyone to somehow keep their
Identity, but at the same time
puild up a tremendous mutual
ly of experience.”
|Christensen, whose father
in the foreign service, spent
st of his childhood traveling.
family moved to Beirut,
banon, when he was 12 years
Jhristensen said that growing
pin Beirut caused him to ma
re quickly.
[The culture was so very com-
xin Beirut,” he said. “There
Ire Arabs, there were French,
■glish, Italians, Americans,
. , .(■re were Jews and they were
11 '"'l all swarming around in this
011 jiuge metropolis. The process
iletns. 1 was so accelerated that 1 felt as if
•n — I' fwasa Roman candle being shot
m asi' : putof my life and being thrown
. state Into this all at once.”
id wlief ( B^hristensen said he began
J( / r0 | e : pritingwhen he was in Beirut to
help him convey some of his
emotions.
■‘‘Some of what I wrote about
then was having my certainty as
4 child removed from me one
step by another,” he said. “Be
soming an American abroad was
n
a very seriousjuncture in my life
and so a number of my poems
then were about leaving the cer
tainties of my childhood here
and being thrown like an aster
oid into a crazy orbit. So many
were about cultural disorienta
tion.”
Christensen said that when he
came back to the United States
after living in Beirut he felt as if
he was a stranger.
“When I came back to the Un
ited States, I thought I would
plug right in and be everything
I saw the nation
in the waters
below Mexico
at the bottom of
the dish of the sea
it glowed
in the merging of
its content
into one coherence
— Dr. Paul Christensen
that everyone abroad admired
about Americans,” Christensen
said. “I got here, though, and
found that everything was so
placid and structured in class
lines, I lost that marvelous sense
of a bouquet of people that
Beirut had been. So when my
father said we were going to
Asia, I didn’t complain at all and
was ready to do so.”
Christensen later lived in
Saigon and the Philippines.
He earned his bachelor’s de
gree at the College of William
and Mary, his master’s degree at
University of Cincinnati and his
doctorate at University of Penn
sylvania.
Christensen said many of his
writings now have to do with
Americans being expelled from
a foreign country either emo
tionally or circumstantially.
“For some reason, writing ab
out this has become somewhat of
a parable to me,” Christensen
said. “I tend to do a lot of writing
about the American who tries to
sink his roots in some other
medium than his own country
and what happens to him as a
result.
“I also write about Americans
who have never left the country
and who are facing middle class
adulthood. Many are only wak
ing up to the depth of the reality
they have always taken for
granted.”
Christensen said teaching li
terature at Texas A&M has
helped him to develop as a
writer.
try to arouse it.”
by Cathy Smith
Battalion Reporter
Within eight days, two fatal
train accidents occured in
Texas. To help prevent further
mishaps, Texas A&M resear
chers are working on a method
of testing track rails.
Dr. Don Bray, a researcher
with the department of mecha
nical engineering, said Monday
two main elements are involved
in train accidents — material
factors and manpower.
Material factors include the
condition of the train, the
wheels and axles, and the track.
A breakdown in manpower
means human error — like not
leaving enough room for the
train to stop.
Texas A&M researchers are
working on a testing method to
decrease potential material fai
lures in railroad tracks. Students
and researchers have been
working in the Texas A&M re
search annex on Highway 21,
about live miles west of Bryan, to
perfect the P-wave ultrasonic
stress measurement system. The
group has been using a system
set up in a hangar at the annex to
test stress levels of different
types of rail.
During testing, ultrasonic
waves are sent down the length
of the rail. The time it takes for
the waves to run between two
receivers is used to measure the
level of stress currently in the
rail.
A shorter travel time indicates
compressive stresses while a lon
ger time indicates a pull, or ten
sile stress. Researchers can use
* those measures to determine the
stress allowance needed when
installing new track.
A stress allowance is needed
to accomodate the track’s con
traction in the winter and ex
pansion in the summer. When
the weather is cold and the track
contracts, it can break apart at
the welding. In the summer, the
track can expand and buckle, re
sulting in “sun kinks.”
Currently, Bray said, track is
installed according to experi
ence. The amount of stress allo
wance used is based on some
one’s judgement as to the ex
pected temperature variations.
The stress measurement sys
tem is designed primarily for
testing rail before it is installed,
Bray said. A measurement is
used instead of an educated
guess. After the rail is installed,
the system can be used to test the
track periodically, he said. Safer
tracks would be the result. The
system could be perfected and
ready for widespread use in ab
out a year.
Bray also said a trend in unit
train operations could make
trains safer. The coal burning
and utility industries have
started to run the same rail cars
along the same routes, he said.
Ihis way, companies always
know where their trains are, and
the cars can get regular mainte
nance and can be inspected
more easily, he said.
BOB BROWN
UNIVERSAL TRAVEL l
COMPLETE, DEPENDABLE DOMESTIC
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“I think that a writer in a clas
sroom is like a scientist in his
laboratory,” Christensen said.
“This is were you know if your
ideas will work or not. They will
draw a laugh or a frown or some
type of feedback that will tell you
if your idea was a good one.”
Christensen said that
although his poems may deal
with many subjects, they all cen
ter around one main theme.
“The one main theme which
is in all my work is the sense that
identity can not be circums
cribed by employment, mar
riage and possessions,” Christ
ensen said. “Identity is like a leaf
floating in outer space.
“I love to have my characters
realize they are on a perch, have
lost their footing and are falling
through all that is themselves. It
all has to do with waking up to
this immense, eminent identity ^
that exists within you if you just
37, and
r WhitfJ
l other)
cities,
irgetfl)
-s'those
ing f° r
MSC Town Hall
presents
nt0
yant 1 ^
te sip s
Thursday, December 8
8 p.m.
Rudder Auditorium
Tickets $10.00, $9.50, $8.50
Option Pass period, Nov. 15-18
General Admission go on sale Nov. 21
tatt:
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