Transcript 12/09/2008 Tracy Bielaczyc

[BBTranscriptTeam]

Tracy Bielaczyc
Traverse City, MI
Insurance agent and "hard working mom"

She calls her mom Karen her 'guardian angel,' Karen paid for her trip and is in the audience
They show a picture of Tracy's 3-year-old daughter

They show the expert, Pat Kiernan, morning anchor of "New York 1 News" who is the only lifeline available

Topic Tree:

Thomas Edison
The First Time
Crime Fighters
Small Procedures
Riding the Rails
(American Ingenuity)
(It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas)
(Canines)
(Big-Screen Science)
(Back to Reality)
(Kid Lit)
(Kichin’ Assets)
(Holiday Eats)
(Intensive Care)
(No Boys Allowed)

$50K (Riding the Rails):
Rising to altitudes of over 16,000 feet, the world's highest operating railroad is located in what country?
A. Russia B. Pakistan
C. China D. Chile

ATE (30)

ATE

Pat says he does not know and cannot narrow it down, knows that there are some high altitudes in Chile.

Spoiler

C. China (at :18 Tracy guessed D)

Tracy left with $25K, and says she will take her mom to Tuscany.

[etaoin22]

Too long a spoiler coming up, i am missing something in the spoilering technique to dminish it to one line.
I will follow advice given below by Marley....

Spoiler

i dont actually know this...
One can narrow down in that the very high railroads of the world are limited to a few countries with modern intercity travel in alpine areas, and a few with left-over narrow gauge railways in mining regions, or winding trail type from the coast. from the nineteenth century. Neither Russia nor Pakistan seem to fit, although Paki has alpine area towards Himalayas. If there were such a unique railway in Chile, Theroux would have mentioned it probably in Old Patagonian Express and he didnt, but I remember in Chile he most wanted to visit the poet, so the railway noted is merely the urban subway to get to his house. Guayquil to Quito is most famous oldfashion railway to mountainous region in SA IIRC, but that is in Ecuador. Bombardier has been helping China build all sorsts of Himalayan railways,and the Chinese "choo choo" train commercial showing what a great corpoation Bombardier is, has been ubiquitous on Canadian TV since the Olympics. The main goal of the railway is to tie Tibet firmly to the central power, which doesnt get mentioned..

I would be stuck between China and Chile, in the end.

[earendel]

Tracy Bielaczyc
Traverse City, MI
Insurance agent and "hard working mom"

She calls her mom Karen her 'guardian angel,' Karen paid for her trip and is in the audience
They show a picture of Tracy's 3-year-old daughter

Time for the "Awwwww" moment.

$50K (Riding the Rails):
Rising to altitudes of over 16,000 feet, the world's highest operating railroad is located in what country?
A. Russia B. Pakistan
C. China D. Chile

ATE (30)

ATE

Pat says he does not know and cannot narrow it down, knows that there are some high altitudes in Chile.

Spoiler

C. China (at :18 Tracy guessed D)

Tracy left with $25K, and says she will take her mom to Tuscany.

Our "expert" once again provides no help. I sure hope whoever finds these so-called "experts" is keeping track of their accuracy, and won't ask back those who can't be of any help.

As for me I'd have been torn between Pakistan and China and would have gone with the Double Dip.

[NellyLunatic1980]

I couldn't imagine 16,000-feet-high railroads in either Russia or Pakistan. I would've Double Dipped on Chile and China.

[MarleysGh0st]

Too long a spoiler coming up, i am missing something in the spoilering technique to dminish it to one line.

You'll notice that there are two different spoiler buttons that produce different effects, etaoin. The one that simply says "spoiler" puts the black box over your text (however long it is).

Spoiler

Like this!

The one that says "spoiler=" reduces it all down to a single line saying "Reveal" until you click on it. You can optionally add your own descriptive text after the equals sign.

Don't look here!

Like this!

[MarleysGh0st]

Our "expert" once again provides no help. I sure hope whoever finds these so-called "experts" is keeping track of their accuracy, and won't ask back those who can't be of any help.

But our expert excuses himself by saying this is a difficult, high level question.

You're not there as an "expert" to field the easy ones, Pat!

[gsabc]

Our "expert" once again provides no help. I sure hope whoever finds these so-called "experts" is keeping track of their accuracy, and won't ask back those who can't be of any help.

But our expert excuses himself by saying this is a difficult, high level question.

High level. Ha-ha.

$50K (Riding the Rails):
Rising to altitudes of over 16,000 feet, the world's highest operating railroad is located in what country?
A. Russia B. Pakistan
C. China D. Chile

[ne1410s]

this is a difficult, high level question.

Oh, I get it!! "High level" question.

[etaoin22]

I will re-edit my previous post, and point out both here and there that I am re-editing, so it is still clear why Marley needed to help me. (and it isn't even Xmas yet....).

The interesting links at Wiki and elsewhere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_railway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocarri ... _a_Bolivia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingzang_railway

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005- ... 397297.htm

[slam]

There was this Final Jeopardy! clue last season:

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?g ... ht=beijing

TRAINS
As of 2006, you can take a 48-hr. ride between these 2 cities, with a stretch on the world's highest railroad

I didn't get that one at the time, but having seen it made the $100K question here easy.

[MarleysGh0st]

There was this Final Jeopardy! clue last season:

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?g ... ht=beijing

TRAINS
As of 2006, you can take a 48-hr. ride between these 2 cities, with a stretch on the world's highest railroad

I didn't get that one at the time, but having seen it made the $100K question here easy.

Oh, yeah, I thought I had heard about that somewhere!

Didn't Alex say something about how the railroad cars have to be pressurized while they're passing through the highest elevations?

[tanstaafl2]

Easy one for me perhaps only because I was in Tibet last summer and saw the rail line which, as mentioned, is in part intended to help keep the region firmly under the Chinese thumb. Until the recent unrest there had been a number of ads for tours involving riding the train from China into Tibet. Might be hard to do that tour now...