Okay, who has one of these on the layout?
Last car on the train.
The braking car (CN 0030) is used to help build and maintain air pressure in very cold weather and can use used instead of a DPU. They are very rarely used in Eastern Canada as they usually stay west of Winnipeg.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
It has flat wheels! Maybe it brakes too often, or did somebody move it with the handbrake set?
I let my crew in the caboose do any braking, if needed Ed
Thanks, Brent.
Yikes! That's some serious railfanning. Did I catch the guy at the end saying the temp was minus seven (could have been seventeen but for the blast of wind)? Of course in Canada that's a tad under 20 degrees fahrenheit, but with that wind blowing? Chilly hobby up there! Lots of flat wheels in this consist, Ed.
While I'm at it, I'm still inclined to count cars as I did when I was a kid - looong before intermodal. How do you count the ones strung together with a single truck between the individual frames? If you get to count by frames, it was 149 cars behind the power. Not too shabby. Musta been out on the flatlands.
John
Southern Pacific had such cars built from bunkerless reefers back in the 1970s. They were known as "repeater air cars" and had an engine driven air compressor and were numbered SP 260-266. According to special instruction 17-all subdivisions, as contained in San Antonio Division employes timetable number 7, effective Sunday, October 30, 1977, "the air repeater car is utilized to increase efficiency of train air brakes on long trains and during cold weather. The purpose of repeater relay equipment is to accept pneumatic signals from the brake pipe of forward portion of a train, and by relay action, produce a corresponding response in the brake pipe of the rear section of the train. The repeater car has the ability to produce faster train charging time, reduce or eliminate brake pipe pressure gradient, (provide) more uniform braking forces, and faster brake application and release times". SP's instructions call for placing the repeater air car (RAC) as near to center as train makeup will permit. I think they were all retired before 1980.
Photos and operating instructions can be found at http://espee.railfan.net/rac.html
Air Repeater car are normal in areas with extreme cold. BN had a fleet of them as well.
The use of DPU locomotives has reduced the need(locomotive air compressor mid-train).
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
"While I'm at it, I'm still inclined to count cars as I did when I was a kid - looong before intermodal. How do you count the ones strung together with a single truck between the individual frames? If you get to count by frames, it was 149 cars behind the power."
Real switchman haven't figured that out either. I was backing a train of intermodal cars into Colinwood yard near Cleveland. The man on the ground said on the radio "15 numbers to go". Then 10 'numbers to go." He couldn't tell from his list whether each number represented one car length or five, or something in between.
Mark Vinski
And I can remember when some sidings were marked (either by sign or in the employee timetable or both) by car capacity rather than by feet - a holdover from the era of mostly 40 foot cars most likely. Not very useful for a train of 86' auto parts boxcars!
Dave Nelson
When the well cars came into use, the rule of thumb was that a unit was the equivalent of 2½ conventional 50' car lengths. That was when the most common unit consisted of five wells between couplers. This was back in the late 1980s, when double stacks were mostly units for Maersk, Sea Land and APL.
With all the variations in use now, I would be at a loss to define car length, although, some of the conductors would describe car lengths as "buckets" when describing distance.
Boris
They probably count them as "cars" as in each well "unit".
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
Attuvian While I'm at it, I'm still inclined to count cars as I did when I was a kid - looong before intermodal. How do you count the ones strung together with a single truck between the individual frames? If you get to count by frames, it was 149 cars behind the power. Not too shabby. Musta been out on the flatlands.
Technically speaking (particularly from a car control standpoint) each "set" is considered one car with mulitple units. All units in the set have the same car#, with each unit denoted by a unique sub-letter.
If you're counting train length though, it's more practical to count the individual units or "platforms".
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Attuvian Thanks, Brent. Yikes! That's some serious railfanning. Did I catch the guy at the end saying the temp was minus seven (could have been seventeen but for the blast of wind)? Of course in Canada that's a tad under 20 degrees fahrenheit, but with that wind blowing? Chilly hobby up there! Lots of flat wheels in this consist, Ed
Yikes! That's some serious railfanning. Did I catch the guy at the end saying the temp was minus seven (could have been seventeen but for the blast of wind)? Of course in Canada that's a tad under 20 degrees fahrenheit, but with that wind blowing? Chilly hobby up there! Lots of flat wheels in this consist, Ed
It's -7 C. (19 F)
-17 C would read off as "minus one seven cee" from the computerized voice from the detector.