There's a scene in the old movie "Danger Lights" (1930) where the fired engineer (played by Robert Armstrong) gets a job working in a roundhouse and is assigned to work on an engine. First thing he does when looking over the engine (a Milwaukee 2-8-2 IIRC) is close the front coupler and yell something to no one in particular about "that's no way to leave an engine!"
(BTW earlier in that scene a character refers to the 2-8-2 as "the big boy" - a decade before that generic term for a large engine was assigned to a specific type of engine.)
Railroaders way back when were supposed to be very superstitious about bird nests. If a bird built a nest on top of a freight car and laid eggs in it, railroaders would leave the car where it was until the baby birds had hatched and flew off - even if the car was in the middle of a yard track. They'd work around it.
KissMeKateI've heard of a few cool train superstitions.
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This was an interesting old thread to read through. Lots of talk about coins on tracks.
When I used to go to YMCA camp outside of Gainesville, FL when I was a kid. We would put pennies on the train tracks in the morning. After the train passed we would go mack and look for them. They were always very hard to find. We might recover 10% of what was placed on the track. Some were thrown quite a distance.
No trains were ever derailed.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I've heard of a few cool train superstitions -
1. Never enter a carriage with your left foot.2. Blow across each shoulder before crossing rail tracks for good luck3. If you see a rabbit from a train it's bad luck.
teen steam fan what is the closed/open coupler myth?
what is the closed/open coupler myth?
A open front coupler on a locomotive or a open coupler on the caboose was a bad omen which would bring bad luck during the run.I worked with a old PRR conductor that would check the coupler to ensure it was closed.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
twhite There is an L-131 Rio Grande 2-8-8-2 buried in the original Tennessee Pass Tunnel that was left there during a cave-in after the alternate tunnel was built. Let's go dig it out. Tom
There is an L-131 Rio Grande 2-8-8-2 buried in the original Tennessee Pass Tunnel that was left there during a cave-in after the alternate tunnel was built.
Let's go dig it out.
Tom
Don't I wish! I'd be up there with a shovel if that's what it would take!
Oh well, we can dream...
Ship it on the Frisco!
at first, i thought it was neely's bar-b-q. seriously though, see why some commodities don't belong on the highways? remember the lpg truck years ago on hwy 40 that tried to take the curve too fast? a bunch of people got fried in their automobiles. i missed that one by about 5 minutes.
grizlump
Old stuporstition about leaving the coupler open being bad luck, possibly draining out.
I have seen news vids of engines hitting tankers, the fireball appeared right about the time the cab window was passing the edge f the trailer. Now, which spark set it off, the impact or the nose, and is there really enough time delay to make a useful distinction?
My concern is that speeding up with ether a commuter, museum, or AMtrak puts the fireball closer to the passengers, or a freight cargo that shouldn't be near a flame. I know Tanlers have to be so far back, but what about other stuff, like coal, which can combust? I mean no disrespect for the crew who have to suffer, but would it be better to let the engine take the hit rather than the commodity, especially with the cabs re-inforced nowadays?
The engineers in the above fireballs I've seen on the news survived. Maybe others didn't, but some did.
PackerAs for the fuel truck vs. locomotive one, they could get (read afford, or find someone who'd let them have it) a junker loco and several spacer cars and push it with a working loco, or better yet, a radio-controlled loco.
No they couldn't. They couldn't even afford the plane for "frozen chicken" What they could afford is to fly to here and let someone else do it. I could see TTCI doing demo tests
PackerHere's one I though about; if a rotary plow hits a car does the car get knocked out of the way (like all other impacts) or does it gett chewed up?
I believe that the shround extends further than the blade does, so likely the car would be pushed until the tires grabbed a tie and flipped it, as normal. The question becomes, how far does it co, sonce the shroud is only gonna be to vertical posts and maybe a horizontal one, not a flat surface with a coupler.
Unless, it';s one of Half-Moon's SNow Monsters, which will have temporary coupler mounts for trips out to the snow, which can then be removed and allow the blade free reach. Hee hee. I'll be quiet now
-Morgan
If you can read this... thank a teacher. If you are reading this in english... thank a veteran
When in doubt. grab a hammer.
If it moves and isn't supposed to, get a hammer
If it doesn't move and is supposed to, get a hammer
If it's broken, get a hammer
If it can't be fixed with a hammer... DUCK TAPE!
The loco vs tank truck discussion is similar, in a very broad sense, to the Myth Busters take on the speeding auto vs moose. Can a car go fast enough that it will be clear of the now legless moose torso before the torso crushes the car hood/roof/driver.
As I recall, the bottom line was that if you hit a moose in a car, or even SUV, it was going to change your life in a most negative way. I think the same outcome would apply to the train vs truck scenario.
I've never actually heard about the open/closed coupler one.
As for the fuel truck vs. locomotive one, they could get (read afford, or find someone who'd let them have it) a junker loco and several spacer cars and push it with a working loco, or better yet, a radio-controlled loco.
Here's one I though about; if a rotary plow hits a car does the car get knocked out of the way (like all other impacts) or does it gett chewed up?
If I could get a ticket out to Colorado and get my pick-axe, sledge hammer, shovel and rock drill I'd go too...
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm certain this is far more likely to be fatal to the train crew than not, but there could be a possibility of survival. Even if there is no way to survive this, I still think it would make for a good mythbusters episode, and possibly even help Operation Lifesaver's goals of spreading awareness of the dangers of railroad crossings (albeit in a somewhat overly dramatic fashion - and if any tanker truck driver is stupid enough to stop on the tracks seeing a mythbusters episode showing what anyone can figure will likely happen isn't going to deter him).
Anyway, there's no sense in beating the proverbial dead horse about it. Given the response this idea has gotten on the mythbusters site there's no chance it will be used in an episode. Perhaps that is for the best. It would be a shame to destroy a locomotive before its' time, and I'm sure those who know or are related to someone who had been in this sort of accident might consider this to be in bad taste.
VakharnYeah gasoline isn't nearly as volatile in liquid form as the movies want us to believe. That's why I think this would be a worthwhile myth to test, but when I posted it on the mythbusters forums all the responses I got were "Oh this is just a variant on previous speed/gasoline explosion myths" and "This is a horrible accident and wanting to replicate it for entertainment is ghoulish and juvenile". So... oh well.
I don't know about that..One of our worst fears was hitting a tanker truck at a grade crossing the other fear hitting a school bus.
I knew a Chessie engineer and head brakeman that was killed in a train/gas truck collision...I was told the fireball went 100 feet in the air..I saw the unit(a GP40-2) sitting at the Huntington,WVa shops with a tarp over the cab and low hood.
As a child, I visited the East Broad Top RR frequently. The Stationmaster (or some uniformed railroad employee) used to help kids line up pennies on the realhead for the loco to smash. He did, however, insist that we stand back and to one side to avoid the potential of the pennies shooting out to the side. He also never let us go under the loco to retrieve a coin.
The gasoline truck idea is interesting. The thing is -- liquid gasoline isn't flammable; it will actually extinguish flame! The vapors however, are extremely flammable at certain partial pressures and in the presence of enough oxygen. Even so, it requires an ignition source, such as a spark, to ignite. But when you see a pool of gasoline burning, it's not the gas itself that's on fire, but the vapors evaporating from the puddle (of course, the heat from the fire speeds evaporation, feeding the fire, etc). This is why firefighters use AFFF to form a foam barrier on top of liquid fuel.
So the question is, would the collision of a locomotive with a fuel truck atomize and disperse enough fuel during the collision for any sparks caused by the collision to ignite the vapor cloud? My guess is that, if the train is moving fast enough, it probably WOULD go right through without anything igniting initially (depending on how full the fuel truck was). It would be sparks from the following cars that would ignite everything after the gas had a chance to dispurse and evaporate. A matter of seconds, true, but a loco travelling at 80mph will go quite a few feet in those seconds (approximately 117 in each of them, or one locomotive lenght).
Hey Mythbusters! I would really, REALLY like to see someone try this to see if I'm right.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
R. T. POTEET Paul3 Another "Mythbuster" episode had the ol' "peeing on the 3rd rail" myth that doing so will kill you. At first, they "busted" it because they couldn't recreate the effect, saying that the liquid stream was too broken up to pass current. Then, they revisited the myth by having Adam urinate on an active electric fence...and he got a shock. They confirmed that a liquid stream can pass current, and therefore the 3rd rail myth may be possible after all. I once saw a dog tangle with a "pig" wire hooked up to a pulser unit; I don't know how much voltage those things carried and I occasionally would get careless and get a pulse or two but it was a very "shocking" experience for this dog! To the best of my knowledge, it was a one incident infusion of knowledge and the experience was never repeated! I remember that yowl could have been heard three farms over.
Paul3 Another "Mythbuster" episode had the ol' "peeing on the 3rd rail" myth that doing so will kill you. At first, they "busted" it because they couldn't recreate the effect, saying that the liquid stream was too broken up to pass current. Then, they revisited the myth by having Adam urinate on an active electric fence...and he got a shock. They confirmed that a liquid stream can pass current, and therefore the 3rd rail myth may be possible after all.
Another "Mythbuster" episode had the ol' "peeing on the 3rd rail" myth that doing so will kill you. At first, they "busted" it because they couldn't recreate the effect, saying that the liquid stream was too broken up to pass current. Then, they revisited the myth by having Adam urinate on an active electric fence...and he got a shock. They confirmed that a liquid stream can pass current, and therefore the 3rd rail myth may be possible after all.
I once saw a dog tangle with a "pig" wire hooked up to a pulser unit; I don't know how much voltage those things carried and I occasionally would get careless and get a pulse or two but it was a very "shocking" experience for this dog! To the best of my knowledge, it was a one incident infusion of knowledge and the experience was never repeated! I remember that yowl could have been heard three farms over.
I had a hold of an electric fence that sent out a pulse of electricty. I also happened to be standing on wet ground which meant I was getting the full effect. We were "horse setting" for a neighbor and the said electric fence was in the corral to keep their horse away from our ponies (and I just happen to be testing the fence). The horse had a nasty habit of biting people and he decided to nibble on my elbow as I was grasping the fence that day. When his mouth touched my elbow....well let's just say he was cured of his habit of biting!
Ricky
At Knotts Berry Farm, there used to be a tradition of placing pennies on the track for the steam engines to flatten. I remember seeing a bunch of kids doing so with no suggestion that it was not perfectly okay (enployees were watching). When the train had passed, the pennies were FLATTENED!
But no derailments as far as I know.
Locomotives with numbers that add up to nine, like 4212 would be a hoodoo engine.Closed knuckle on the rear is a favorite, but did you know toleave the leading knuckle open so you can pick up extra luck?
I heard about the agin the sun one and never running a locomotive that had been in a wreck that killed a felow engineman.
The gas truck one I never want to find out on my own.I would think that hitting it would yes give you an explosion, but not in the Hollyweird sense. i am thinking more along the lines of the product turning into a wave of burning fuel.Kind of like napalm.But it would be a great show for Mythbusters.
Yes we are on time but this is yesterdays train
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
You know, if I was a dishonest railroad type (picture a modern version of Hedley LaMarr from Blazing Saddles) and needed a collapsed fill dug out, I'd circulate a rumor on railfan sites that there was a long lost "Holy Grail" type railroad object there. MMWWAAHAAHAA!!! On the subject of coins and how much difficulty they impose on locomotives starting out, let's pull a "Mythbusters" and think small scale. ( I know this was in another thread but it seems to be an epic myth) In HO scale, a nickel's .0009" thick. Let's cheat and use some .001" shim stock because we've got it. Let's cheat more(still on the side of the myth) and cut out something we can see, because an HO nickel's .010" in diameter and a little on the finiky side to cut out. Make it say 1/16" square. That's 5 7/16" in real life. Didn't stop my little 0-6-0 and I'll bet it wouldn't stop a real one. Empty freight car, especially 6 tons, even Imperial tonnes, maybe it would derail it.
Lou
My grandpa worked at Caterpillar and some of the guys there would put coins on the rails and they would always come out flat with no derailments. I have read online that one peice of ballast will derail a light freight car. ( I freelace British railways and light over there is 6 tons.)
It won't derail the train, but it CAN squish out (like pinching a watermelon seed and shooting it across the room) with enough force to cause injury, so don't stand there and watch it. Relative to model flanges, prototype flanges are quite small, but they're still bigger than a coin's thickness.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
easyaces I don't care what anyone says, but a coin just cannot derail a train. Now I have placed pennie, nickles, dimes, quarters, and even half dollars on rails and all they have become is FLAT! No derailments either. Now its more likely to derail a train with a rail spike or something bigger on the rails.
I don't care what anyone says, but a coin just cannot derail a train. Now I have placed pennie, nickles, dimes, quarters, and even half dollars on rails and all they have become is FLAT! No derailments either. Now its more likely to derail a train with a rail spike or something bigger on the rails.
ALong this line, I've heard that putting a coin in the rail joint also does lovly not nice things, including the classic derails a train. IS it ture though that coins in he joint do other bad things? I'm not bold or dumb enough to try it
RailfanS twhite There is an L-131 Rio Grande 2-8-8-2 buried in the original Tennessee Pass Tunnel that was left there during a cave-in after the alternate tunnel was built. Let's go dig it out. Tom I'll go get my shovel Jamie
I'll go get my shovel
Jamie
Right behind you.
Another "Mythbuster" episode had the ol' "peeing on the 3rd rail" myth that doing so will kill you.
the motorman can get away with it because he is a "non-conductor"
Vakharn You know, that's pretty good. Exactly the sort of stuff mythbusters look for, and a good excuse to get some rail power on the show. Only problem is, I don't know that the mythbusters can afford a locomotive to do that to. I'll suggest it though.
You know, that's pretty good. Exactly the sort of stuff mythbusters look for, and a good excuse to get some rail power on the show. Only problem is, I don't know that the mythbusters can afford a locomotive to do that to. I'll suggest it though.
Boneyard? It's gonna go boom anyway... Or what about the test facility, ITTC I think it is?
I wanted to add the open rear coupler myth to the list too.
Tom: I would love to be there if that happens. I wonder how well a mummified steamer is preserved?
Here's another myth: UP will let a bunch of railfans with shovels near the ol Tennesee Pass tunnel that collapsed. Has to be a myth, cause it sure ain't the truth!
Vakharn Every time I see mythbusters I wish I could come up with a good railroad myth for them to test. Every aspect of life has it's myths, and surely railroads have their fair share, but most of them are myths in the classic sense, a story, not a "I heard if you do this, this happens!".
Here's one for Myth Busters and I'll let you suggest it. The story goes that if a train speeds up before hitting a gasoline truck it will cut the truck in two and the crew will make it past the truck before it explodes. All sorts of mthbuster stuff, heavy equipment, explosions, etc.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com