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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie Well, now that I created a monster let me take it a little further. Granted there are good and bad in every job, but I would think that if equipment is being abused unnecessarily, someone a little higher up would say/do something. Maybe railroads are different. And.....heard many years ago, when the signals were changed by hand, you would sometimes come upon a signal that would go red and not give you a lot of time to get stopped. Has this changed with the modern signalization and does this alleviate the problem of having to "stop" suddenly (at a low speed of course). I am at the middle to rear of a train and it suddenly runs together and stops. Could it possibly be due to signal change all of a sudden? Mook [/quote] Mook- Signals are a whole different kettle of fish. What you are describing sounds like a typical stop by a mixed freight train. When I (or csxengineer98 or any other engineer) applies the train (air) brake, air is released from the brake pipe at the locomotive. That means the brakes in each car begin to apply at the head end and move towards the rear of the train. That means the head cars slow down faster than those behind them and those rear cars push into the cars in front of them causing the banging noise you are hearing. This is sometimes known as the slack running in. Since you asked about signals I will tell you a favorite story of mine. When I was a pup (Engineer Trainee) on my qualifying promotion ride I went out on a long distance local (turn job) with my engineer and the Division Road Foreman with me in the lead unit and my conductor in the rear unit. We only had about 25 cars. I'll limit this story to only the signal part of the trip. As you can imagine, there was a LOT more. It was raining that night... We had just come down off the hill (25mph) and passed the distant signal, showing an approach medium aspect (amber over green), allowing us to approach the next signal at medium speed (30mph). We came through town and our train was pushing us a bit but we held speed fine. We swung across the river bridge, the speed limit rises to 40mph on the far end, and I began looking for the home signal at the interlocking as I started winding on the dynamics. The DRFE gave me a stern look and said "What the hell are you slowing down for? Speed's 40 here". I knew we had prior problems with this home signal "flipping" on us and I was not giving up my promotion by sliding us by a red board. The signal was less than a mile from us now. I said "Just a second, sir", and watched as the two headed signal flipped through all three aspects, clear, approach and stop signal twice ending at the fail safe stop signal. Needless to say, by the end of the first flip I had the dynamics to notch 8 and full service on the air. We came to a stop about 30 feet on the right side of the signal. After a sigh of relief and a quick bathroom break all around, the DS talked us by the signal and we were on our way again. The DRFE said very little else to me for the remaining three hours of the trip. He did thank me for a great ride at the end when he signed my temporary Engineer's card. Oh, and if the cars banged together much, I didn't really notice... LC
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