Had a question

[Mookie]

Then forgot it. [sigh]

Then I remembered it! [:)]

They are installing what looks to be fiber optic lines near the tracks. Do the railroads use fiber optics? Seems like a good idea to me!

Second question - get out your crystal balls.......

Friday afternoon, all day Sat and Sat nite - ran trains all over the place. Every few minutes would here a whistle going somewhere.

Sunday - silence.

Sunday nite silence.

Monday morning - one whistle.

Thoughts?

Maybe I heard them better all day Sat due to weather? (wind or lack of):

I am puzzled.

Mook [%-)]

[Anonymous]

The answer would appear to the fiber optics question would most likely be "yes".
In my misspent youth, I worked for MCI Worldcom. Their major competition (besides ATT) was SPRINT- short for Southern Pacific Railroad INTercommunications, or words to that effect. MCI's major sales point was that they used fiber optics to enhance "quality transmission" and to provide a backbone for their Internet communications.

Someone else probably will jump in here, but it's my understanding that fiber optics can carry more information more accurately than regular copper wire.

Erik

[tree68]

Railroads, toll roads, you name it, all rent out portions (ie, the edges) of their ROWs for the installation of buried cables. The cable of choice these days is fiber - one strand (maybe as large as a human hair) can carry upwards of 50 gigabytes per second of data. That can include Internet, telephone, and video. The cable itself may have dozens of strands. Two are needed for each circuit.

While it's possible the railroad is using fiber, it's not as likely as what I've outlined above, although they may have been given access to a few fibers in the cable. It would probably be cheaper for them to simply buy the service than to lay and maintain their own cable.

[mucable]

Mookie,

About 15 years ago, Sprint installed fiber optic cable along the SP's Sunset Route between LA and New Orleans. They continued on to Jacksonville using the right of way of ex L&N, Family Lines now CSXT right-of-way. This formed their backbone over which you can "hear a pin drop".

Fiber optics data transmission is extremely clean with little or no affect from outside interference sources, and has become more and more pervasive in the fifteen or so years since it's use was inaugurated by the communications industry. It is now used for cable tv distribution along with voice and data. Welcome to the digital world!

I 'd be willing to bet that at least 90 percent of your initial post on this topic traveled on 'glass' as it's known in the industry.

[Anonymous]

Mook-

Perhaps a derailment or other event blocked traffic or caused reroutes.

LC

[kwboehm]

I don't know if I can shed any light on your hearing question, but I've noticed that on some nights I can be sitting in Eagle (about 10 mi. east if Lincoln) and hear trains that are no closer than 10 miles away. It might be atmospheric. Either that or I was hearing the ghost of the Mo-Pac that used to run through that town, or the Rock a couple miles north (both tracks are now long gone). If I remember correctly the trains were running Sun on the BNSF at least east of Lincoln, but I wasn't in my normal patrol car at work, and therefore didn't have my scanner in it to listen in on what was going on to be able to provide a definitive answer.

[Mookie]

Maybe it was the south trains (we live in south end of town) that weren't running. Or.....maybe Mookie's hearing is .......naw.....

I am glad to hear from you. Eagle is plenty close to help with my "hearing" problems.

Moo

[mudchicken]

You have plenty of f/o/c in the ground there at Hobson and through downtown Lincoln. Four major fiber optic transcon trunks pass through Lincoln. BNSF has leased pairs in most of those lines through its R/W. People quicly forget that the largest PRIVATE telecom systems in the country belong to the railroads, and in overall size, they rival ATT, SPrint, Qwest, the baby bells and uncle sugar.

The large roll of birdcage lining in your possession came from Qwest laying cable thru town and jawwing with the city fathers there over who owns what.

[rrnut282]

If the airlines had built their own communications/computer networks instead of leasing capacity, they would have had systems that would have dwarfed any railroad's. By upgrading, they could be selling excess capacity for profit instead of bleeding cash daily. What could have been.[V]

[rrnut282]

Mookie
One other possibility that I didn't see mentioned is that maybe they were opening a maintainence window, running some early and holding the rest to create a bigger break in the flow of traffic so some work could be done someplace along the line. The distance a sound carries does vary with humidity, the number of baffles between you and the source, and or course, wind speed/direction.

[dwil89]

As far as the horn sound, atmospheric condtions, fog, wind direction has alot to do with it. There is a grade crossing, about 2 miles West of Cresson, Pa. Some nights, it sounds like the train is much closer than it actually is, the horns are very clear.and loud. Other nights, you can hardly hear them at all. Where I live, there is a Railroad roughly 8 miles due east of me that runs north to south. Most of the time I can't hear it. Put a snowstorm in the picture with Northeasterly winds, and I can hear horns at every grade crossing , plus the sound of the Locomotives.....Atmospheric conditions play a big part. Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

You have plenty of f/o/c in the ground there at Hobson and through downtown Lincoln. Four major fiber optic transcon trunks pass through Lincoln. BNSF has leased pairs in most of those lines through its R/W. People quicly forget that the largest PRIVATE telecom systems in the country belong to the railroads, and in overall size, they rival ATT, SPrint, Qwest, the baby bells and uncle sugar.

The large roll of birdcage lining in your possession came from Qwest laying cable thru town and jawwing with the city fathers there over who owns what.

I have just finally gotten thru the mess in the "nerve center" and promised myself I would sit down tonite and look through all of the birdcage paper very carefully. I am sure I will have some more ?'s for you afterward!

El Gato

[mudchicken]

Sounds like the nerve center had a "nervous breakdown", somehow related to NU losing to CU?[:D] and the alums are now on the warpath?

Or is it chocolate cake overload today? Boss Hen starts her annual Christmas baking projects soon and I don't know if a chocolate craving cat is going to find any space in the kitchen audience with the other critters!

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

Sounds like the nerve center had a "nervous breakdown", somehow related to NU losing to CU?[:D] and the alums are now on the warpath?

Or is it chocolate cake overload today? Boss Hen starts her annual Christmas baking projects soon and I don't know if a chocolate craving cat is going to find any space in the kitchen audience with the other critters!

NU - still getting hate mail here! No one knows what to do since there will be no "bowl" for first time in eternity!

Mookie will defer to other critters, especially boys - they are darling and should be front and center! Not above my dignity to lick the bowl, however!

[gabe]

As others have expresed, it is VERY common for railroads to allow fiber optic companies to use their right of way to bury a fiber optic cable that does not serve the railroad.

I was actually involved in some litigation over this issue. Apparently, this practice is becoming so common, many Class 1 railroads are explicitly writing it into contracts for short line spin offs that they get the profits from any fiber optics companies paying to bury a line along spin off's right of way.

Apparently, it is much cheaper for a fiber optics company to bury a line along a rail line than along a highway.

Gabe

[dharmon]

So it's not really the internet superhighway after all.......hmmm ...it's the internet railway......and that explains why my service was so slow this summer, when trains and ergo the internet were slowing down on UP lines.......maybe there is a conspiracy at work.....better call a detective......

[mudchicken]

Gabe:
Unfortunately the utility companies lawyers think they can condemn their way along any railroad, any time they want to now because they are too cheap to permit a highway corridor or go accross individual landowners. They also do want to live up to strict AREMA or RR Company design standards that are in place to protect operating railroads from risks generated by the utility that harm the operating railroad. This is one of the things that the posters on the PRB/Power Plant thread are not seeing.

And as far as dealing with contractual obligations, wait until you have to deal with the mess created after the failure of the Rock Island and Milwaukee railroads where the surviving rail lines R/W is not administered by the operating railroad, but by a couple of real estate land butchers looking to skim money any way they can. The resulting mess creates conflicts right and left, makes the PennCentral real estate bungles look tame.

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

So it's not really the internet superhighway after all.......hmmm ...it's the internet railway......and that explains why my service was so slow this summer, when trains and ergo the internet were slowing down on UP lines.......maybe there is a conspiracy at work.....better call a detective......

Call in Detective_Cinderdick

[dehusman]

Most lease contracts include the fiber company giving the host RR some of the fibers dedicated to their telecommunications and signal systems.

Dave H.

[rrnut282]

INDOT (Indiana DOT) in recent years has been kicking utilities out of its Right-of-Way for some unknown reason whenever they widen a highway. I don't see where or why INDOT has made this an issue, as most are in the utility strip (ie, not under pavement) so maintaining one does not disrupt the other. Last year, I helped relocate a 24in raw water line onto a parallel RR Right-of-Way that hasn't had tracks on it for over twenty years! Luckily, it was one of a few RIght-of-Ways that wasn't "lost" when the tracks came out. The phone and gas company had to buy an easement from the property owners along the route. With INDOT not sharing its Right-of-Way anymore, where's a poor fiber optic, electric transmission, or pipeline guy going to go? Hello, Mr RR, have I got a deal for you.

[edblysard]

Mookie,
Part of your lack of trains might be because Uncle Pete and the Brand New Santa Fe switched to a newer version of Digicon, their train tracking/car forwarding computer program.
They did so down here friday night, and promptly "lost" a bunch of trains...

I spent all day sat. and sunday getting in our crew cab, and going all over the Houston complex, getting on trains that didn't exsist in the new system, hoping the last conductor did what he was supposed to do when they tie em down, namely leave the manifest and train sheet on the lead unit, so I could call in the head end car, and we could find it in the old coumpter we use, and then yard the train.

Brought one in today, a BNSF Tulsa/Port...that has been sitting in Strutt siding since sat morning...

Less than two miles from where it needed to be, lost for over three days.

What a country!

Ed[:D]

[Mookie]

1: trains are running - the south tracks are about 10 blocks from our house and they were "singing" this morning!

2: Ed, is this new computer software nation-wide? When did they install it?

Mookie