Wheel Screech

[Euclid]

Here is a sound that I have heard at times.  It is not the prolonged squeal that I associate with flanges.  It is more like a very high frequency short pulse, almost electronic sounding.  It is here at 00:38 

It only lasts for a split second, and almost sounds like some type of impact, but I cannot imagine a cause.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW7xQblJY0M

 

[cx500]

dpeltier

 For every string you had to torch holes in the end so you could grab hold of it, then pick it up and sneak the train in under it. Any little problem and the string would start to buckle - yell on the radio and hope they stop the train moving before it kicks out and kills someone. 

 

 

I was watching a CN train picking up strings of rail from an abandoned line, and the machinery made the method much simpler, and safer.  The train stayed stationary, while the rail was drawn up from the ground and onto the racks by a pair of big wheels squeezing the rail between them.  Obviously to start the process a cable was used to thread the rail into the wheels; thereafter each quarter mile string was bolted the end of the previous one.  As the train advanced a 1/4 mile at a time I knew I was photographing the final train since there were no rails left behind.

 

John