alerters

[wabash1]

the last i was told is that alerters are not mandatory on engines and it must be true as i have run several engines with out them. but the question is to engineers do you prefer engines with or with out them. i myself would prefer them. even after 8-10 hrs of knocking the whisker to reset the thing gets agravating around 4am in the morning. but as a saftey device it worth it.

[PaulWWoodring]

It certainly beats keeping your foot on a "deadman" pedal hour-after-hour. I believe it is a very useful device, provided that it is in good working order and goes off at intervals that make sense, and not the every 15-20 sec. that I have seen on some of them.

[Anonymous]

You keep your foot on the deadman? Isn't your grip heavy enough? That's why we don't have deadman pedals in Canada anymore!

[Anonymous]

They are currently not mandatory, although almost all new units have 'em. Personally, I usually hate them. If they are working right they are at best annoying, if they aren't working right (going off too quickly, not reseting for horn, throttle, brake, etc) they can be almost dangerous. Like ""one car to a joint"" and you're busy resetting the darn alerter instead of running the engine. I did doze off once on an engine equiped with an alerter, but it wasn't the alerter that woke me up it was my conductor, who I usually tell if I'm having trouble staying awake. I'd say 90% of the time I don't need the things, but I suppose the other 10% might be worth it if the cond. can't stay awake either (and do we know any who can?? lol). I suppose I'll just put up with 'em the rest of the time. It would be nicer if they weren't needed because we would know when we are going to work and could rest up for it but I guess that's just fantasy land...... No, seriously, I wi***here was a way to have 'em on when you know you're tired and not have on when you are doing o.k. Actually they could be used as a "snooze button" alarm clock, where you doze between resets. I've seen engineer's do this, when I was a conductor. There needs to be something else, I don't know what, but I know that button doesn't prevent you from sleeping. I guess maybe back to fantasy land of real schedules and knowing at least within a few hours of when you are going to work......

[Anonymous]

I don't mind them when I'm out on the road, except the worst one I've seen were those Amtrak F-40's, their alerters could wake up a dead horse! The only thing I don't care for about them is our railroad has them installed on our switch engines and like Derek said, there's nothing worse that trying to make a joint while holding on to thirty cars while you're trying to reset the alerter.