tree68 BucyrusI don’t expect this system to be universally applied to all rolling stock. I see it only as a requirement for oil unit trains, along with many other improvements in things such as crashworthiness. Why not unit ethanol trains? Or trains like the "acid train" that used to run out of Canada down the line near me?
BucyrusI don’t expect this system to be universally applied to all rolling stock. I see it only as a requirement for oil unit trains, along with many other improvements in things such as crashworthiness.
Why not unit ethanol trains? Or trains like the "acid train" that used to run out of Canada down the line near me?
Yes, I could see this type of powered brake lock being used on hazardous material trains of all types. But the main requirement would be that they are unit trains, and unit trains with cars that always run in unit trains. That is because the cars would need a second air line. So if the system were to protect against hazardous material runaways in mixed consist trains, then entire fleet of rolling stock would have to be converted to carry the brake lock and its extra air line. The cost of that much of a conversion would be an impediment to moving forward at all.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
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Is it Windex, or an ancient Chinese secret?
23 17 46 11
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Bucyrus I think that is the basic take away point. A dubious system might be fine for preventing the financial loss of equipment destroyed in a runaway, but when you interject trainload quantities of explosive fuels as cargo, the old school “good enough” paradigm is not enough. It is time to reinvent the wheel.
I think that is the basic take away point. A dubious system might be fine for preventing the financial loss of equipment destroyed in a runaway, but when you interject trainload quantities of explosive fuels as cargo, the old school “good enough” paradigm is not enough. It is time to reinvent the wheel.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Bucyrus It is time to reinvent the wheel.
Pardon me... I thought we were reinventing the brake.
ROAR
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Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
The only thing that is abundantly clear in all this is this: The systems that have been relied upon to secure stopped, unattended freight trains has had much too high a failure rate. A better system needs to be used, whether based on an empirically-derived formula or entirely new equipment.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Happy August First! The LION is back home from his vacation to Pennsylvania with excursions into New York City.
LION has read the thread, and so now will deliver himself of these comments.
Testing hand brakes with the engine: my friend in New York explained that when the hand brakes are set a compression pressure is applied to the wheel. Should you attempt to move that car "to test it" you break that compression hold and are now depending on a friction hold on surfaces that have been "smoothed" by the attempted turning of the wheels. In other words, you just broke the best grip on that wheel that you were going to have.
Now, suppose you have set the hand brakes perfectly: the axle will not turn. It is the same as if you had poked a stick through a spoke in your bicycle wheel and it locked against the fork. It will NOT TURN. As far as hand brakes are concerned, that is as good as it is going to get. So now instead of having friction against a good portion of the wheel and a close fitting wheel pad, all you are left with is the steel on steel friction (fiction?) wheel on the rail, where the point of contact is probably less than 1/16" of an inch....: NOW something as simple and as common as a drop in temperature by just a few degrees will be enough to break that friction bond and allow the wheel to SLIDE. The brakes can do nothing: they are probably the problem.
NOW the LION will propose (in addition to the train-line system set up by using transit type couplers -- And using the train line to apply all parking brakes on the entire train) the use of Trolley Brakes better known as track brakes. New York City Transit does not use them, even though I *have* suggested it to them, but the Chicago Transit Authority does use them. The ride above the rail between the wheels of each truck and press downward onto the rails. Used as a brake to stop a moving train applies heavy wear on the rails, apparently the CTA does not mind this, but used as a parking brake it will transmit a decent percentage of the car's weight directly on the rail instead of on the wheel. Not enough to jack up a train and replace a wheel set, but enough to hold a parked train in place under almost all circumstances.
The LION is not an engineer or a conductor, him knows not if it will work or not. But him thinks that this is a reasonable solution for new unit train equipments. The LION will not EAT you for your valued opinions as long as the zookeeper keeps the rare wildebeests coming.
CSSHEGEWISCHRio Tinto is not a common carrier and has several advantages as a result. It does not interchange cars with other roads, handles only one commodity and has a relatively homogeneous fleet of rolling stock.
I realize that Rio Tinto is different than North American common carrier railroads, but I would not conclude that what they do with testing and research would not have application to our common carriers. Their handbrake work would have universal application, except that common carrier handbrakes might have to be brought up to a higher standard of performance and maintenance. This would be costly, but dramatic failures of existing practice are what propel dramatic improvements.
Clearly the Lac-Megantic disaster has set the stage for “reinventing the wheel” of train handbrake securement. The TSB of Canada is calling for this change and seeking the elimination of the discretional push-pull test, and replacing it with a formula that everybody follows to get the same result.
The oil train runaway highlights a general problem area that needs attention, so the time has come. Here is an interesting article:
http://www.vnews.com/news/nation/world/7469774-95/brake-failures-plague-trains
From the article:
In the past 10 years through the end of April, as many as 893 accidents were reported to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration as being caused by human errors related to train brakes, according to the agency’s safety database. The most common brake-related accident cause was railroad employees failing to secure the hand brakes. The regulator requires accidents that meet a certain dollar amount threshold to be reported.
In 2012, 247 train derailments were caused by human actions, including the failure to properly secure the train and use equipment properly, up from 234 in 2011, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has had accident rates that exceeded the national average in all except one of the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration.
Over the last nine years, 33 percent of all train accidents in Canada involved a runaway train, according to data from TSB.
Bucyrus BaltACDThe REQUIREMENT was to secure the train - the train rolled away and was thereby NOT SECURED. If the formula was followed or not is irrelevent, the REQUIREMENT was not met. As Don Oltmannd has pointed out, there is never be a guarantee that the requirement will be met. The TSB of Canada believes that the chances of the reqirement being met are better with the foumula than they are with employee discretion through a push-pull test. Also, you mention that whether or not the formula was followed is irrelevant because the requirement would not have been met either way. if the foumula was not followed, it would not be irrelevant. That would be operator error calling for discipline.
BaltACDThe REQUIREMENT was to secure the train - the train rolled away and was thereby NOT SECURED. If the formula was followed or not is irrelevent, the REQUIREMENT was not met.
As Don Oltmannd has pointed out, there is never be a guarantee that the requirement will be met. The TSB of Canada believes that the chances of the reqirement being met are better with the foumula than they are with employee discretion through a push-pull test.
Also, you mention that whether or not the formula was followed is irrelevant because the requirement would not have been met either way. if the foumula was not followed, it would not be irrelevant. That would be operator error calling for discipline.
Employee(s) did not SECURE train - discipline assessed. A formula is just a red herring argument point - the train was not secured.
Now, if the train did not roll away, but the weed weasels came out and checked it and the formula had not been followed, that would be a E-test failure and discipline would be assessed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Bucyrus BaltACD Question? The requirement is to secure the train! The specified formula is complied with to the letter. After a period of time, the train rolls away. Who is responsible for the roll away? Who will be charged for letting the train roll away? That is a good question. The forumla has to have an adequatde safety factor to make it almost perfectly reliable. But anyting can fail if conditions are unsual enough. If it ever fails, the formula must be changed based on the failure experience. The ones who set the brakes to the formula would not be responsible. But the biggest problem with the formulaic approach is the handbrakes themselves. Not only is there wide variation in their condition and effectiveness, but also, there is wide discretion in how tight to wind them. A better handbrake is needed.
BaltACD Question? The requirement is to secure the train! The specified formula is complied with to the letter. After a period of time, the train rolls away. Who is responsible for the roll away? Who will be charged for letting the train roll away?
Question?
The requirement is to secure the train!
The specified formula is complied with to the letter.
After a period of time, the train rolls away.
Who is responsible for the roll away? Who will be charged for letting the train roll away?
That is a good question. The forumla has to have an adequatde safety factor to make it almost perfectly reliable. But anyting can fail if conditions are unsual enough. If it ever fails, the formula must be changed based on the failure experience. The ones who set the brakes to the formula would not be responsible.
But the biggest problem with the formulaic approach is the handbrakes themselves. Not only is there wide variation in their condition and effectiveness, but also, there is wide discretion in how tight to wind them. A better handbrake is needed.
The REQUIREMENT was to secure the train - the train rolled away and was thereby NOT SECURED. If the formula was followed or not is irrelevent, the REQUIREMENT was not met.
There are many areas outside handbrake applications, where there are/have been struggles between those who favor a trial-and-error, individual judgement approach versus a formulaic or structured approach derived from empirical research. Adherents of both approaches can point out advantages and disadvantages of both.
Rio Tinto is not a common carrier and has several advantages as a result. It does not interchange cars with other roads, handles only one commodity and has a relatively homogeneous fleet of rolling stock.
The Rio Tinto Railroad is concerned about wasting time and effort by setting handbrakes unnecessarily. Their rules call for setting handbrakes on a train after its motive power has been cut off for over an hour with air brakes left holding the train. Their rules also call for setting a specific number of handbrakes to hold trains on grades. So they decided to see if they could fine-tune their handbrake requirements to save time and physical exertion on employees. They had two objectives:
1) To extend the one-hour limit to trains being held only with air brakes.
2) To reduce the number of handbrakes applied to hold trains on grades.
So, they conducted testing on their ore cars to learn exactly what the falloff rate of brake application force is over time. Ultimately, they were able to increase the one-hour interval to six hours.
They also conducted empirical testing on trains to find the exact number of handbrakes needed. This test was called the “Handbrake Holding Capability Trial.” This testing found that the number of handbrakes needed was considerably fewer than what the operating procedures called for.
The overall objective of this testing was to reduce the time spent in setting handbrakes, and to reduce the chance of personal injury involved with setting handbrakes.
Here are the details:
http://www.ceed.uwa.edu.au/ceed_seminar_proceedings?f=306870
It is not clear in the document, but I get the impression that Rio Tinto does not rely on an empirical push-pull testing, but rather, relies on a formula for setting a specific number of handbrakes that has been found adequate through extensive company research and testing. If so, that would differ from U.S. and Canadian practice. However, it might be the case that they are able to take the formulaic approach because they run captive rolling stock which they can maintain to top quality standards for brake systems.
It seems to me that handbrakes would need to be in near perfect condition in order to dispense with relying on train crew discretion through a push-pull test, and rely instead on the purely formulaic approach. It would not work to tell trainmen how many handbrakes to set if say half of the handbrakes were only capable of producing a portion of their full potential, and there was no way of knowing this by how they felt when being set.
Paul North posted a quote from the link I posted above in which the TSB of Canada outlines their concern over the procedure of securing trains on grades. In addition to the point that Paul posted about the TSB believing that the push-pull test is deficient, there are two more associated comments by the TSB of Canada that I have excerpted below.
Apparently they believe that the present method of securing trains is inadequate because the number of handbrakes needed is left to the discretion of the operating employees. Other information, I have seen indicates that the TSB wants to change the system so that the brakes are set according to a prescribed formula; a procedure that does away with the need for a push-pull test. The problem I see with that is that, even with a formula that finds the exact number of brakes needed, there is no way to know if those brakes are all performing to their full intended potential, and they often are not. The comments by the TSB also mention that problem:
Here is the excerpt, and the red highlight is from the linked document:
Transportation Safety Board of Canada Safety Advisories
*
CROR Rule 112 ensures that hand brakes are applied to prevent unwanted movement of the train while providing flexibility for a railway’s operating needs. However, CROR Rule 112 is not specific enough in that it does not indicate the number of hand brakes necessary to hold a given train tonnage on various grades and it continues to be left up to the operating employee to determine the number of handbrakes to apply.
It has been demonstrated that the push-pull test is not always a good indicator of whether an adequate number of hand brakes have been applied and not all handbrakes are effective even when properly applied.
Considering all these risks, Transport Canada may wish to review CROR Rule 112 and all related railway special instructions to ensure that equipment and trains left unattended are properly secured to prevent unintended movements.
Its pretty simple, they push pull test is not the answer in this situation according to the rules anyway. The rules state you must set a sufficient amount of handbrakes to hold the train absent air brakes. Meaning, you have to set enough handbrakes to keep the train from rolling if the airbrakes fail after the train is left unattended. So you make an estimate of how many brakes are needed based on your experience on the territory. You set that many brakes and conduct a release test, meaning you release the airbrakes. If the train does not move after the slack has adusted then you are good, reapply the air brakes and leave. If it does not hold set a few more handbrakes and try again. Pretty simple really. This push pull test that seems to be the hot topic is for single car set out's/securement not when tying down an entire train or large cut of cars
Then there can also be site specific rules or policy's or procedures regarding the minimum number of handbrakes required at certain locations and there can also be further requirements and procedures for steep grade territories but these can vary from location to location and railroad to railroad etc, etc, etc. There can also be locations that rules say specific number of handbrakes is required, for example 1 brake for every 5 cars, and the rule can go on to say no release test is required on those tracks at those locations. The first paragraph is the basic standard and it can be more restrictive based on location and railroad. So, unless there is someone on this forum who works for the railroad in question, and on the territory in question there can really be no answer as to, "How many brakes would you have tied" except for "A sufficient amount to secure and hold the train."
From the 2nd 'bullet point' on slide 18 of 22 of the Cal-PUC Power Point presentation linked by Bucyrus above (color emphasis in original; 22 pages/ slides, approx. 2.41 MB electronic file size in "PDF" format):
"It has been demonstrated that the push-pull test is not always a good indicator of whether an adequate number of hand brakes have been applied and not all handbrakes are effective even when properly applied."
- Paul North.
Here is a new report from the Office of Rail Safety, apparently from the State of California. It focuses on the questions raised by the MM&A oil train runaway, including the questions that I have been asking here, including the number of handbrakes required to secure trains, and the method of testing that number. Obviously, the impact of the runaway on Canadian practice will spill over into U.S. practice.
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/BD1A08EB-ECBF-4237-B3E2-17815E4CFA2E/0/PowerPointforthe072513CommissionMeeting.pdf
oltmanndReally? There are more false clears in a year than trains that run away after being tied down.
Yes that is telling and I have no doubt that it is true. However, I am just presenting the position of the STB. They may very well be wrong. I would tend to conclude that they are wrong. Even four years after saying the verification from a push-pull test is impossible, they are still speaking about how the test is an essential part of rule 112.
Bucyrus oltmannd BucyrusGuessing about what? Are you referring to my conclusion that a verification test in which verification is impossible is 100% worthless? Yes. You were putting words in their mouth. NOW you say it's "your" conclusion... If a block signal is not 100% reliable, is it worthless? If so, why do we have them? I quoted their statement and I said what it “has to mean” due to their use of the term “impossible.” I did not attribute my conclusion of the test being worthless to the STB as though it was their statement. So I did not “put words in their mouth,” as you say. The statement by the STB is not analogous to the fact that signals can fail. Their use of the term “impossible” would be analogous to saying that signals always fail. So, yes, if it is "impossible" for a block signal to work properly, then I would conclude that it is worthless.
oltmannd BucyrusGuessing about what? Are you referring to my conclusion that a verification test in which verification is impossible is 100% worthless? Yes. You were putting words in their mouth. NOW you say it's "your" conclusion... If a block signal is not 100% reliable, is it worthless? If so, why do we have them?
BucyrusGuessing about what? Are you referring to my conclusion that a verification test in which verification is impossible is 100% worthless?
Yes. You were putting words in their mouth. NOW you say it's "your" conclusion...
If a block signal is not 100% reliable, is it worthless? If so, why do we have them?
I quoted their statement and I said what it “has to mean” due to their use of the term “impossible.” I did not attribute my conclusion of the test being worthless to the STB as though it was their statement. So I did not “put words in their mouth,” as you say.
The statement by the STB is not analogous to the fact that signals can fail. Their use of the term “impossible” would be analogous to saying that signals always fail. So, yes, if it is "impossible" for a block signal to work properly, then I would conclude that it is worthless.
Really? There are more false clears in a year than trains that run away after being tied down.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd BucyrusSince the only point of the test is to verify, their statement that verification by the test is “impossible” has to mean that the test is so far from perfect that it is 100% worthless. But they didn't say that. You are guessing.
BucyrusSince the only point of the test is to verify, their statement that verification by the test is “impossible” has to mean that the test is so far from perfect that it is 100% worthless.
But they didn't say that. You are guessing.
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