How comfortable is the ride in a modern locomotive? Most of the rail around our parts is probably welded rail, which suggests that riding of steel wheels on steel rails ought to be smooth as glass- but probably not. The little short line railroad through town hauls carloads of gravel on old, jointed rail with dozens of street crossings. The crew in that locomotive sometimes looks like it's riding with Pa Ingles on the wooden seat of the buckboard behind a couple of horses. How is the ride, and how much does it depend on which type of locomotive and how old the unit is?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Riding a locomotive - virtually any - is like riding a Cadillac, especially when compared to riding a caboose. On jointed rail the difference is magnified.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The smoothest riding locos I ever rode were EMD E7 and E8s
and PRR GG1s.
In my corner of the world, modern EMD's have a reputation of riding rougher than modern GE's. Of course condition of track and road bed play into it, but some engines seem to handle irregularaties better than others. Light power or running in dynamics or idle usually rides rougher than when pulling cars in power. Concrete ties ride rougher than wood ties.
Older power with a lot of wear and tear also can be rough. I remember when the old CNW SD40-2's were still in road service, you could really feel the low spots.
Jeff
Why would concrete ties provide a rougher ride than wood?
The consensus seems to be that the track structure is "stiffer" than wood ties. Not as much give.
Remember that the consensus comes from people who just ride over the track. Not from those who actually work with rails and ties. Although we do have some that started out in MOW.
6 axle units ride much better than 4 axle ones at speed, having said that the GE C40-8's are the roughest riding units I've ever been in. But 4 axle units are mostly confined to branchlines and yard assignments on CN so you rarely run fast with them nowadays.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.