Box jacking in action
Florida East Coast Railway GP40-2 435 runs light past the Brightline Cocoa Tunnel construction site on the way to pick up some cars in City Point. This tunnel is being installed using a method called box-jacking which uses hydraulic jacks to push prefabricated tunnel segments into place. Eventually, the tunnel will hold double track for Brightline's new higher speed line to Orlando.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Paul MilenkovicWelding turns out to be an accepted practice in repairing cracks in piston-engine airplane cylinder heads.
If Arthur Miller had known more about the detail technology of welding he'd know better how last-minute fixing of cracks might have saved their bacon... but then there'd be no Elia Kazan play.
SD60MAC9500 jeffhergert Last night started out on an intermodal train, 226 cars/platforms-16800 feet long. I only ran it for a couple miles that long to where we had a scheduled set out. After the set out we left with 208 cars/platforms-15600 feet long. Only held once for about 15 minutes, blocking three crossings. When we were about 6 miles out from our crew change, I said to the conductor," About two more train lengths to go." Jeff Are there any EMS restrictions with these trains?
jeffhergert Last night started out on an intermodal train, 226 cars/platforms-16800 feet long. I only ran it for a couple miles that long to where we had a scheduled set out. After the set out we left with 208 cars/platforms-15600 feet long. Only held once for about 15 minutes, blocking three crossings. When we were about 6 miles out from our crew change, I said to the conductor," About two more train lengths to go." Jeff
Last night started out on an intermodal train, 226 cars/platforms-16800 feet long. I only ran it for a couple miles that long to where we had a scheduled set out. After the set out we left with 208 cars/platforms-15600 feet long.
Only held once for about 15 minutes, blocking three crossings. When we were about 6 miles out from our crew change, I said to the conductor," About two more train lengths to go."
Jeff
Are there any EMS restrictions with these trains?
Use it if you have it. We had it and I let it run. It did OK, but then intermodals aren't usually too hard to handle. Even the long ones.
The next trip home, I had 2.25 mile manifest that was mostly cushioned (long travel) drawbars. The EMS was working and I used it as instructed. We had the severest run out of slack coming through an identified break in two zone. I'm still surprised we didn't break a knuckle (or two) or pull out a drawbar. Needless to say, EMS didn't run it according to specific issued instructions a human has to follow. But that's OK.
Anecdotal. Reading the system recrew reports, the most knuckles broken in one train at one time I've seen is 5. I've seen it twice and I think both were mixed manifest trains. The most drawbars in one train I've seen is two. The wrong enders are the run ones.
You hardly ever see an Intermodal getting a knuckle or drawbar.
Paul of Covington I was going to clarify the comments on the Desire line, but I see that Dave has summed up the situation nicely. It was about 1948 that the line was converted to bus which it still is today. A couple of minor differences between the 900's and 800's besides the air-operated doors that Dave mentioned: the conductor's stand on the 800's was a post from floor to ceiling with a dogleg in the middle with an oval ring in the middle to hang the transfer pads, changer and money bag while the post on the 900's only went halfway up (supported only from the floor). The hand-holds for standing passengers on the 800's were leather straps; on the 900's they were rigid metal rings that were spring-loaded to swing up when not in use. Growing up in N. O. I rode them pretty often and I loved them. I remember reading "A Streetcar Named Desire" many years ago. It left me so depressed I couldn't sleep that night.
I was going to clarify the comments on the Desire line, but I see that Dave has summed up the situation nicely. It was about 1948 that the line was converted to bus which it still is today. A couple of minor differences between the 900's and 800's besides the air-operated doors that Dave mentioned: the conductor's stand on the 800's was a post from floor to ceiling with a dogleg in the middle with an oval ring in the middle to hang the transfer pads, changer and money bag while the post on the 900's only went halfway up (supported only from the floor). The hand-holds for standing passengers on the 800's were leather straps; on the 900's they were rigid metal rings that were spring-loaded to swing up when not in use. Growing up in N. O. I rode them pretty often and I loved them.
I remember reading "A Streetcar Named Desire" many years ago. It left me so depressed I couldn't sleep that night.
Next time you read or watch another one of these angst-ridden plays, just remember that Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" about the guilt borne by an industrialist and his family is all Miller's uninformed fantasy.
Welding turns out to be an accepted practice in repairing cracks in piston-engine airplane cylinder heads.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
I was born in NOLA. I'm not really a traction fan, but those New Orleans ones definitley strike a chord with me.
The play is a very fine one, I think, and you can count me as as T. E. W. fan. The Desire line was misnamed, ran mostly on Dauphine and for one or two blocks on Desire. Most of the route was in the French Quarter, wirh its distictive many-balconies, decoratice-iron -railings. Went bus about the time the play opened, and I got to N. O. too late to ride it. Just 1st-generation, now-resurected Canal and long-time St. Charles were running. Still, some of the 800s of the type that ran on Desire were still in service at that time. The historic cars that survived and run on St. Charles today are all 900s, which were not used, as far as I know, on Desire. The 800s (one survives at Branford, Shore-Line Trolley) have lever-operated mechanical front-doors, and the 900s' doors are all air-motor operated.
Overmod Juniatha "No other way than to depend on the kindness of a stranger .." Is this the title of a crime novel ..? ;-) Tennessee Williams. Blanche Grey nee DuBois...
Juniatha "No other way than to depend on the kindness of a stranger .." Is this the title of a crime novel ..? ;-)
Tennessee Williams. Blanche Grey nee DuBois...
Oh yeah, "A Streetcar Named Desire," one of Tennessee Williams' better-known laugh riots.
At least the "Desire" streetcar's still active in New Oleans. A ride on that is probably a LOT more fun than the play is!
Yeah, skip the play, take the ride!
Juniatha"No other way than to depend on the kindness of a stranger .." Is this the title of a crime novel ..? ;-)
Overmod with clearance profile diagram
==> Yeeesss! <== That's something I can use. I copied it.
That would give room for a really high-pitched boiler in a steam locomotive and high drive wheels, too!
Thanks!
=J=
Overmod wrote: "So only the person doing the quoting can go back and fix issues in the quote"
That was of course me since I clicked "Reply" on one of my own postings and then tried if I could change or wipe out anything - and I could not the tray didn't accept.
Only thing that should work is if you copy a part of the text of the original posting (not in the quotation bay) and paste it in your new to be posting (the way I most always do). There you can change, erade fix or mess everything. But obviously users don't use this.
"No other way than to depend on the kindness of a stranger .."
Is this the title of a crime novel ..? ;-)
Juniatha BTW: how high above rail surface are these double stack cars? The containers are 9'6" (?) | x 2 = 19' or 5.79 m; with allowance for the car frame underneath total height is easily above 6 m - what height exactly?
BTW: how high above rail surface are these double stack cars? The containers are 9'6" (?) | x 2 = 19' or 5.79 m; with allowance for the car frame underneath total height is easily above 6 m - what height exactly?
21' 2" sticks in my mind (quick check and OM's post show 20'2"). That's why a good number of tunnels, such as GN's Cascade tunnel, had to be modified to allow double stacks to fit. This was also the main expense driver for the proposed electrification of Southern California freight railroads circa 1991-2. Half of the cost would be arranging for sufficient clearance between the top of the doublestacks and the 50kV catenary. Clearances had to be generous to allow for the track surfaces to rise due to maintenance of the ballast.
Gee - in steam times it was the engine that was the highest vehicle in a freight train, box cars having to fit all RRs were clearly lower. Now it's these cars that are clearly higher than the diesel units. Juniatha
Gee - in steam times it was the engine that was the highest vehicle in a freight train, box cars having to fit all RRs were clearly lower. Now it's these cars that are clearly higher than the diesel units.
Juniatha
I was amused to find out that the Espee's GS-4 class topped out at 16'2", considering that the Espee was infamous for tight clearances on some of their lines (e.g. NWP and Siskiyou). IIRC, these were taller than the UP Big Boys by a few inches.
JuniathaBTW: how high above rail surface are these double stack cars? The containers are 9'6" (?) | x 2 = 19' or 5.79 m; with allowance for the car frame underneath total height is easily above 6 m - what height exactly?
In practice of course somewhat larger clearance needs to be provided for various motions of the loaded car in service. I provided a link to this diagram showing a number of loading-gage details drawn to the same scale, which contains some interesting Plate H information:
https://gritton.org/greg/rail/docs/clearance/AAR_plates_with_UIC.gif
JuniathaSorry, I tried for interest and it didn't work.
I had noticed some of the appalling names introduced by the failed emoticon handling, but was not moved to comment until it turned into a direct issue for comment. Alas! there appears no way to fix this other than to depend on the kindness of strangers...
Overmod wrote: " I suggest that anyone irritated by this get the poster who 'quoted' them to go back and edit accordingly..."
Sorry, I tried for interest and it didn't work.
Jeff wrote "A few of our "double" coal trains have reached 40000 tons."
Jeff, when they have reached 100000 tons, let me know ..
Sara wrote "One more thing strikes me: I cannot make a full screen video of it, I have to see it post stamp size. This gets on my nerves: so much white screen around! My eyes -ohh!"
Since the forum does not allow me to write a pm:
Sara, why don't you click on the link: a new site opens and that you can make a full screen video. Much better for your eyes.
jeffhergert UP allows trains up to 18000' with DP consists placed every 6000' mid train and one on the end. There's a bulletin out allowing one of the Z symbols to operate up to 17000' with less restrictive DP placement. There was talk of extending the length limit to 21000', but that hasn't happened. Yet. There have been some intermodals operating in the 16 to 17000' range. I've heard BNSF runs some 18000' long. A few of our "double" coal trains have reached 40000 tons. Jeff
UP allows trains up to 18000' with DP consists placed every 6000' mid train and one on the end. There's a bulletin out allowing one of the Z symbols to operate up to 17000' with less restrictive DP placement. There was talk of extending the length limit to 21000', but that hasn't happened. Yet.
There have been some intermodals operating in the 16 to 17000' range. I've heard BNSF runs some 18000' long.
A few of our "double" coal trains have reached 40000 tons.
We haven't touched those numbers, at least not yet. Weird to see CN being out-PSR'd in the long train department.
We did get a bulletin the other day requiring us to not exceed 10 mph when making a reverse movement with more than 34,000 tons.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70Dude That 18,000' UP train was a test that was not initially repeated, but in the years since some railroads have started regularly running trains that approach that length. CN runs intermodals at up to 16,000' in western Canada when the traffic suits it. So far I've only seen them running westbound, as it is still a mostly single track railroad out here and most long sidings can only hold 12,000' (trains of all types run at that length in both directions). Our westbound intermodals are usually a lot lighter than eastbounds, as they carry many empty containers heading back to Asia. The longer intermodals usually have both mid-train and tail-end remotes, and are fairly smooth to operate. But aside from not fitting in any sidings they take a very long time to build or put away in yards, and once out on the road there are almost no places where they can stop without blocking crossings. The heaviest trains we run are unit coal, petroleum coke, grain, potash and sulphur trains in the 200-230 car range (two shorter 100ish car trains are often combined into one, and the resulting 'double train' may have more than one commodity), weighing up to about 32,000 tons.
That 18,000' UP train was a test that was not initially repeated, but in the years since some railroads have started regularly running trains that approach that length.
CN runs intermodals at up to 16,000' in western Canada when the traffic suits it. So far I've only seen them running westbound, as it is still a mostly single track railroad out here and most long sidings can only hold 12,000' (trains of all types run at that length in both directions). Our westbound intermodals are usually a lot lighter than eastbounds, as they carry many empty containers heading back to Asia.
The longer intermodals usually have both mid-train and tail-end remotes, and are fairly smooth to operate. But aside from not fitting in any sidings they take a very long time to build or put away in yards, and once out on the road there are almost no places where they can stop without blocking crossings.
The heaviest trains we run are unit coal, petroleum coke, grain, potash and sulphur trains in the 200-230 car range (two shorter 100ish car trains are often combined into one, and the resulting 'double train' may have more than one commodity), weighing up to about 32,000 tons.
Keep in mind that emoticons (originally known as 'smileys') were a way to communicate outside of alphanumeric text using combinations of ASCII characters -- by reading the character group 'sideways' you see the little face appear. These came to have customary meanings beyond the obvious initial ones in the geek community.
All that the Kalmbach "emoticon" ststem does is put the ASCII smiley inside BBcode tags (i.e. square brackets) and then replace the resulting code group with a clever little graphic ... the problem being that the quote function copies the little graphic character by its 'title' in the library instead of the original ASCII. Even then, all would be well if the resulting 'tags' were referenced themselves to be replaced with the appropriate graphic, but alas! this is beyond the ken of Bangalore outsourcing.
This was a chronic problem with the /neo/ coding of the Yahoo Groups system on a much grander scale, where the revised engine would cleverly append all sorts of hypertext codes for its "HTML formatting" of e-mail messages, then forget it had done so and render colossal blocks of thousands of tags in each, successive, repeated message history. A few one-line responses could rapidly produce a digest needing many minutes to scroll through...
Incidentally, it's easy to fix the insulting tags by simply replacing the 'word' between the square brackets with the desired ASCII smiley, at which point the little picture will render in the quoted text just as it did in the original post. I suggest that anyone irritated by this get the poster who 'quoted' them to go back and edit accordingly...
Paul MilenkovicThere was a 1970 Hollywood movie where Barbra Streisand sees hypnotherapist Yves Montand to be cured of being a compulsive cigarette smoker -- someone here old enough can tell me if Yves Montand slowly swung a pocket watch to induce a hypnotic trance. In the trance state, Barbra Streisand starts recalling a "past life", and true to the formula of a romantic musical comedy staring Barbra Streisand, "hijinks ensue."
"On a clear day you can see forever (1970):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LFYGuQwJM
On the subject of crossing signals and emoticons, there was another thread where I made a remark about a video of a wig-wag crossing signal that was lost on other Forum participants.
I remarked that viewing the video of the rare remaining wig-wag signal made me "sleepy, I am getting sleepy, very sleepy" and I used the emoticon that is labeled "indifferent."
I meant the wide eyes and blank facial expression to mean that I was in a waking sleep state, in other words, that the video made me hypnotized.
Growing up, the way a person was hypnotized in the movies was that the hypnotist slowly swung a pocket watch on a chain in front of the person being hypnotized and calmly intoned, "You are getting sleepy, sleepy, very sleepy" or something to that effect.
There was a 1970 Hollywood movie where Barbra Streisand sees hypnotherapist Yves Montand to be cured of being a compulsive cigarette smoker -- someone here old enough can tell me if Yves Montand slowly swung a pocket watch to induce a hypnotic trance. In the trance state, Barbra Streisand starts recalling a "past life", and true to the formula of a romantic musical comedy staring Barbra Streisand, "hijinks ensue."
The connection between flashing lights and trance states is no trivial matter because apparently some people suffer from epileptic seizures from viewing flashing lights. I have three sources for this -- one is a book on aviation accidents that pilots have crashed their single-engine plane on landing in the direction of the sunset, where the slowed propeller at reduced power on some airplanes could flicker the light to induce a seizure. Another, this is a plot point in Michael Crichton's novel "The Andromeda Strain" when the escape of the mystery pathogen from containment in the Wildfire laboratory triggers an alarm with flashing lights, inducing a seizure in one of the scientists. Crichton graduated from Harvard Medical school, so there must be some scientific basis for that? The third is that some You Tube videos come with warnings regarding videos with intense, flashing lights.
Joking about hypnotism aside, I wondered why the motion was required in the wig-wag signal instead of just the flashing light. I guess it was closer to a railroad crewmember swinging a red lantern as a warning. Maybe there is something to it, that the swinging wig-wag is more attention-getting than the lower-cost lower-maintenance substitute in the form of alternating flashing lights.
That said, I did find the video of the operating wig-wag signal "hypnotic."
Semper Vaporo Oh, and I doubt if Kalmbach is responsible for the stripping of the encoding out in a reply. They probably purchased a standard forum program, and then someone altered it to represent Trains dot com (add the banners and menus). But that person probably had no training in coding using the language the program was written in. I suspect it is HTML, which is known as a "write only language"... it is understood while writing it, but a week later nobody, not even the original programmer, can understand it. This is the reason that forum code is so difficult to update, correct, or improve. People try to modify it for some purpose, but in the process break something else because they really didn't understand the original code!
Oh, and I doubt if Kalmbach is responsible for the stripping of the encoding out in a reply. They probably purchased a standard forum program, and then someone altered it to represent Trains dot com (add the banners and menus). But that person probably had no training in coding using the language the program was written in. I suspect it is HTML, which is known as a "write only language"... it is understood while writing it, but a week later nobody, not even the original programmer, can understand it. This is the reason that forum code is so difficult to update, correct, or improve. People try to modify it for some purpose, but in the process break something else because they really didn't understand the original code!
If Kalmbach had purchased the software - it would work and not be full of the bugs that it has had through numerous iterations over the 18 years I have been here.
Some of the other forums I participate in have for a variety of reasons have moved from forum software provider to forum software provider without the resulting sofware skipping a beat. Those forums have different emoji's and they are clearer in what they are saying, they still are active through numerous quotes. The software providers do place their 'marks' on the forums and the various copyright information.
Paul,
"Aach! So! Du liebe Zeit!" is actually drawn out, regularly it is "achso!" meaning about 'oh, that's the way' or really "I see". "Du liebe Zeit" is an expression of wondering about (where did the) 'good times' (go) or really we would say "O-M-G". "liebe" directly translated 'lovely' is here used in the sense of 'good' making it 'my good time'. The whole expression is mostly used as for surprise, again like our "O-M-G". Standing expressions cannot be translated directly - that goes vice versa. Is it modern? Not in the youth's slang, but still in use by the more middle age society (sorry, Sara, you of course are still in your teen days, prolongued-prolongued - I know the problem myself)
you wrote "Goodness - 17" bore and 25" stroke. I'm impressed."
Larry,
the 05 class was all-speed oriented, with 167" outer drive rods (inner drive was to the first with a shorter rod) and 90 1/2" wheel diameter. This combined with a good free steam flow by 12" piston valves and an enlarged lead for increased rpm speed compared with the standard valve gear set up. If I take the known power output curve of the reboilered oil-fired 01-10 three cylinder Pacific I can extrapolate the characteristics for the 285 psi 05 and come to the conclusion that with oil-firing and welded staybolts and tubes / flues she should have easily surpassed the 4000 ihp mark*) at 125 mph and interestingly that would indicate she could have passed that speed (200 km/h) even without streamlining.
It was not to be; in the 1950s DB track was not supporting higher speeds and they soon lost interest in these fine engines, the 1950 - 1957 period they had to do with reduced 228 bp for which the cylinders were way too small.
*: Firing 3.25 t/h heavy fuel oil of 40 MJ/kg produces a heat total of 130000 MJ/h; at 66% of overall boiler efficiency this produces 85800 MJ/h steam heat equalling 25729 kg/h steam of 285 psi and 824 °F; at 226 m² total heating surface this corresponds to 113.8 kg/m²h steaming rate; minus ~ 430 kg for oil firing and preheating leaves ~ 25.3 t/h for cylinders; specific steam consumption: 6.1 kg/PSi at ~ 40% c/o at 462 rpm / 200 km/h needed to consume the corresponding 65025 liters of steam per min; 25300 kg : 6.1 kg/PSi = 4147 PSi (indicated) or 4090 ihp.
Uhm - at that speed the indicated power output curve would still be on the climbing ...
Sara T Semper Vapore (I agree!) Aach! So! Du liebe Zeit! [learn a little bit German with me :-)] Now I understand, that's tricky hehehe!
Semper Vapore (I agree!)
Aach! So! Du liebe Zeit! [learn a little bit German with me :-)] Now I understand, that's tricky hehehe!
There are probably more people around here of German heritage than you realize, but "Du liebe Zeit" is an expression I have never heard before.
Is it regional? Is it modern?
My German-speaking maternal grandfather from Vojvodina had many colorful expressions, many I cannot use here because Kalmbach Publishing wants this site to be friendly to families, but I never heard your expression before.
BaltACD
Kalmbach didn't think of the names of the emote-icons. They are a set that is available (free or purchased, I dunno which) for any forum or e-mail system. I don't know who developed them or how they were named... I just know that I have used the "wrong" one many times because I thought the image represented one thing and others thought differently.
Many of them I cannot figure out what the drawing is supposed to be, until I hover the mouse over it and a small text box appears with the name of it, even then I can't figure out why it exists or what anyone would use it for.
There are dozens of them that don't seem to have any use (except to make the set large to seem to be worth providing to users "Buy our forum code and we supply 100 emote-icons for free!") and often I still cannot find a suitable one for what I want to express.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
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