Fred M Cain So, who the heck was "Murphy", anyhow?
So, who the heck was "Murphy", anyhow?
I present you with Captain Edward Murphy:
https://www.military.com/history/real-life-murphy-and-how-murphys-law-came-be.html
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...
tree68 Cotton Belt MP104 As Larry is a "ham", surely more than once he has soldered center conductor on the male fitting... Yep. I was putting new ends on a couple of electrical cords the other day and even though I wasn't soldering the connections, I still checked twice to make sure the upper part of the connector was where it needed to be...
Cotton Belt MP104 As Larry is a "ham", surely more than once he has soldered center conductor on the male fitting...
Yep. I was putting new ends on a couple of electrical cords the other day and even though I wasn't soldering the connections, I still checked twice to make sure the upper part of the connector was where it needed to be...
I wonder if the OP could possibly edit the title of this thread so that, say, five years from now if someone were to search for the Springfield, Ohio derailment of 2023 it would come up toward the top of the search results.
I wouldn't necessarily remember "bites the dust" in that context.
[edit] Thank You Much better now!
Cheers, Ed
I got a lot of soldering practice rebuilding a molex connector or twenty after doing that.
Cotton Belt MP104As Larry is a "ham", surely more than once he has soldered center conductor on the male fitting...
[quote user="Overmod"]That's not Murphy's law; it's a corollary of Finagle's Law (the perversity of the Universe tends to a maximum)
This is getting way off subject, but it is too tempting to ignore. 2 Law of Thermo.....simply everthing tends to dissorder. I'm exchanging perverisity = disorder. I submit, to keep this on subject. "Another one bites the DUST". A structure NEVER maintained.....will one day will be a pile of DUST....enthropy. endmrw0318231702
BaltACDRemember - those 32 hold down screws had to be torqued in three steps to come to spec before the missing gasket was discovered.
As Larry is a "ham", surely more than once he has soldered center conductor on the male fitting....only to discover he had NOT sliden the threaded ring on the cable before installing what goes inside it endmrw0318231646
CSX Robert One modification: Everything takes longer and cost more than you think. And one I've never heard anyone else mention but seems to apply to me: If there's a 50/50 chance of getting something right, somehow I'll get it wrong about 90% of the time.
One modification: Everything takes longer and cost more than you think.
And one I've never heard anyone else mention but seems to apply to me: If there's a 50/50 chance of getting something right, somehow I'll get it wrong about 90% of the time.
To make this story more UNBELIVABLE this was a government project.
My mother had a 1st cousin, USS Meyer, named after him. He rose to be an admiral. He was in charge of building the first of this class ship. He had a philosophy of build sub parts and testing BEFORE attachment on the ship. Guess what: The first ship he built was.......UNDERBUDGET and AHEAD of SCHEDULE.
On that same note: Can we trust Bill Stephens reporting? Last paper issue, Trains pg 6, interview w/CP CEO. Wow what a read! Anyone find fault w/this man's philosophy? I emphasize there are good numbers there to back him up. Anybody with downside to this way of operating a RR? As Paul Harvey said, "What's the rest of the story"?endmrw0318321638
Overmod... * After the last of 32 hold-down screws has been torqued for an access cover, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
* After the last of 32 hold-down screws has been torqued for an access cover, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
Remember - those 32 hold down screws had to be torqued in three steps to come to spec before the missing gasket was discovered.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
If I remember correctly, Murphy was speaking about an engineer, and the original quote is something like "if anyone can get it wrong, he can".
One of my favorites was
* After the last of 32 hold-down screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
A couple of favorites from the EE field:
When writing specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.
Oscillators won't, amplifiers will
I'm not sure this is qualifies as a Law, but if it is, we might call it Mickey's Law:
"The early bird gets the worm,
but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese."
And we can't forget:
Murphy was an optimist.
charlie hebdotwo forms of heuristic bias:
IMHO this is getting too complicated. Google simply says: Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base. It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.Aug 5, 2014
Simple: If anything can go wrong it will.
Of course a variety of the original have be created.
Remember the "KISS" rule. My wife in her elementary classroom changed the
last word to "sweetie" endmrw0317231830
Overmod Erik_Mag How does that jibe with Murphy's law of selective gravitation, e.g. a dropped hammer will land where it will do the most damage. That's not Murphy's law; it's a corollary of Finagle's Law (the perversity of the Universe tends to a maximum). All Murphy says is that if you drop a hammer, it will fall and do damage rather than just harmlessly fall or bounce.
Erik_Mag How does that jibe with Murphy's law of selective gravitation, e.g. a dropped hammer will land where it will do the most damage.
That's not Murphy's law; it's a corollary of Finagle's Law (the perversity of the Universe tends to a maximum).
All Murphy says is that if you drop a hammer, it will fall and do damage rather than just harmlessly fall or bounce.
Interesting Wiki discussion involving two forms of heuristic bias:
"According to Richard Dawkins, so-called laws like Murphy's law and Sod's law are nonsense because they require inanimate objects to have desires of their own, or else to react according to one's own desires. Dawkins points out that a certain class of events may occur all the time, but are only noticed when they become a nuisance. He gives as an example aircraft noise interfering with filming. Aircraft are in the sky all the time, but are only taken note of when they cause a problem. This is a form of confirmation bias whereby the investigator seeks out evidence to confirm his already formed ideas, but does not look for evidence that contradicts them.[20]
Similarly, David Hand, emeritus professor of mathematics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London, points out that the law of truly large numbers should lead one to expect the kind of events predicted by Murphy's law to occur occasionally. Selection bias will ensure that those ones are remembered and the many times Murphy's law was not true are forgotten.[21]"
tree68 Overmod All Murphy says is that if you drop a hammer, it will fall and do damage rather than just harmlessly fall or bounce. Can't forget Gumperson's Law, a corollary of Murphy - If anything can go wrong it will, and at the worst possible time...
Overmod All Murphy says is that if you drop a hammer, it will fall and do damage rather than just harmlessly fall or bounce.
Can't forget Gumperson's Law, a corollary of Murphy - If anything can go wrong it will, and at the worst possible time...
My Father's Railroad Corollary to Murphy - A derailment will happen in the worst possible location in the worst possible weather for the Season and territory where it happens.
OvermodAll Murphy says is that if you drop a hammer, it will fall and do damage rather than just harmlessly fall or bounce.
Erik_MagHow does that jibe with Murphy's law of selective gravitation, e.g. a dropped hammer will land where it will do the most damage.
mudchicken Laws of physics aren't selective.
Laws of physics aren't selective.
How does that jibe with Murphy's law of selective gravitation, e.g. a dropped hammer will land where it will do the most damage.
On a more serious note, anything that decreases the chance of a derailment will almost certainly improve safety.
That's interesting about the new, shorter signal blocks. I didn't realize UP was doing that outside of the Joliet-St. Louis high speed rail corridor. I'm surprised UP would want to foot the bill for all of the extra signal equipment and maintenance.
Fred M Cain CSSHEGEWISCH As has been mentioned by others, three smaller trains will also take up a lot more track space than the one large train. Shorter trains might not necessarily have to take up a "lot" more track space than a monster train, just some. Back in the "good ol' days", blocks tended to be one mile long; sometimes shorter. That allowed the railroads to more easily run fast passenger trains in multiple sections. With the passenger trains mostly gone (and multiple sections COMPLETELY gone) the railroads have reconfigured their block systems. Some blocks might occassionaly be up to five miles long. (By that I mean the distance between signals). So, this makes running shorter trains such as three trains 70-71 cars long as opposed to one, long 212 car train somewhat more problematic. So, yes, with blocks that long, three trains would take up a "lot" more track space than one long monser train.
CSSHEGEWISCH As has been mentioned by others, three smaller trains will also take up a lot more track space than the one large train.
As has been mentioned by others, three smaller trains will also take up a lot more track space than the one large train.
Shorter trains might not necessarily have to take up a "lot" more track space than a monster train, just some. Back in the "good ol' days", blocks tended to be one mile long; sometimes shorter. That allowed the railroads to more easily run fast passenger trains in multiple sections.
With the passenger trains mostly gone (and multiple sections COMPLETELY gone) the railroads have reconfigured their block systems. Some blocks might occassionaly be up to five miles long. (By that I mean the distance between signals).
So, this makes running shorter trains such as three trains 70-71 cars long as opposed to one, long 212 car train somewhat more problematic. So, yes, with blocks that long, three trains would take up a "lot" more track space than one long monser train.
Back in the good old days blocks tended to be 2 or 3 miles. It is dependent on braking lengths for freight trains. Now blocks are (for us) getting shorter to 1.25 +/- miles. There still are plenty of places with longer legacy blocks.
One reason is going from a block system of clear - approach - stop/stop and proceed/restricting to one that has an advance approach between the clear and approach.
It used to be our longest trains were usually about 9000 feet long. Coal trains were about 1 and a half miles long. Plenty of trains in the 6500 to 7500 foot range and we handled them just fine.
Our problem back then wasn't getting over the road, but getting through crew change points. Trains would back up waiting for trains ahead to change out and get out of town.
Jeff
The 'correct' answer here is to implement CBTC overlay for 'shorter' trains that are to run on close headway.
Admittedly the modern "PSR" penchant for running at 40mph/notch-5 restricted means that the effective stopping distance is less and hence blocks can be shorter, and on a PTC system without waysides, shorter blocks may not co$t dramatically more. But that itself is a kludge, and a potentially dangerous one if there is any faster traffic on the line, particularly any at 70 or 79mph.
Correct CBTC is like an electronic version of restricted speed: it tracks the consist ahead, and ensures a safe stop regardless of the 'reason' there's a problem with the preceding consist. Of course this presupposes the CBTC has been implemented and maintained properly...
(Incidentally, none of the autonomous-boxcar or platooned-block systems work without advanced CBTC.)
Do we even know where the wheelsets were sourced. Quite possibly it was in Hamilton but supply chains can be lengthy.
ns145https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/aar-urges-railroads-to-sideline-new-cars-that-may-have-caused-ns-derailment-in-springfield-ohio/ Loose wheels on new coil steel cars likely cause of Springfield, OH derailment. AAR issues advisory to remove affected new coil steel cars from service. Man, NS can't buy a break right now.
Loose wheels on new coil steel cars likely cause of Springfield, OH derailment. AAR issues advisory to remove affected new coil steel cars from service.
Man, NS can't buy a break right now.
Are the loose wheels a Canadian plot against the US?
https://railfan.com/aar-urges-railroads-to-park-defective-coil-cars/?fbclid=IwAR3dBfnJPPyYAEXEpNFOyHMZQMGLvVrikOZuHplo3SUFb_wWyNTGri8xag8
Laws of physics aren't selective. Loads at the front, empties at the rear, no matter the lading.
The other shoe still hasn't dropped...
cx500 But if you have the hazmats towards the front of the train they become more vulnerable in grade crossing derailments, rockslides, collisions and such.
But if you have the hazmats towards the front of the train they become more vulnerable in grade crossing derailments, rockslides, collisions and such.
Exactly. There are reasons that whatever placement that may be suggested for hazmat may be beneficial, and there's reasons why it would be a bad thing.
It's a crap shoot.
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