nbrodar wrote: Nowadays, you're much more likely to get pinged for a sticking brake, then an actual hot box, thanks to the reliability of roller bearings.Nick
Nowadays, you're much more likely to get pinged for a sticking brake, then an actual hot box, thanks to the reliability of roller bearings.
Nick
O Brave New World!
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
The term "hot box" is still in common use. In signal engineering, "HBD" is the common abbreviation for a hot-box detector.
The detectors count axles from the head end, and sense elevated temperatures from both the wheel tread and the axle journal, in order to detect stuck brakes as well as overheated journals.
RWM
Is the slang "hot box" out of style? Anyway, overheated wheelsets are a pain because bad roller bearings leads to too much heat with all kinds of consequences.
Our new, cabooseless freight trains customarily make long hauls along tracks that contain frequent sensors to monitor the temperature and other things. That's a computer voice coming over the scanner, and they can tell you car no. and IIRC which bogey has gone bad. - a.s.
markpierce wrote: And the relevance of this subject to locomotives is...?Mark
And the relevance of this subject to locomotives is...?
Mark
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Railroad Cars are mechanical devices. Just like any mechanical device, things will break and/or wear out while the cars are en-route in trains. The most common form of Bad Order is the Broken Train Line, where the air line on the car has broken at some point on the car and as a result the trains braking system is in operative. The car, if it can't be repaired in the train, must be set out at the nearest siding or spur track so that the rest of the train can be moved to destination. Set out tracks are not nearly as plentiful as needed when there is a need to set out a bad order. Other routine forms of bad orders are, hot journals, drawbars pulled out of cars, dragging brake rigging and any of a 1000 other reasons the may occur from time to time.
In many cases, the Train Crew will discover the defect and report that it is unsafe to move the car. In those circumstance the nearest Car Department is contacted and sent to the point where the train is to take whatever actions are indicated by the condition of the car. In some cases a car with a hot journal, that is in fact unsafe to move any further than the nearest road crossing, will be re-wheeled in the train at the road crossing with the resulting delay to all the other trains that are on the sub-division.
Handling bad orders is a time consuming occurrence for all concerned.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
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