As Zug pointed out on the Bostian malicious=prosecution thread, some of the discussion in other threads on this subject deserves to be remembered before those other thread drift further or are locked. He suggested a common thread for this subject, and here it is.
This can also be a lightning rod for PTC and labor issues that might otherwise fall foul of the Kalmbach proscription on "divisive political disputations'. As long as the discussion keeps a strict railroad (or railroader) focus and stays out of general political diatribe or ideology, it should be safe to 'accuse the guilty' who make, or assist in creating, stupid situations...
Zug for President! Now more than ever!
OvermodZug for President! Now more than ever!
Only if I can move the white house to Orbisonia.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Orbisonia? Would that be Vernon, Texas?
I suspect he's thinking more along the lines of replacing Cadillac One with one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoeedwVnitk
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
243129Orbisonia? Would that be Vernon, Texas?
The one in Pennsylvania.
And the Cadillac One replacement sits across the street in Rockhill Furnace, all four articulated units of it...
Anyway, since I am guilty of causing much of the thread drift that led to this one being created, it is only fair that I should put a few bits up here. I'll start with the stuff from the other thread.
Gaskets. A standard rubber design that fits any air hose on any car or locomotive. They are everywhere, on the ground, in the little hole in the knuckle, in the locomotive toolbox, and of course in the pockets of pretty much every Conductor. But not all gaskets are created equal.
CN bought a series of boxcars (some of the DWC 793000 to 795000 series 60' dual plug door cars) about 10 or 15 years ago that took a different, larger size of gasket in the gladhand. The experiment didn't last and our stock of replacement large gaskets eventually ran out, but there are still some cars running around with those hoses.
We figured out one day that you could put a normal gasket in backwards and it would seal after you coupled the hoses together. But it won't stay in when the hoses are uncoupled, so this is a single use fix to get the car over the road.
The old standard gasket (in use for at least 80 years based on old hoses I've seen at our museum) has been superseded by a new design with a second lip and wider sealing surface. They fit in normal gladhands but do not seem to be as strong, so they fly out more often when hoses part as cars are uncoupled, and so must be replaced more often. From my perspective on the ground they don't seem to seal any better, but I don't have access to the research that led to their implementation.
Drawbars. A royal pain if they break instead of the knuckle. An even worse pain if it is on the leading end of the car, requiring the Conductor to chain it to the next car as shown:
http://www.trainweb.org/southwestshorts/trx/kroger-drawbar-chain.html
Hopefully the broken drawbar did not cause a derailment farther back in your train.
Nobody mentions greasing the rails? Kids don't do that anymore?
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