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Getting rid of ice on CAT

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 3:24 AM

And di not the North Shore have special shoes for sleet cutting substituting for reguar shoes?  They also ran trains all night without passengers to keep the lines open.

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Posted by artpeterson on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 10:19 AM

To add to Paul's comment, CTA also had 1-50 series cars which had two poles on each end - one for power and the other for the sleet-cutting duty.  In addition, they could change out the heads on the pans of the Skokie cars to put sleet-cutter heads on during inclement weather.  Hope that helps, Art

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:57 AM

Although much of CTA's overhead was direct suspension with some catenary, some service motors (demoted from 4000-series MU cars) were equipped with two trolley poles at each end, the additional pole equipped as an ice cutter.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by henry6 on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 7:30 AM

Yes, two up on the G's...I forgot about that, only saw it once.

 

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Posted by oltmannd on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 7:04 AM

henry6

The easiest way is to run trains.  The DL&W used to operate at least one set of MU's continuously to keep ice from building up on the wires and in doing so put on quite a light show as the arcing spewed sparks into the night air!  

WIth DC catenary, I can imagine!  Much like iced-up 3rd rail.

I've seen GG1s operate with both pans up during snow.  I wonder if that wasn't to help with icing.

-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/

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Posted by henry6 on Monday, January 23, 2012 8:48 AM

The easiest way is to run trains.  The DL&W used to operate at least one set of MU's continuously to keep ice from building up on the wires and in doing so put on quite a light show as the arcing spewed sparks into the night air!  

RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.

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Getting rid of ice on CAT
Posted by blue streak 1 on Monday, January 23, 2012 5:30 AM
How does the electrified RRs cope with ice? An example from Sunday.
Sunday, January 22, 2012 9:15 PM
From:
Add sender to Contacts
To:
"Maryland MTA Alerts Subscriber"
We want to give our passengers a heads up that there might be problems with Penn Line operations on Monday morning.  Amtrak has informed MARC that they have had significant problems operating their trains between Washington and Philadelphia on Sunday.  While the snowfall Friday night and Saturday morning was light, it included a significant amount of ice that accumulated on railcars.

MARC and Amtrak staff will be working through the night at Penn Station and Martin Airport to get equipment ready.

If you do ride MARC tomorrow, please give yourself extra time in the morning to drive to your station, park your car, **WALK** to the train platform, and board your train due to the slick conditions.

We will send updates tomorrow morning on this email service and on our website and will open the Metro Option if necessary
The question is what kind of ice breakers can be used.
1. Amtrak's variable tension CAT may require special considerations ?
2. The rest of the world with constant tension CAT may be able to deal with it differently.
3. Would a modified control cab with a non conducting  PAN equipped with an ice cutter lead a regular electric motor be the best way ?
4. regular pans appear somewhat fragile since if they tangle with the contact wire there is a desire for the pan to be torn up and not the wire.
 

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