Hi
I live in the UK and I'm currently building my 2nd layout - double decked PRR and NYC in Ohio.
Weigh scales. Am I right in thinking that every freight yard would have a weigh station? I'm assuming that not only were weigh stations there to assure the correct dollar charge was made to the customer for carrying freight and for the safety of the road but also to collectively determine the full weight of a train that engines could pull. I have two freight yards on my layout, do I need two weighing facilities? (Would be good, I'm OK to do it.)
Thanks in advance
Barry
Depends on the era. Steam era, you would have scale at major yards or smaller yards that originate traffic.
Modern era, maybe one or two scales per division, most likely built into the hump at a hump yard. By the 1980's the single car scale track was pretty much gone, and coupled-weigh in motion scales were the norm.
Since you are modeling the PRR and NYC I will assume you are pre 1968. So you definitely could have a scale track at each yard.
Now some cars are never or rarely weighed. For example modern coal and grain cars aren't weighed because the contents is weighed BEFORE it gets in the car. Many modern shipments are weight agreement. They weigh one or two shipments a year and then use those weights to base the rest of the year's shipments on. If you load 200 fenders in car and in January, if you load those same 200 fender in July it will weigh the same.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Knowing the weights of the individual cars and the entire train can be EXTREMELY important. A spectacular runaway and derailment on Cajon Pass a few years back was attributed in part to the train being much heavier than it was assumed to be. The scales at the originating mine were inoperative, so the clerk 'guesstimated' the loaded weight of the open-top ore carriers based on his experience with coal. The ore in question was much denser than an equivalent volume of coal! Not enough retainers were set up, some of the dynamic brakes were inop, then the rear-end helper engineer hit emergency brakes and converted the entire train to a big steel toboggan. The train finally left the rails in a residential neighborhood...
To add insult while compounding injury, the crew cleaning up the ore spill broke a gasoline pipeline...
By all means, install - and use - those scales.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
tomikawaTTTo add insult while compounding injury, the crew cleaning up the ore spill broke a gasoline pipeline...
I seem to recall that the pipeline was damaged by the derailment and cleanup, with the rupture taking place a couple of weeks after the end of the cleanup. Pipelines are typically allowed to operate around 70% of the yield strength of the pipe, so it doesn't take much weakening to cause a failure.
Your description as to the root cause of that accident (which took place in 1989) pretty much matches what I've heard and read.
Glad to see this topic. I know that the scale also had run-around rails so the loco wouldn't cross the weighing part of the scales. But where was the most common location for the scales in the freight yard? What were other locations? I am thinking the yard switching lead would be a logical place for them, as close to the throat as practical, but that doesn't mean it's where they were.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
They could be off the lead or on a track parallel to the lead. They could be on a short class track.
I remember seeing a program on the de-rail at the end of the Cajon Pass. The weight of the cars were estimated and they were SO incorrect. The ignition of the gas spilling out of the broken gasoline pipe was horrendous. I think there were a few families killed in the houses around there. So yes, weight is important.
By the way, my layout is 1954 so yes I would have scales at both yards and yes I will use them.
There is a PRR weigh scale building available from John Frantz but it is pricey. Rob Schoenberg has drawings of PRR weigh scale buildings on his web site. Walthers makes a generic one you could use. The main difference with the PRR buildings would be the under eave trim and windows.
Walthers has a nice HO scale track at a very reasonable price (Its currently on sale for about $20.) It can be used in about any era.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3199
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There's also a very nice plan and photo of a PRR scale house on the last page of 'How to build realistic layouts - Freight Yards' a Kalmbach book. I also saw an article somewhere about building track for the scales. The track seperates for the scale but a parrallel line allows a switcher ro run by without going over the scales. Can't remember where I saw it though.
The scale house was scratch build:
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
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If you're going to have scales on your layout it would be a good idea to have one of those four-wheel scale test cars. They were usually placed on the rear of the train just ahead of the caboose (cabin car on the PRR). They often had a speed restriction, maybe 30 mph or so.
DSO17 If you're going to have scales on your layout it would be a good idea to have one of those four-wheel scale test cars. They were usually placed on the rear of the train just ahead of the caboose (cabin car on the PRR). They often had a speed restriction, maybe 30 mph or so.
If the cars had no brake equipment then they HAVE to travel ahead of the caboose or last car. If they have an air brake system on them, then they can go behind the caboose.
30 mph would be toward the top end of the range. Some were 20-25 mph. Emplyoyee timetables or special instructions will have the speed restrictions for scale test and other cars.
dehusman DSO17 If you're going to have scales on your layout it would be a good idea to have one of those four-wheel scale test cars. They were usually placed on the rear of the train just ahead of the caboose (cabin car on the PRR). They often had a speed restriction, maybe 30 mph or so. If the cars had no brake equipment then they HAVE to travel ahead of the caboose or last car. If they have an air brake system on them, then they can go behind the caboose.
I had always thought it was the opposite: if there was no air brake system, the car went behind the caboose. Further, I thought scale cars as a rule did not have air brakes, and so traveled behind the caboose. Similarly, a car with a broken air-brake system would follow the caboose. (Post-1955 practices are of no interest to me.)
Mark
30mph would be about as fast as you would want to haul one of those 4-wheel cars. Even on good track they could really get to jumping around. Any thing less than perfect track 20 or 25mph would probably be plenty fast. Imagine more than one engineman had the air pulled on him for getting too fast with one of them.
A car with inoperative air brakes could be moved in a train if the trainline was intact and air could pass through the car to the rest of the train. If the trainline itself was broken either it had to be repaired, or a temporary air hose would be placed on the car so air could get through it to the hind end. IIRC the train had to have 85% operative brakes and two cars with inoperative brakes could not be next to each other. The cars with bad brakes had to be set out at the next location where there was a car shop.
The only time I know of when a car with a broken trainline was moved on the hind end was one night when a local freight crew busted the anglecock off the front end of their cabin car at the last siding they had to work. They brought it in on the rear with no air, but the conductor stayed on the cabin and they knew it had a good handbrake. EDIT: I'm getting OT now.
markpierce I had always thought it was the opposite: if there was no air brake system, the car went behind the caboose. Further, I thought scale cars as a rule did not have air brakes, and so traveled behind the caboose. Similarly, a car with a broken air-brake system would follow the caboose. (Post-1955 practices are of no interest to me.)
The rear car HAS to have working brakes (Federal law). If it came uncoupled from the train there would be nothing to stop it. So cars without working brakes have to be moved ahead of the caboose or last car in the train. If the train line is damaged then they put a hose one the car with a glad hand on both ends and use that as a train line to get air around the car. In order to move a car with inoperable brakes from an origin location, the railroad has to get an FRA waiver to move the car to the shop (originating trains have to have 100% of their brakes working).
The basic power brake law dates back to at least WW1.
So, did they weigh the car empty to certify the tare weight? If a car had gone to a RIP track and been given, let's say a new set of trucks, then the car would have to have had it's tare weight re-certified. I'm assuming so as the freight charge based on weight to a customer must have been just the weight of the contents of the car not the tare weight of the car itself. Who certified tare weight?
Cars are weighed when built or rebuilt. A few pounds in the customers favor (since I suspect most cars lose weight as brake shoes and wheels wear) is not worth pursuing. A scale that measures every load on the light or heavy side is.
bsteel4065 So, did they weigh the car empty to certify the tare weight?
Yes. There were certain repairs that would involve a reweigh of the car, others that would not (replacing a brake shoe).
I'm assuming so as the freight charge based on weight to a customer must have been just the weight of the contents of the car not the tare weight of the car itself.
True.
Who certified tare weight?
Hi looks like most of what i want to say has been said above but you mentioned that there were scale house in an article well there are plans in this book
http://retailers.kalmbach.com/TSS/Commerce/Products.aspx?productID=3081&categoryID=154
the book also says between interchanges that weighing was involved for some cars, depending on the commodity i think.